LARVAE (Larvae). — Among the Romans, the larvae were the souls of those who had died in guilt and who, in their ceaseless wandering, exercised a malevolent influence in the world of the living, where they persecuted and terrified men, almost taking possession of them (larvati, cf. Plautus, Aul., 10, 4, 15; Paulus Festus, 106). Indeed, there were purifications to free individuals from the obsession of the larvae (cf. Servius, ad Aen., VI, 229). Moreover, they performed a similar function of torment in the realm of the shades (Pliny, Praef., 31, and Seneca, Apocol., 9).
The larvae, sometimes confused with the Lares (Varro, in Arnobius, III, 41), with the Manes (cf. Festus, 114), but especially with the Lemures (Augustine, De civitate Dei, IX, 11), were generally represented as skeletons or specters with faces contorted into horrible grimaces, and, according to Festus (loc. cit.), «nurses frighten children with them».
Cesare D'Onofrio