Lares ( ,"Lares". Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. ; archaic , singular ) were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.
Lares were believed to observe, protect, and influence all that happened within the boundaries of their location or function. The statues of domestic Lares were placed at the table during family meals; their presence, cult, and blessing seem to have been required at all important family events.
Roman writers sometimes identify or conflate them with ancestor-deities, domestic Penates, and the hearth.
Because of these associations, Lares are sometimes categorised as household gods, but some had much broader domains. Roadways, seaways, agriculture, livestock, towns, cities, the state, and its military were all under the protection of their particular Lar or Lares. Those who protected local neighbourhoods (vici) were housed in the crossroad shrines (Compitalia), which served as a focus for the religious, social, and political lives of their local, overwhelmingly plebeian communities. Their cult officials included freedmen and slaves, otherwise excluded by status or property qualifications from most administrative and religious offices.
Compared to Rome's major deities, Lares had limited scope and potency, but archaeological and literary evidence attests to their central role in Roman identity and religious life. By analogy, a homeward-bound Roman could be described as returning (to the Lar). Despite official bans on non-Christian cults from the late fourth century AD onwards, unofficial cults to Lares persisted until at least the early fifth century AD.
Origins and development Archaic Rome's Etruscan neighbours practised domestic, ancestral, or family cults very similar to those offered by later Romans to their Lares.Ryberg, pp. 10–13: a wall painting at the Tomb of the Leopards, at Etruscan Tarquinia, shows offerings are made to Lares-like figures, or di Manes (deified ancestors) in a procession preparatory to funeral games. A black-figured Etruscan vase, and Etruscan reliefs, show the forms of altar and iconography used in Roman Lares-cult, including the offer of a garland crown, sacrifice of a pig, and the representation of serpents as a fructifying or generative force. The word itself seems to derive from the Etruscan , , or , meaning 'lord'.Lewis, Charlton & al. A Latin Dictionary, founded on Andrews's edition of Freund's Latin Dictionary, revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten. "Lar". Clarendon Press (Oxford), 1879.Keightley, Thomas. The Mythology of Ancient Greece and Italy, p. 543. Whittaker & Co. (London), 1838. Ancient Greek and Roman authors offer 'heroes' and 'daimones' as translations of Lares; the early Roman playwright Plautus (circa 254–184 BC) employs a as a guardian of treasure on behalf of a family, as a plot equivalent to the Greek playwright Menander's use of a heroon (as an ancestral hero-shrine).Hunter, 2008. Weinstock proposes a more ancient equivalence of Lar and Greek , based on his gloss of a fourth-century BC Latin dedication to the Roman ancestor-hero Aeneas as Lare (Lar).Weinstock, 114–118.
No physical Lar images survive from before the Late Republican era, but literary references (such as Plautus' singular , above) suggest that cult could be offered to a single Lar, and sometimes many more; in the case of the obscure Lares Grundules, perhaps 30. By the early Imperial era, they had become paired divinities, probably through the influences of Greek religion – in particular, the heroic twin Dioscuri – and the iconography of Rome's semidivine founder-twins, Romulus and Remus. Lares are represented as two small, youthful, lively male figures clad in short, rustic, girdled tunics – made of dogskin, according to Plutarch.Plutarch, Roman Questions, 52: see Waites, 258 for analysis of chthonic connections between the Lares' dogskin tunic, Hecate and the Lares of the crossroads (Lares Compitalicii). They take a dancer's attitude, tiptoed or lightly balanced on one leg. One arm raises a drinking horn (rhyton) aloft as if to offer a toast or libation; the other bears a shallow libation dish (patera). Compitalia shrines of the same period show Lares figures of the same type. Painted shrine-images of paired Lares show them in mirrored poses to the left and right of a central figure, understood to be an ancestral genius.
Their domains Lares belonged within the "bounded physical domain" under their protection, and seem to have been as innumerable as the places they protected. Some appear to have had overlapping functions and changes of name. Some have no particular or descriptive name: for example, those invoked along with Mars in the Carmen Arvale are simply (an archaic form of ), whose divine functions must be inferred from the wording and context of the Carmen itself. Likewise, those invoked along with other deities by the consul Publius Decius Mus as an act of before his death in battle are simply . The titles and domains given below cannot, therefore, be taken as exhaustive or definitive.
The were the Lares of the city of Rome, later of the Roman state or community; literally, the "Lares who stand before", as guardians or watchmen.Lott, 116–117. Ovid, a 1st-century CE Roman poet, in his Fasti, claims that the epithet was applied to the Lares as they "stand for us, and preside over the city walls, and they are present and bring us aid."Ovid. Fasti. 5.135-136. According to Festus, a 2nd-century Roman grammarian, the term "" was a term used by the "ancients" ("") as a synonym for "" ("overseer, high priest").Festus. De Verborum Signifcatione. 223M. It is also possible that the religious concept of the may connect to the Umbrian goddess , whose name is mentioned in the Iguvine tablets. Etymologically, the linguist Benjamin W. Fortson IV suggests Umbrian and Latin may reflect an earlier pre-form of the shape ("protectress").
Ovid may imply that the were of Sabine origin, although the exact meaning of the passage is obscure due to the corruption of the manuscript tradition. The current Loeb Classical Library edition of the Fasti, which was translated by James G. Frazer in 1931, renders the sentence in question as "," which it renders as "Curius indeed had vowed them." However, the classicist Harriet I. Flower suggests that the text may reference the Sabine town of Cures. The 1st-century BCE Roman author Varro claims that the —along with numerous other deities—were "dedicated" at Rome ("") by Titus Tatius, a legendary king of the Sabines.Varro. De Lingua Latina. 5.74. Moreover, the Greek author Strabo claims that Titus Tatius and Numa Pompilius both originated from the city of Cures.Strabo. Geography. 5.3.1.
Ovid also describes a story in which the naiad Lara, after being raped by Mercury, becomes mother to the Lares.Ovid. Fasti. 2.583-616. The classicist T. P. Wiseman connects this legend to a scene on a Praenestine mirror that depicts two infants suckling the breasts of a she-wolf. Wiseman interprets this scene as a representation of the story of the foundation of Rome, though he does not consider the twins to equate to Romulus and Remus, as—according to Wiseman—the assumption that the mirror portrays the standard version of the myth creates issues with the identification of the other figures in the artwork. Instead, Wiseman suggests that the mirror portrays Hermes and Tacita—who was identified by Ovid with Lara—and that the children are the . Wiseman's interpretation is not universally accepted, with the classicist Ana Mayorgas Rodriguez stating that "although the surrounding figures cannot be recognised certainly, it is still most probable that the children are Romulus and Remus." According to the classicist Tim Cornell, a possible connection between the and the founding of Rome may itself relate to a potential characterization of the as "deified ancestors." Wisseman further argues that the possible presence of the on this mirror could indicate that the standard story of Romulus and Remus did not exist by 340 BCE—around the date of the creation of the mirror. However, the classicist Fay Glinister criticizes this argument, stating that it relies upon ignorance of "early iconographic evidence."
The were housed in the state Regia, near the temple of Vesta, with whose worship and sacred hearth they were associated; they seem to have protected Rome from malicious or destructive fire. They may have also functioned as the neighbourhood Lares of Octavian (the later emperor Augustus), who owned a house between the Temple of Vesta and the Regia. Augustus later gave this house and care of its Lares to the Vestals: this donation reinforced the religious bonds between the Lares of his household, his neighbourhood, and the State. His reforms extended this identification to every neighbourhood Lares shrine. However, and the (renamed ) should probably not be considered identical. Their local festivals were held at the same shrines, but at different times.
Ovid mentions an altar to the that was built during the Kalends of May.Ovid. Fasti. 5.129-142. According to Ovid, this altar had decayed due to the wears of time, which may—according to classicist Howard Scullard—indicate waning interest in the . Ovid also mentions a carved-out statue of a dog placed by this same altar. Similarly, Plutarch, a 1st-century Greek author, mentions that a dog is placed by a statue of the , who are themselves supposedly adorned in dog skins. Despite the literary connection of dogs with the , there is little known material evidence corroborating this relationship. It is perhaps possible that such imagery may feature on a denarius dated to around 112-111 BCE that showcases two seated as young men armed with spears placed by a dog. For unclear reasons, there seemingly exists a depiction of the god Vulcan upon this coin alongside the image of the , though it may indicate a connection between the two mythological entities. According to Flower, the image depicted upon this coin may equate to the aforementioned shrine described by Ovid. Still, Flower considers the exact location of the site to be "hypothetical" as it has not been confirmed through archaeological excavation. Further evidence may derive from a statue depicting a dated to around 100 BCE that is currently stored in the Louvre. According to the classical scholar Alexandra Sofronview, the design of the tunic of this is unusual and it may stylistically portray a garment fashioned from dog-skin.