Saturday 11 January 2020

carmentalia

Chiefly celebrated by women (but not exclusively) in the Roman Empire on this day (ante diem tertium Idus) and then again on the fifteenth (Ides—many minor gods and goddesses had dual festiva like this to signify the beginning and resolution of a season or cycle), Carmenta was the patroness of childbirth, midwifery and prophesy.
Her name shares the same derivation as the English word charm and whose root had a range of meanings from song, oracle or magical incantation. Mother herself of the legendary figure Evander of Pallene, who established an Arcadian colony on the site of what would become Rome and who introduced the Greek pantheon to Italy, Carmenta is credited with the invention of the Latin alphabet and the consonant calendar of the old republic.