Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beansPlutarch
Religion
Plutarch's Romane Questions: With dissertations on Italian cults, myths, taboos, man-worship, aryan marriage, sympathetic magic and the eating of beans
Plutarch
Rome -- Religion -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Social life and customs -- Early works to 1800
FOR it is said, that upon a time the Senat had forbidden the dames and
wives of the city to ride in coatches: whereupon they tooke such a stomacke
and were so despighteous, that to be revenged of their husbands, they
conspired altogether not to conceive or be with child by them, nor to bring
them any more babes: and in this minde they persisted still, untill their
husbands began to bethinke them selves better of the matter, and let them
have their will to ride in their coatches againe as before time: and then
they began to breede and beare children a fresh: and those who soonest
conceived and bare most and with greatest ease, founded then the temple of
_Carmenta_. And as I suppose this _Carmenta_ was the mother of _Evander_,
who came with him into _Italy_; whose right name indeed was _Themis_, or as
some say _Nicostrata_: now for that she rendred propheticall answeres and
oracles in verse, the Latins surnamed her _Carmenta_: for verses in their
tongue they call _Carmina_. Others are of opinion, that _Carmenta_ was one
of the Destinies, which is the cause that such matrons and mothers
sacrifice unto her. And the Etymologie of this name _Carmenta_, is as much
as _Carens mente_, that is to say, beside her right wits or bestraught, by
reason that her senses were so ravished and transported: so that her verses
gave her not the name _Carmenta_, but contrariwise, her verses were called
_Carmina_ of her, because when she was thus ravished and caried beside
herselfe, she chanted certeine oracles and prophesies in verse.
57.
_What is the cause that the women who sacrifice unto the goddesse_
Rumina, _doe powre and cast store of milke upon their sacrifice, but no
wine at all do they bring thither for to be drunke_?
IS it, for that the Latins in their tongue call a pap, _Ruma_? And well it
may so be, for that the wilde figge tree neere unto which the she wolfe
gave sucke with her teats unto _Romulus_, was in that respect called _Ficus
Ruminalis_. Like as therefore we name in our Greeke language those milch
nourses that suckle yoong infants at their brests, _Thelona_, being a word
derived of _Thele_, which signifieth a pap; even so this goddesse _Rumina_,
which is as much to say, as Nurse, and one that taketh the care and charge
of nourishing and rearing up of infants, admitteth not in her sacrifices
any wine; for that it is hurtfull to the nouriture of little babes and
sucklings.
58.
_What is the reason that of the Romane Senatours, some are called
simply_, Patres; _others with an addition_, Patres conscripti?
IS it for that they first, who were instituted and ordeined by _Romulus_,
were named _Patres & Patritii_, that is to say, Gentlemen or Nobly borne,
such as we in _Greece_, tearme _Eupatrides_?
Or rather they were so called, because they could avouch and shew their
fathers; but such as were adjoined afterwards by way of supply, and
enrolled out of the Commoners houses, were _Patres conscripti_, thereupon?
59.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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