The Mother of the Lares
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The Mother of the Lares
(Mater Larum) has been identified with any of several minor Roman deities. She appears twice in the records of the Arval Brethren
as Mater Larum, elsewhere as Mania
and Larunda
. Ovid
calls her Lara, Muta (the speechless one) and Tacita
(the silent one).
Cult to Matres Larum is known through the fragmentary Arval
rites to Dea Dia
, a goddess of fruitfulness. The Arvals address Dia herself as Juno Dea Dia, which identifies her with the supreme female principle. The mother of the Lares is addressed only as Matres Larum; she is given a sacrificial meal (cena matri Larum) of puls (porridge)
contained in a sacred, sun-dried earthenware pot (olla)
. Prayers are recited over the pot, which is then thrown from the temple doorway, down the slope on which the temple stands; thus, remarks Lily Ross Taylor
, towards the earth as a typically chthonic
offering. On another occasion, the Arvals offer sacrificial recompense to various deities for a necessary pollution of Dia's sacred grove; the Mater Larum is given two sheep. The Arvals also invoke her children, in the opening lines of the Arval Hymn
to Dia, which begins enos Lases iuvate ("Help us, Lares").
The Mater Larum may have been offered cult with her Lares during the festival of Larentalia
as she was, according to Macrobius (floruit
395 - 423 AD), during Compitalia
. Ovid poetically interprets what may be a variant of her rites at the fringes of the Feralia
: an old woman squats among a circle of younger women and sews up a fish-head. She smears this with pitch then pierces and roasts it; this, she says, binds hostile tongues to silence. She thus invokes Tacita (silence). If, as Macrobius proposes, the Lemures are unsatiated and malevolent forms of Lares, then they and their mother also find their way into Lemuralia, when the vagrant and malicious Lemures and (perhaps) Larvae must be placated by midnight libations of spring-water and offerings of black beans, spat from the mouth of the paterfamilias to the floor of the domus. Again, Taylor notes the chthonic character of offerings made to fall – or deliberately expelled – towards the earth.
Varro
(116 BC – 27 BC) believes that she and her children were originally Sabine
and names her as Mania
; the name is used by later Roman authors with the general sense of an "evil spirit". In the late 2nd century AD, according to Festus
, nursemaids use the name of Mania to terrify children. Macrobius
applies it to the woolen figurines (maniae) hung at crossroad shrines during Compitalia
, thought to be substitutions for ancient human sacrifice
once held at the same festival and suppressed by Rome's first consul, L. Junius Brutus
.
The only known mythography attached to Mater Larum is little, late and poetic: again, the source is Ovid (Fasti II, 571 ff), who identifies her as a once-loquacious nymph, Lara
, her tongue cut out for betrayal of Jupiter's secret amours. Lara thus becomes Muta (speechless) and is exiled from the daylight world to the underworld abode of the dead (ad Manes); a place of silence (Tacita). She is led there
by Mercury and impregnated by him en route. Her offspring are as silent or speechless as she.
If their mother's nature connects the Lares to the earth they are, according to Taylor, spirits of the departed and their mother a dark or terrible aspect of Tellus (Terra Mater). The Lares and the Mater Larum have been suggested as ancient Etruscan divinities; the title or forename Lars, used by Rome's Etrucan kings has been interpreted as "king", "overlord" or "leader". Greek authors offered "hero
es" and "daimones" as translations for Lares and Plautus
employs a Lar Familiaris where Menander's Greek original has a heroon (hero-shrine).
Lares
Lares , archaically Lases, were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries or fruitfulness, hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these....
(Mater Larum) has been identified with any of several minor Roman deities. She appears twice in the records of the Arval Brethren
Arval Brethren
In ancient Roman religion, the Arval Brethren or Arval Brothers were a body of priests who offered annual sacrifices to the Lares and gods to guarantee good harvests...
as Mater Larum, elsewhere as Mania
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
and Larunda
Larunda
Larunda was a naiad or nymph, daughter of the river Almo in Ovid's Fasti. She was famous for both beauty and loquacity . She was incapable of keeping secrets, and so revealed to Jupiter's wife Juno his affair with Juturna...
. Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
calls her Lara, Muta (the speechless one) and Tacita
Larunda
Larunda was a naiad or nymph, daughter of the river Almo in Ovid's Fasti. She was famous for both beauty and loquacity . She was incapable of keeping secrets, and so revealed to Jupiter's wife Juno his affair with Juturna...
(the silent one).
Cult to Matres Larum is known through the fragmentary Arval
Arval Brethren
In ancient Roman religion, the Arval Brethren or Arval Brothers were a body of priests who offered annual sacrifices to the Lares and gods to guarantee good harvests...
rites to Dea Dia
Dea Dia
In Roman mythology, Dea Dia is the goddess of growth. She was sometimes identified with Ceres, and sometimes with the equivalent Greek goddess Demeter....
, a goddess of fruitfulness. The Arvals address Dia herself as Juno Dea Dia, which identifies her with the supreme female principle. The mother of the Lares is addressed only as Matres Larum; she is given a sacrificial meal (cena matri Larum) of puls (porridge)
Pulse (legume)
A pulse is an annual leguminous crop yielding from one to twelve seeds of variable size, shape, and color within a pod. Pulses are used for food and animal feed. The term "pulse", as used by the Food and Agricultural Organization , is reserved for crops harvested solely for the dry seed...
contained in a sacred, sun-dried earthenware pot (olla)
Olla (Roman pot)
In ancient Roman culture, the olla is a squat, rounded pot or jar. An olla would be used primarily to cook or store food, hence the word “olla" is still used in some Romance languages for either a cooking pot or a dish in the sense of cuisine...
. Prayers are recited over the pot, which is then thrown from the temple doorway, down the slope on which the temple stands; thus, remarks Lily Ross Taylor
Lily Ross Taylor
Lily Ross Taylor is an American academic and author, who in 1917 became the first female Fellow of the American Academy in Rome.-Biography:...
, towards the earth as a typically chthonic
Chthonic
Chthonic designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land or the land as territory...
offering. On another occasion, the Arvals offer sacrificial recompense to various deities for a necessary pollution of Dia's sacred grove; the Mater Larum is given two sheep. The Arvals also invoke her children, in the opening lines of the Arval Hymn
Carmen Arvale
The Carmen Arvale is the preserved chant of the Arval priests or Fratres Arvales of ancient Rome.The Arval priests were devoted to the goddess Dea Dia, and offered sacrifices to her to ensure the fertility of ploughed fields . There were twelve Arval priests, chosen from patrician families. ...
to Dia, which begins enos Lases iuvate ("Help us, Lares").
The Mater Larum may have been offered cult with her Lares during the festival of Larentalia
Larentalia
The Roman festival of Larentalia was held on December 23, but was ordered to be observed twice a year by Augustus; by some supposed to be in honour of the Lares, a kind of domestic genii, or divinities, worshipped in houses, and esteemed the guardians and protectors of families, supposed to reside...
as she was, according to Macrobius (floruit
Floruit
Floruit , abbreviated fl. , is a Latin verb meaning "flourished", denoting the period of time during which something was active...
395 - 423 AD), during Compitalia
Compitalia
In ancient Roman religion, the Compitalia was a festival celebrated once a year in honor of the Lares Compitales, household deities of the crossroads, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways meet. The word comes from the Latin compitum, a cross-way.This festival is...
. Ovid poetically interprets what may be a variant of her rites at the fringes of the Feralia
Feralia
Feralia was an ancient Roman public festival celebrating the Manes which fell on the 21st of February as recorded by Ovid in Book II of his Fasti. This day marked the end of Parentalia, a nine day festival honoring the dead ancestors...
: an old woman squats among a circle of younger women and sews up a fish-head. She smears this with pitch then pierces and roasts it; this, she says, binds hostile tongues to silence. She thus invokes Tacita (silence). If, as Macrobius proposes, the Lemures are unsatiated and malevolent forms of Lares, then they and their mother also find their way into Lemuralia, when the vagrant and malicious Lemures and (perhaps) Larvae must be placated by midnight libations of spring-water and offerings of black beans, spat from the mouth of the paterfamilias to the floor of the domus. Again, Taylor notes the chthonic character of offerings made to fall – or deliberately expelled – towards the earth.
Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro
Marcus Terentius Varro was an ancient Roman scholar and writer. He is sometimes called Varro Reatinus to distinguish him from his younger contemporary Varro Atacinus.-Biography:...
(116 BC – 27 BC) believes that she and her children were originally Sabine
Sabine
The Sabines were an Italic tribe that lived in the central Appennines of ancient Italy, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome...
and names her as Mania
Mania
Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...
; the name is used by later Roman authors with the general sense of an "evil spirit". In the late 2nd century AD, according to Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus
Sextus Pompeius Festus was a Roman grammarian, who probably flourished in the later 2nd century AD, perhaps at Narbo in Gaul.He made an epitome in 20 volumes of the encyclopedic treatise in many volumes De verborum significatu, of Verrius Flaccus, a celebrated grammarian who flourished in the...
, nursemaids use the name of Mania to terrify children. Macrobius
Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius
Macrobius Ambrosius Theodosius was a Roman grammarian and Neoplatonist philosopher who flourished during the early fifth century. He is primarily known for his writings, which include the Saturnalia, a compendium of ancient Roman religious and antiquarian lore, the Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis...
applies it to the woolen figurines (maniae) hung at crossroad shrines during Compitalia
Compitalia
In ancient Roman religion, the Compitalia was a festival celebrated once a year in honor of the Lares Compitales, household deities of the crossroads, to whom sacrifices were offered at the places where two or more ways meet. The word comes from the Latin compitum, a cross-way.This festival is...
, thought to be substitutions for ancient human sacrifice
Human sacrifice
Human sacrifice is the act of killing one or more human beings as part of a religious ritual . Its typology closely parallels the various practices of ritual slaughter of animals and of religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice has been practised in various cultures throughout history...
once held at the same festival and suppressed by Rome's first consul, L. Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus
Lucius Junius Brutus was the founder of the Roman Republic and traditionally one of the first consuls in 509 BC. He was claimed as an ancestor of the Roman gens Junia, including Marcus Junius Brutus, the most famous of Caesar's assassins.- Background :...
.
The only known mythography attached to Mater Larum is little, late and poetic: again, the source is Ovid (Fasti II, 571 ff), who identifies her as a once-loquacious nymph, Lara
Larunda
Larunda was a naiad or nymph, daughter of the river Almo in Ovid's Fasti. She was famous for both beauty and loquacity . She was incapable of keeping secrets, and so revealed to Jupiter's wife Juno his affair with Juturna...
, her tongue cut out for betrayal of Jupiter's secret amours. Lara thus becomes Muta (speechless) and is exiled from the daylight world to the underworld abode of the dead (ad Manes); a place of silence (Tacita). She is led there
Psychopomp
Psychopomps are creatures, spirits, angels, or deities in many religions whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls to the afterlife. Their role is not to judge the deceased, but simply provide safe passage...
by Mercury and impregnated by him en route. Her offspring are as silent or speechless as she.
If their mother's nature connects the Lares to the earth they are, according to Taylor, spirits of the departed and their mother a dark or terrible aspect of Tellus (Terra Mater). The Lares and the Mater Larum have been suggested as ancient Etruscan divinities; the title or forename Lars, used by Rome's Etrucan kings has been interpreted as "king", "overlord" or "leader". Greek authors offered "hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
es" and "daimones" as translations for Lares and Plautus
Plautus
Titus Maccius Plautus , commonly known as "Plautus", was a Roman playwright of the Old Latin period. His comedies are the earliest surviving intact works in Latin literature. He wrote Palliata comoedia, the genre devised by the innovator of Latin literature, Livius Andronicus...
employs a Lar Familiaris where Menander's Greek original has a heroon (hero-shrine).