Familiaris, though they attained great dignity of conception, and were
the centre of the family life, and to some extent of the family
morality, never quite rose to the position of full-grown gods; while
among the spirits of the field the wildness and impishness of character
associated with Faunus and his companion Inuus--almost the cobolds or
hobgoblins of the flocks--reflects clearly the old 'animistic' belief
in the natural evilness of the spirits and their hostility to men. The
notion of the _numen_ is always vague and indefinite: even its sex may
be uncertain. 'Be thou god or goddess' is the form of address in the
farmer's prayer already quoted from Cato: 'be it male or female' is the
constant formula in liturgies and even dedicatory inscriptions of a
much later period.

These spirits are, as we have seen, indwellers in the objects of nature
and controllers of the phenomena of nature: but to the Roman they were
more. Not merely did they inhabit places and things, but they presided
over each phase of natural development, each state or action in the
life of man. Varro, for instance, gives us a list of the deities
concerned in the early life of the child, which, though it bears the
marks of priestly elaboration, may yet be taken as typical of the
feeling of the normal Roman family. There is Vaticanus, who opens the
child's mouth to cry, Cunina, who guards his cradle, Edulia and Potina,
who teach him to eat and drink, Statilinus, who helps him to stand up,
Adeona and Abeona, who watch over his first footstep, and many others
each with his special province of protection or assistance. The farmer
similarly is in the hands of a whole host of divinities who assist him
at each stage of ploughing, hoeing, sowing, reaping, and so forth. If
the _numen_ then lacks personal individuality, he has a very distinct
specialisation of function, and if man's appeal to the divinity is to
be successful, he must be very careful to make it in the right quarter: