Carmenta

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carmenta (also Carmentis ) was with the Romans the goddess of birth and - after the Roman connection of her name with the word carmen ("oracle") - of prophecy. She was one of the oldest Roman deities and had a single priest with the flamen Carmentalis . In addition, with the Carmentarii there were priests who were responsible for recording their oracles.

The Roman women celebrated the feast of Carmentalia in her honor on January 11th and 15th . Near the porta Carmentalis, named after her, were two altars where sacrifices were made to her. The younger of these altars was donated after the matrons had been banned from the use of carpenta by the Senate . They responded by withdrawing marital intercourse until the ban was lifted. As a result, there was a rich blessing of children, for which the women erected an altar in honor of Carmenta.

The later myth made her the mother of Euandros and she was equated with his other mothers, with Themis and Tyburs, the city goddess of Tibur , but above all with Nicostrata ( ancient Greek Νικοστράτη Nikostrátē ). Only Plutarch saw her as Euander's wife. As his mother, Carmenta was included in the legend of the founding of Rome. She is said to have climbed the Palatine Hill with Euandros . In doing so, she had the vision of the future city of Rome. When she reached the age of 110, her son is said to have killed her. Below the Capitol he built the first altar for her.

Nicostrata teaches the alphabet, woodcut from Boccaccio's De mulieribus claris , Johann Zainer, Ulm, 1474
Nicostrata opens up the Tower of Science, from Gregor Reisch Margarita philosophica, Basel 1519 edition

In Roman tradition, Carmenta was ascribed the introduction of the originally 15-letter Latin alphabet , which she developed from the Greek . This information can be found for the first time in the second century in Hyginus . Via Isidore of Seville , this theme was varied in the medieval and early modern educational canon and continued in the artes liberales . Giovanni Boccaccio adopted this myth in his compilation of female biographies De mulieribus claris , which, after its first print by Johann Zainer in Ulm around 1474, enjoyed great popularity north of the Alps. The most comprehensive interpretation was made by Gregor Reisch in the woodcut of his Margarita philosophica , published in 1503 by Johann Schott (1477–1548) in Freiburg im Breisgau . Nicostrata opens up the tower of science to a boy by learning the alphabet using the alphabet table. The key (symbol of the Congruitas) gives access to the Latin school on the two lowest floors. Here Donatus and Priscianus teach vocabulary and grammar. On the floors above, the sciences follow, over which theology or metaphysics is the crowning glory.

literature

To the ancient deity

To the modern reception

  • Ulrich Becker: The first encyclopedia from Freiburg around 1495. The pictures of the “Margarita Philosophica” by Gregorius Reisch. Prior of the Charterhouse. Freiburg 1970, p. 40 ff.
  • Lutz Geldsetzer (ed.): Margarita philosophica. With a foreword, an introduction and a new table of contents by Lutz Geldsetzer. Düsseldorf 1973.
  • Frank Büttner: The illustrations of the Margarita Philosophica of Gregor Reisch. In: Frank Büttner, Markus Friedrich, Helmut Zedelmaier (eds.): Collecting - arranging - illustrating. On knowledge compilation in the early modern period. Münster 2003, pp. 269-300.
  • Steffen Siegel: Architecture of Knowledge. The figurative order of the “artes” in Gregor Reisch's “Margarita Philosophica”. In: Frank Büttner, Gabriele Wimböck (ed.): The image as an authority. The normative power of the image. Lit, Münster 2004, ISBN 9783825884253 , pp. 343-362.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ovid , Fasti 1, 461-586. 617–636, already mentioned in Varro , De lingua Latina 6.3.
  2. ↑ Ovid, Fasti 1,617-636; Livy 5.25.9; 34.3.9; Plutarch , Quaestiones Romanae 56.
  3. ↑ Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1.31; Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 56.
  4. ^ Servius , Commentary on Virgil , Aeneid 8,336.
  5. ↑ Strabon 5,3,3; Plutarch, Romulus 21; Plutarch, Quaestiones Romanae 56; Servius, Commentary on Virgil, Aeneid 8,51,130,336; Solinus 1.10; Aurelius Victor , de origine gentis Romanae 5.
  6. ^ Plutarch, Romulus 21.
  7. ↑ Virgil , Aeneid 8.335-341.
  8. ^ Servius, Commentary on Virgil, Aeneid 8,51.
  9. ↑ Virgil, Aeneis 8, 337 f .; Servius, Commentary on Virgil, Aeneid 8,337; Dionysius of Halicarnassus 1,32,2; Livy 5.47; Solinus 1.13.
  10. ^ Hyginus, Genealogiae 277; According to Tacitus , Annales 11:14 the first Latin alphabet consisted of 16 letters.
  11. ↑ Isidore, Etymologiae 1,4,1; 5.39.11.
  12. ↑ Ways of Knowledge in: Conventionality and Conversation: Burgdorfer Colloquium 2001, Walter de Gruyter, 2005, p. 301