Tomorrow in my Latin class, I’m giving a short cultural presentation on the cult of the lares.
Tomorrow in my Latin class, I’m giving a short cultural presentation on the cult of the lares. I choose that topic because it’s October and they’re such a fun topic. The lares (lar in the singular) were local household or neighborhood deities, meant to protect the familia. They are depicted as humans, dancing, holding a wine cup, and carrying a dish to hold libations in. they can be little statues made of bronze or carved into marble. The lares were depicted not wearing a toga or heavy jewelry, so as not to mark them as members of a particular social group. The lares were friends and guardians of all romans, a special deity held holy by masters and slaves alike.Shrines were common, within Rome, within wealthy houses and at crossroads in public spaces. The festival of the lares compitalia celebrated them in mid winter: families would place woolen dolls (depictions of themselves) at the neighborhood shrine and eat pork with other neighbors and collectively ask the lares to watch over them for the next year. In 7BC, Augustus introduced a reform that promoted the cult of the lares in the city of Rome, which meant building far more public shrines at crossroads (crossroads are particularly spooky and magical places for the Greeks and Romans) and allowed Augustus to put his name aaaalll over Rome, branding inscriptions with lares Augusti.I just thought I’d share a tiny bit about them because it’s October, and I quite like the idea of spooky neighborhood fairies floating around. Theres’s sooo much more information and scholarship out there if you’re interested, and I particularly recommend the book The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden by Harriet Flower. -- source link
#tagamemnon#roman religion#lares#folklore#augustus#ancient rome