LEMURIA. - On May 9, 11 and 13 of the Roman calendar fell the festival of the Lemuria, that is, of the Lemures, the souls of the dead, generally confused with the "larvae" (v.), as these indeed having a character adverse to the world of the living ("Lemures larvae nocturnae et terrificationes imaginum et bestiarum," Nonius Marcellus, Compendiosa doctr., p. 135; cf. Porphyry, Ad Hor. ep., 2, 2, 209).
According to Ovid (Fasti, V, 419-92) this festival of the dead would be older than the analogous one in February of the dies parentales ending with the Feralia (v.) on the 21st of the same month; and this perhaps quite rightly, inasmuch as the bizarre ceremony performed by the paterfamilias on the first night of the Lemuria (v. below) has an archaic character, in clear contrast with the more serene character of the Feralia; and in the same regard it is to be observed that, while the first festival is marked in the calendars with N (= nefastus), the second is indicated with F (= fastus; or also FP = fastus principio, Mommsen), which reveals two clearly different points of view (and therefore two epochs) with regard to the dead.
During the Lemuria, at midnight the paterfamilias rises and, barefoot and with washed hands, puts black beans in his mouth; then, without turning around, he throws them behind his back saying: "With these beans I redeem myself and mine"; he washes again, strikes a bronze vessel and, having repeated nine times "Manes exite paterni," completes the ceremony. During the three days of the Lemuria the temples were closed and no marriages were celebrated.
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