Roman
Civilization
CMS 206 /History
206
Laribus
- The Lares (guardian spirits) were
celebrated on the Kalends
of May (F). The Lares
guarded one's domus (household), crossroads and as the
Lares Praestites, the State. The Lares of the
crossroads were feted at the Ludi Compitales (C), a
feria conceptiva in early January. A compitum
the point where two roads or paths or tracks or city streets
(vici) met. In the country, farmers would build a
sacella (a simply shrine). At the compita, farmers
would hang broken ploughs. On the night before the Ludi
Compitales, folks would hang wooden dolls (one for each
freeborn member of the domus) and wooden balls (one for
each slave). Some Romans believed that these wooden symbols were
substitutes for earlier days when the rite involved human
sacrifice. By the time the kings were expelled, however, heads of
garlic were substituted for human beings. If the origins of the
ritual were in human sacrifice, then the Lares may have
been ghosts of the dead, as much as guardian spirits of the farm.
Other scholars believe that the ritual was purgative, and that the
wooden symbols served as lightening rods that would capture the
numen of the Lares and keep them around the farm for
the coming year. In the city, the sacella were erected
where residential streets crossed and served as the center of cult
of the vicus (neighborhood).
- Neighbors contributed honey cakes and
sacrificed a fattened pig at the ceremonies for the Ludi
Compitales. Slaves were allowed a full share in the
festivities and it was generally a very good time with street
parties and dancing in the cities(comparable to New Year's Eve).
The feast was simultaneously one of the familia and of the
neighborhood. In Rome, collegia compitalicia formed to
organize the celebebration and during the civil wars, elite Romans
feared that these collegia could become a site of political
activity. The collegia compitalicia were banned and
reinstated, outlawed (with the Ludi) by Caesar, and finally
restored by Augustus.
- The celebration of the Lares of the
Crossroads clearly originated in the early, agricultural days of
Rome. The celebration of the Lares Praestites in the city
dates to the Etruscan kings. A sacellum Larum existed on
the Palatine in Tacitus'
day and a temple in their honor was located on the Via Sacra.
Ovid
and Plutarch
associate dogs with the Lares Praestites. According to
Plutarch, the Lares wore dogskins and according to Ovid,
statues of dogs were found on their altars. Apparently the
popularity of the festival declined after Augustus restored the
Ludi Compitales.
Lares
& Penates /
Roma
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