[56] 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[130]; 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,” [131] 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.[132]