Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Lares

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

LAR'ES. Tutelary spirits; according to the religious belief of the Romans, supposed to be the souls of deceased persons, who exercised a protecting influence over the interor of every man's household, himself, his family, and property. They were not regarded as divinities, like the Penates; but simply as guardian spirits, whose altar was the domestic hearth (focus) in the atrium, upon which each individual made offerings of incense to them in his own home. (Plaut. Aul. Prol. 2. Id. Merc. v. 1. 5. Quaranta. Mus. Borb. tom. xi.) They were likewise believed to exert their influence out of doors, where they became the overseers of every spot and place inhabited by men; as the streets, roads, fields, and buildings, both in town and country; whence they were distinguished by the epithets compitales, viales, rurales (Suet. Aug. 31. Plaut. Merc. v. 2. 24. Tibull. i. 1. 20.); and the household ones, familiares (Plaut. Aul. l. c.). They are constantly represented in works of art as young men crowned with a chaplet of laurel leaves, in a short tunic (succinctis Laribus, Pers. v. 31.), and holding up a drinking-horn (cornu) above their heads, as exhibited by the annexed figure (Lares/1.1), from a bas-relief in the Vatican, under which is the inscription LARIBUS AUGUSTIS. The accessory of the drinking-horn has induced many antiquaries to take these figures for cupbearers (pocillatores); but the inscription just mentioned is sufficient evidence of their real characters; and they are repeatedly seen on the walls of the Pompeian houses, in kitchens, bakehouses, and over street doors, standing in pairs, one on each side of an altar, in the exact attitude and drapery here shown.

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  Lares/1.1