The Roman Questions (55-59)

Why is it that on the Ides of January the flute-players are allowed to walk about the city wearing the raiment of women[*]?

Is it for the reason commonly alleged? They used to enjoy, as it seems, great honours, which King Numa had given them by reason of his piety towards the gods. Because they were later deprived of these honours by the decemviri, who were invested with consular power,[*] they withdrew from the city. There was, accordingly, inquiry made for them, and a certain superstitious fear seized upon the priests when they sacrificed without flutes. But when the flute-players would not hearken to those sent to summon them to return, but remained in Tibur, a freedman secretly promised the officials to bring them back. On the pretext of having sacrificed to the gods, he prepared a sumptuous banquet and invited the flute-players. Women were present, as well as wine, and a party lasting all the night was being celebrated with merriment and dancing, when

suddenly the freedman interrupted, saying that his patron was coming to see him, and, in his perturbation, he persuaded the flute-players to climb into wagons, which were screened round about with skins, to be conveyed back to Tibur. But this was a trick, for he turned the wagons around, and, without being detected, since the flute-players comprehended nothing because of the wine and the darkness, at dawn he had brought them all to Rome. Now the majority of them happened to be clad in raiment of feminine finery because of the nocturnal drinking-bout: when, therefore, they had been persuaded and reconciled by the officials, it became their custom on that day to strut through the city clad in this manner.

Why are the matrons supposed to have founded the temple of Carmenta originally, and why do they reverence it now above all others?

There is a certain tale repeated that the women were prevented by the senate from using horse-drawn vehicles[*]; they therefore made an agreement with one another not to conceive nor to bear children, and they kept their husbands at a distance, until the husbands changed their minds and made the concession to them. When children were born to them, they, as mothers of a fair and numerous progeny, founded the temple of Carmenta.

Some assert that Carmenta was the mother of Evander and that she came to Italy: that her name was Themis, or, as others say, Nicostratê; and that because she chanted oracles in verse, she was named Carmenta by the Latins, for they call verses carmina.

But others think that Carmenta is a Fate, and that this is the reason why the matrons sacrifice to her. The true meaning of the name is deprived of sense, [*] by reason of her divine transports. Wherefore Carmenta was not so named from carmina, but rather carmina from her, because, in her divine frenzy, she chanted oracles in verse and metre.[*]

Why do the women that sacrifice to Rumina pour milk over the offerings, but make no oblation of wine in the ceremony?

Is it because the Latins call the teat ruma, and assert that Ruminalis[*] acquired its name inasmuch as the she-wolf offered its teat to Romulus? Therefore, as we call wet-nurses thelonai from thele (teat), even so Rumina is she that gives suck, the nurse and nurturer of children: she does not, therefore, welcome pure wine, since it is harmful for babes.

Why did they use to address some of the senators as Conscript Fathers, others merely as Fathers?[*]

Is it because they used to call those senators originally assigned to that body by Romulus fathers and patricians, that is to say well-born, since they could point out their fathers,[*] while they called those who were later enrolled from the commoners conscript fathers?

Why did Hercules and the Muses have an altar in common?

Is it because Hercules taught Evander’s people the use of letters, as Juba[*] has recorded? And this action was held to be noble on the part of men who taught their friends and relatives. It was a long time before they began to teach for pay, and the first to open an elementary school was Spurius Carvilius,[*] a freedman of the Carvilius[*] who was the first to divorce his wife.