Carmentalia: Difference between revisions

This festival is celebrated annually twice a year on {{Roman Date|01-11}} and {{Roman Date|01-15}}. The reason for this celebration happening twice a year and then annually was a common topic and preoccupation of Roman thought, baffling even the smartest minds of the time. Little is known about the festival itself except that Carmenta was invoked by 2 specific epithets [[Postvorta]] and [[Antevorta]]. These epithets were in reference to the goddess's power to look back into the past and forwards into the future.

The Carmentalia was chiefly observed by woman as the goddess was one of the goddesses governing childbirth.

January was an important time for childbirth in Rome since many births likely occurred during this time. Marriages were favoured in April but discouraged in May or early June. Thus, January is a probable popular time for childbirth in ancient Rome.

According to legend, Carmenta's cultus predated Rome itself. In some accounts She was known as Nicostrate, the mother of Evander, who was fathered by Mercurius. Evander was the legendary founder of Paletum, a village that gave its name to the Palatine Hill. Her sacred grove, therefore, may have originally lay beneath the Palatine Hill as some ascribe it. Indeed, it may be that it was in Her sacred grove beneath the Palatine that Romulus and Remus were said to have been discovered being suckled by a she-wolf, since Carmenta was so closely associated with the care of infants.

===To Match Other Early Cults ===

[[Ovid]] states that the two dates may be linked by a protest of the matrons of Rome in {{Roman Year|-195}}. During the fourth century the Roman Senate had granted patrician matrons the privilege of riding in two- wheeled carriages (carpentum) in reward for their contribution in gold to fulfilling a vow to Apollo made by Camillus. The privilege was later to be temporarily revoked during the Second Punic War (215 BCE) along with sumptuary laws that limited the use of colored cloth and gold that women could wear, in order to save on private expenses and war materials (horses) and thus help in the war effort. But the Senate did not at first renew the privileges at war's end. In 195 Tribunes Marcus Fundanius and Lucius Valerius finally called for the repeal of this lex Oppia, but they were opposed by the brothers Marcus and Publius Junius Brutus. Supporters for repealing the lex Oppia, and those who supported its remaining in effect, gathered daily on the Capitoline to argue over the matter. Soon women began to join in the disputes, their numbers increasing daily, even so much as women from the countryside entered into the City to advocate for their rights. The natural place for them to first congregate would have been at the grove of Carmentis. This may be what Ovid indicates by linking the protest to the Carmentalia. Consul Marcius Porcius Cato spoke out against repealing the lex Oppia. The women then resolved to "refuse to renew their ungrateful husbands' stock" until their privileges were restored, Ovid referring to the women resorting to abortion as their means of protest.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Ovidius Nāsō |first=Pūblius |title=Fāstī |language=Latin}}</ref>

Carmenta had a [[flamen]] ([[Flamen Carmentalis]]) of her own. Ovid suggests that the pontiffs were involved in this festival and that the flamen provided a sacrifice on the Carmentalia. The skins of animals were excluded from shrines to Carmenta. Varro reports that at shrines nothing dead might be brought in. Is is probable that violation of this taboo may result in the birth of dead children.