CARNEIA (καρνεῖα), a great national festival, celebrated by the Spartans in honour of Apollo Carneios. The festival began on the seventh day of the month of Carneios = Metageitnion of the Athenians, and lasted for nine days. It was of a warlike character, similar to the Attic Boëdromia. During the time of its celebration nine tents were pitched near the city, in each of which nine men lived in the manner of a military camp, obeying in everything the commands of a herald. The priest conducting the sacrifices at the Carneia was called _Agetes_ (Ἀγητής), whence the festival was sometimes designated by the name _Agetoria_ or _Agetoreion_ (Ἀγητόρια or Ἀγητόρειον), and from each of the Spartan tribes five men (Καρνεᾶται) were chosen as his ministers, whose office lasted four years, during which period they were not allowed to marry. When we read in Herodotus and Thucydides that the Spartans during the celebration of this festival were not allowed to take the field against an enemy, we must remember that this restriction was not peculiar to the Carneia, but common to all the great festivals of the Greeks: traces of it are found even in Homer. CARNĬFEX, the public executioner at Rome, who executed slaves and foreigners, but not citizens, who were punished in a manner different from slaves. It was also his business to administer the torture. This office was considered so disgraceful, that he was not allowed to reside within the city, but lived without the Porta Metia or Esquilina, near the place destined for the punishment of slaves, called Sestertium under the emperors. CARPENTUM, a cart; also a two-wheeled carriage, enclosed, and with an arched or sloping cover overhead. The carpentum was used to convey the Roman matrons in the public festal processions; and this was a high distinction, since the use of carriages in the city was entirely forbidden during the whole of the republican period. Hence the privilege of riding in a carpentum in the public festivals was sometimes granted to females of the imperial family. This carriage contained seats for two, and sometimes for three persons, besides the coachman. It was commonly drawn by a pair of mules, but more rarely by oxen or horses, and sometimes by four horses like a quadriga.--Carpenta, or covered carts, were much used by the Britons, the Gauls, and other northern nations. These, together with the carts of the more common form, including baggage-waggons, appear to have been comprehended under the term _carri_, or _carra_, which is the Celtic name with a Latin termination. The Gauls took a great multitude of them on their military expeditions, and when they were encamped, arranged them in close order, so as to form extensive lines of circumvallation. CARRĀGO, a kind of fortification, consisting of a great number of waggons placed round an army. It was employed by barbarous nations, as, for instance, the Scythians, Gauls, and Goths. Carrago also signifies sometimes the baggage of an army.