Talk:Camenae

Comments
Who identified the Camenae with the Muses? At Muses the reader is told they "were identified with" the Camenae. What is the real nature of these "identifications" of Greek and Roman deities in so many Wikipedia Greek myth entries? Generic enough to be misleading? --Wetman 02:04, 4 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I remember Livius Andronicus begins his translation of the Homeric Odyssey translating part of the first line "andra moi ennepe Mousa polutropon" ("O Muse, inspire me to speak of the resourceful man...") with "Virum mihi, Camena, insece versutum" (almost word for word translation from Homer). It is the first instance to the best of my knowledge that we find the Muses identified with the Camenae, and it is perhaps notable that Livius Andronicus was a Greek who wrote in Latin; so perhaps he based his identification on no previous authority but made it up; Ennius in his Annales, which is post-Livy, begins by begging the Muses for inspiration, not Camenae: "Musae, quae pedibus magnum pulsatis Olympum" (O Muses, who dance on great Olympus); the mention of Olympus would make the mention of Italic nymphs dancing on its snowy mountain top rather unpalatable; this might be a clue that identification of the Camenae with the Muses might have been a short lived invention of Livius Andronicus that did not take root among the masses and it was maintained only among the scholarly inclined like Marcus Terrentius Varro and Nigidius Figulus, else perhaps Ennius would have employed it later when he composed the Annales. Lucius Domitius 22:02, 30 October 2005 (UTC)

"Sometimes called "acmenae" from the Greek. The plant species "Acmena Smithii" named after these mythological creatures."

I removed this bit: it was certain Greek Nymphs that were called "Akmenai" they had nothing to do with the Camenae or the Muses as far as I know. The only reference I have found for the Akmenai is in Pausanias V. 15, 6. As for the plant name it has no place here if the Camenae were never called Akmenai in the first place. I at least have never encountered the terming "acmena" used for "Camena"; could anyone provide a reference?Lucius Domitius 00:37, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Boethius in De Consolatione Philosophiae explicitly identified the camenae with the musae. In metrum 1, he refers to them as Camenae and in Prosa 1 as musa. The identification is absolutely clear...and Boethius was most certainly NOT the only one to have done this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.230.48.34 (talk) 16:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)