Mater Matuta, grey tufa, 6th-2nd C. BCE

"Question 16. Why is it that the temple of Matuta is not to be gone into by maid-servants; but the ladies bring in one only, and her they box and cuff?

Solution. If to baste this maid be a sign that they ought not to enter, then they prohibit others according to the fable. For Ino, being jealous of her husband's loving the servant-maid, is reported to have fell outrageously upon her son. The Grecians say the maid was of an Aetolian family, and was called Antiphera. Therefore with us also in Chaeronea the sexton, standing before the temple of Leucothea (Matuta) holding a wand in his hand, makes proclamation that no man-servant nor maid-servant, neither man nor woman Aetolian, should enter in."

-Plutarch: Quaestiones Romanae 16

Mater Matuta. Grey tufa. 6th—2nd cent. BCE. Santa Maria Capua Vetere, Archaeological Museum of ancient Capua. Petrara ca. Capua antica. Excavations of 1845, 1873—1887.

Source:

http://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=4934

http://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=4935

 

Quote:

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A2008.01.0212%3Asection%3D16