Lari (Lares)

LARI (Lares). - Lar in the singular, Lares in the plural, with or without specific epithets, are deities of the most ancient Roman religion: they appear, in fact, in the Carmen Arvale, in ancient formulas of collective invocation and in other documents of an archaic character. They played a particularly important part in private cult, especially domestic cult. The Lar familiaris, predominantly in the singular, is, as it were, the god of the house or of the family: in his honor, on all the kalendae, nonae and idus, the domestic hearth is crowned; to the Lar or to the Lares is sacred every morsel of food that falls from the table; hence, in metonymic usage, the Lares simply mean "the house." There has been much discussion as to whether the Lares should be regarded as the divine ancestors of the family or only as gods of the soil of the house. Besides the Lares of the house, there are also the Lares compitales, worshiped, in the countryside, at the meeting points of the various farms, and in the city, at the crossroads, the meeting points of the apartment blocks (vici). Both in the house and at the compita, slaves or freedmen attend to the cult of the Lares. On the occasion of the festival called Compitalia, cult is also paid to the Mater Larum. In public cult there is found from ancient times the cult of the Lares praestites, depicted as two twins dressed in dog skin, with a dog at their feet: their festival fell on May 1 and their sanctuary was on the Sacred Way. Mention should be made of the Lares viales, permarii, militares, etc., evidently invested with specific protective functions.

Angelo Brellich