Harry Thurston Peck, Harpers Dictionary of Classical Antiquities (1898)

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Camēnae

Prophetic nymphs, belonging to the religion of ancient Italy, although later traditions represent their worship as introduced into Italy from Arcadia, and some accounts identify them with the Muses. The most important of these goddesses was Carmenta or Carmentis, who had a temple at the foot of the Capitoline Hill, and altars near the Porta Carmentalis. The traditions which assigned a Greek origin to her worship state that her original name was Nicostraté, and that she was the mother of Evander, with whom she came to Italy. On the etymology of the word Camena, which is usually regarded as=Casmena, from the root of carmen, “the songstress” (Mommsen), see Nettleship, Essays in Latin Literature, pp. 47-50 (Oxford, 1885).