ancient Roman religion Religion in ancient Rome consisted of varying imperial and provincial religious practices, which were followed both by the people of Rome as well as those who were brought under its rule. The Romans thought of themselves as highly religious, ...

, the ''Manes'' (, , ) or ''Di Manes'' are

chthonic The word chthonic (), or chthonian, is derived from the Ancient Greek word ''χθών, "khthon"'', meaning earth or soil. It translates more directly from χθόνιος or "in, under, or beneath the earth" which can be differentiated from Γῆ ...

deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the ''

Lares Lares ( , ; archaic , singular ''Lar'') 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. Lare ...

'', ''

Lemures The lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead in Roman religion, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae (from Latin ''larva'', "mask") as disturbing or frightening. ''Lemures'' is the more common litera ...

,'' '' Genii'', and '' Di Penates'' as deities ('' di'') that pertained to domestic, local, and personal cult. They belonged broadly to the category of ''

di inferi The ''di inferi'' or ''dii inferi'' (Latin, "the gods below") were a shadowy collective of ancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld. The epithet ''inferi'' is also given to the mysterious Manes, a collective of ancestral spi ...

'', "those who dwell below," the undifferentiated collective of divine dead. The Manes were honored during the

Parentalia In ancient Rome, the Parentalia () or ''dies parentales'' (, "ancestral days") was a nine-day festival held in honor of family ancestors, beginning on 13 February. Although the Parentalia was a holiday on the Roman religious calendar, its observ ...

and

Feralia Ferālia was an ancient Roman public festival Dumézil, Georges. ''Archaic Roman Religion''. pg 366. celebrating the Manes (Roman spirits of the dead, particularly the souls of deceased individuals) which fell on 21 February as recorded by Ovi ...

in February. The theologian

St. Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

, writing about the subject a few centuries after most of the Latin pagan references to such spirits, differentiated Manes from other types of Roman spirits: Latin spells of antiquity were often addressed to the Manes.

Etymology and inscriptions

Manes may be derived from "an archaic adjective manus—''good''—which was the opposite of immanis (monstrous)".. Roman tombstones often included the letters ''D.M.'', which stood for ''Dis Manibus'', literally "to the Manes", or figuratively, "to the spirits of the dead", an abbreviation that continued to appear even in Christian inscriptions. The Manes were offered blood sacrifices. The

gladiatorial games A gladiator ( la, gladiator, "swordsman", from , "sword") was an armed combatant who entertained audiences in the Roman Republic and Roman Empire in violent confrontations with other gladiators, wild animals, and condemned criminals. Some gla ...

, originally held at funerals, may have been instituted in the honor of the Manes. According to

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

, the ''Manes'' could be called forth from the caves near Lake Avernus.

Lapis manalis

When a new town was founded, a round hole would be dug and a stone called a ''lapis manalis'' would be placed in the foundations, representing a gate to the

underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwo ...

. Due to similar names, the ''lapis manalis'' is often confused with the ''lapis manilis'' in commentaries even in antiquity: "The 'flowing stone' … must not be confused with the stone of the same name which, according to Festus, was the gateway to the underworld." Cyril Bailey writes:

"Of this we have a characteristic example in the ceremony of the ''
aquaelicium A ''lapis manalis'' was either of two sacred stones used in the Roman religion. One covered a gate to Hades, abode of the dead; Sextus Pompeius Festus called it ''ostium Orci'', "the gate of Orcus". The other was used to make rain; this one ma ...
'', designed to produce rain after a long drought. In classical times the ceremony consisted in a procession headed by the
pontifices A pontiff (from Latin ''pontifex'') was, in Roman antiquity, a member of the most illustrious of the colleges of priests of the Roman religion, the College of Pontiffs."Pontifex". "Oxford English Dictionary", March 2007 The term "pontiff" was lat ...
, which bore the sacred rain-stone from its resting-place by the
Porta Capena Porta Capena was a gate in the Servian Wall in Rome, Italy. The gate was located in the area of Piazza di Porta Capena, where the Caelian Hill, Caelian, Palatine Hill, Palatine and Aventine Hill, Aventine hills meet. Probably its exact position ...
to the Capitol, where offerings were made to the sky-deity, Iuppiter, but from the analogy of other primitive cults and the sacred title of the stone (''
lapis manalis A ''lapis manalis'' was either of two sacred stones used in the Roman religion. One covered a gate to Hades, abode of the dead; Sextus Pompeius Festus called it ''ostium Orci'', "the gate of Orcus". The other was used to make rain; this one m ...
''), it is practically certain that the original ritual was the purely imitative process of pouring water over the stone..

Etymology and inscriptions

Lapis manalis

See also

References

Further reading