The gate of the year

Fresco from the altar dedicated to the Lares (Lararium), in the house of Iulius Polibius at Pompeii (I century A.D.).
The Lares were mythic-ritual personifications of the dead and ancestors. In the domestic cult, they were venerated around the hearth, beside which were deposited offerings in their honor. The term lar indeed signified also the hearth itself, the family household. In the homes of the most prominent families, the images of the Lares were kept in a special room or sacred space, called Lararium, a chapel or altar beside which the family members consummated their meals during the feasts in honor of the dead, which were in these occasions sumptuously decorated (Mastrocinque 2005). On February 22, was celebrated the official feast of the Caristia, an occurrence reserved to familiars and relatives, during which offerings were made to the Lares and banquets were held to strengthen the bonds within the family group. Such festivity followed immediately the Parentalia, the feast of the dead, which was celebrated from February 13 to 21. The Pompeian image shows a great serpent climbing from the underground and wrapping around the altar, on which are deposited the votive offerings in honor of the Lares. The dead could manifest themselves sometimes in the shape of serpents, animals particularly associated with the Underworld.
In Virgil’s poem, Aeneas, after having offered a libation on the burial of his father, Anchises, saw a serpent which appeared and ate the offerings, then it went slithering in the underground again. The hero remains uncertain whether it was a manifestation of the protective spirit of the place (genius loci) or a messenger of his deceased father (Aeneid, V, 95). Serpent-like elements are rather frequent in the Etruscan iconography of the demons who guarded the entrance to the world of the dead.

[Image: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caristia]




World of the Dead

Back

Fresco from the altar dedicated to the Lares (Lararium), in the house of Iulius Polibius at Pompeii (I century A.D.). The Lares were mythic-ritual personifications of the dead and ancestors. In the domestic cult, they were venerated around the hearth, beside which were deposited offerings in their honor. The term lar indeed signified also the hearth itself, the family household. In the homes of the most prominent families, the images of the Lares were kept in a special room or sacred space, called Lararium, a chapel or altar beside which the family members consummated their meals during the feasts in honor of the dead, which were in these occasions sumptuously decorated (Mastrocinque 2005). On February 22, was celebrated the official feast of the Caristia, an occurrence reserved to familiars and relatives, during which offerings were made to the Lares and banquets were held to strengthen the bonds within the family group. Such festivity followed immediately the Parentalia, the feast of the dead, which was celebrated from February 13 to 21. The Pompeian image shows a great serpent climbing from the underground and wrapping around the altar, on which are deposited the votive offerings in honor of the Lares. The dead could manifest themselves sometimes in the shape of serpents, animals particularly associated with the Underworld. In Virgil’s poem, Aeneas, after having offered a libation on the burial of his father, Anchises, saw a serpent which appeared and ate the offerings, then it went slithering in the underground again. The hero remains uncertain whether it was a manifestation of the protective spirit of the place (genius loci) or a messenger of his deceased father (Aeneid, V, 95). Serpent-like elements are rather frequent in the Etruscan iconography of the demons who guarded the entrance to the world of the dead. [Image: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caristia]