lity goddess.

The dedication of virgins to various deities, of which the classic
example is the institution of the Vestal Virgins at Rome, and the fact
that at Thebes and elsewhere even the male deities had their priestesses
as well as priests, are other indications that at this time woman was
regarded as divine or as capable of ministering to divinity. The
prophetic powers of woman were universally recognized. The oracles at
Delphi, Argos, Epirus, Thrace and Arcadia were feminine. Indeed the
Sibylline prophetesses were known throughout the Mediterranean basin.[A]

[Footnote A: Farnell[4] found such decided traces of feminine divinity
as to incline him to agree with Bachofen that there was at
one time an age of Mutterrecht which had left its impress on
religion as well as on other aspects of social life. As we have
said before, it is now fairly well established that in the transition
from metronymic to patronymic forms, authority did not pass
from women to men but from the brothers and maternal uncles
of the women of the group to husbands and sons. This fact
does not, however, invalidate the significance of Farnell's data
for the support of the view herein advanced, i.e., that woman
was at one time universally considered to partake of the divine.]

The widespread character of the woman-cult of priestesses and
prophetesses among the peoples from whom our culture is derived is
evidenced in literature and religion. That there had been cults of
ancient mothers who exerted moral influence and punished crime is shown
by the Eumenides and Erinyes of the Greeks. The power of old women as
law-givers survived in Rome in the legend of the Cumaean Sibyl.[5] An
index of the universality of the sibylline cult appears in the list of
races to which Varro and Lactantius say they belonged: Persian, Libyan,
Delphian, Cimmerian, Erythrian, Trojan, and Phrygian.[6] These sibyls
were believed to be inspired, and generations of Greek and Roman
philosophers never doubted their power. Their carmina were a court of
last resort, and their books were guarded by a sacred taboo.

Among the Greeks and neighbouring nations the women of Thessaly had a
great reputation for their charms and incantations.[7] Among the writers
who speak of a belief in their power are: Plato, Aristophanes, Horace,
Ovid, Virgil, Tibullus, Seneca, Lucan, Menander, and Euripides.

All of the northern European tribes believed in the foresight of future
events by women. St