I am inclined to agree with my old tutor that the Carmentes may originally have been wise women whose skill and spells assisted the operation of birth. I do not think we can look for an explanation of the titles Porrima and Postverta elsewhere than in the two positions in which the child may issue from the womb, over each of which a Carmentis watched[1299]; and there is in fact no doubt that Carmenta was a birth-goddess[1300]. The argument then would be that the spiritual origin attributed to superior knowledge transforms the owner of the knowledge into a divine person. As Sir A. Lyall says[1301] (of the genesis of local deities in Berar), ‘The immediate motive (of deification) is nothing but a vague inference from great natural gifts or from strange fortunes to supernatural visitation, or from power during life to power prolonged beyond it.’ Of the cult of Carmenta we know hardly anything. She had a flamen of her own[1302], like other ancient goddesses, Palatua, Furrina, Flora. His sacrificial duties must have been confined to the preparing of cereal offerings, for there was a taboo in this cult excluding all skins of animals—all leather—from the temple. Scortea non illi fas est inferre sacello[1303], Ne violent puros exanimata focos. Varro writes ‘In aliquot sacris et sacellis scriptum habemus: Ne quid scorteum adhibeatur ideo ne morticinum quid adsit.’ We could wish that he had told us what these sacra and sacella were[1304]; as it is we must be content to suppose that a goddess of birth could have nothing to do with the slaughter of animals. The position of the temple was at the foot of the southern end of the Capitol, near the Porta Carmentalis[1305], where, according to Servius, she was said to have been buried (cp. Acca Larentia, Dec. 23). It is noticeable that the festivals of this winter period are connected with sites near the Capitol and Forum; we have already had Saturnus, Ops, and Janus. If the reader should ask why a goddess of birth should be specially worshipped in the depth of winter, he may perhaps find a reason for it after reading the third chapter of Westermarck’s _History of Human Marriage_. As far as we can judge from the calendar, April was the month at Rome when marriages and less legal unions were especially frequent[1306]; during May and the first days of June marriages were not desirable[1307]. In January therefore births might naturally be expected.