Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
57.
_What is the cause that the women who sacrifice unto the goddesse_ Rumina, _doe powre and cast store of milke upon their sacrifice, but no wine at all do they bring thither for to be drunke_? IS it, for that the Latins in their tongue call a pap, _Ruma_? And well it may so be, for that the wilde figge tree neere unto which the she wolfe gave sucke with her teats unto _Romulus_, was in that respect called _Ficus Ruminalis_. Like as therefore we name in our Greeke language those milch nourses that suckle yoong infants at their brests, _Thelona_, being a word derived of _Thele_, which signifieth a pap; even so this goddesse _Rumina_, which is as much to say, as Nurse, and one that taketh the care and charge of nourishing and rearing up of infants, admitteth not in her sacrifices any wine; for that it is hurtfull to the nouriture of little babes and sucklings. _What is the reason that of the Romane Senatours, some are called simply_, Patres; _others with an addition_, Patres conscripti? IS it for that they first, who were instituted and ordeined by _Romulus_, were named _Patres & Patritii_, that is to say, Gentlemen or Nobly borne, such as we in _Greece_, tearme _Eupatrides_? Or rather they were so called, because they could avouch and shew their fathers; but such as were adjoined afterwards by way of supply, and enrolled out of the Commoners houses, were _Patres conscripti_, thereupon?
_Wherefore was there one altar common to_ Hercules _and the Muses_? MAY it not be, that for _Hercules_ taught _Evander_ the letters, according as _Juba_ writeth? Certes, in those daies it was accounted an honhourable office for men to teach their kinsefolke and friends to spell letters, and to reade. For a long time after it, and but of late daies it was, that they began to teach for hire and for money: and the first that ever was knowen to keepe a publicke schoole for reading, was one named _Spurius Carbilius_, the freed servant of that _Carbilius_ who first put away his wife.
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