Roman Gods of the Family

Geinus

The creative voice what engendered the male individual: it watched over his development and remained with him until his destruction. It presided over his marriage, and birth, forming the infant's personality. The power of the child's genuis depended upon luck. The female power was called Juno.

They had helped Nudina presided over the child's purification. Vaticanus made it utter its first cry. Educa and Potina thought it to eat and drink. Cuba kept it quite in it cradle. Osspago and Corna saw to the development of its bones and flesh Abeona and Adeona though it to walk. Sentinus saw to the awaking of the infants’ intelletual facilities. The genius festered the growth and all the intellectual and moral faculties of the individual. The cult render to the genius, was very simple, on the day of birth it was offered wine and flowers, after which, there was dancing. The genius was first represented as a serpent. Later the genuis of the head of the family was depicted as a man in a toga. He was instilled between appeared the Juno of a wife.

Penates

Penates is the gods of the storeroom, worshipped along with the Lares. Penates were in every home as protectors of the house. The title di penates signified groups of the gods. Originally vague spirits without individual names, but later came to be identified with specific Roman deities. Two images of Penates with a Lar between them stood in each household shrine, but the individual deities varied in different homes. The group as a whole was sometimes referred to as Lares and sometimes Penates

Lares

Lares are the deities of crossroads and country districts, but more commonly households. They were worshipped at the compitum (crossroads where 4 pieces of property joined). They deified spirits of dead ancestors, good spirits contrast to male tormentors. The more widely accepted theory is that they were originally spirits of the tilled fields and later domestics’ functions. Lar familairs were the guardian spirit of the household, the center of the family worship. The word lar is frequently employed by roman writers in a sense of home. Under the Empire, two Lares were worshipped and became identified with Penates. In early times of worship of public Lares, guardians of the city, there was a temple and altar on Via Sacra near Palatine Hill.

This Page was created by Cara Nickerson.