The Religion of Ancient Rome by Cyril Bailey
page 26 of 76 (34%)
page 26 of 76 (34%)
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valuable and represents a historical reality.
CHAPTER V WORSHIP OF THE HOUSEHOLD =1. The Deities.=--The worship of the household seems to have originated, as has been suggested, in the sense of the sacredness of certain objects closely bound up with the family life--the door, the protection against the external world, by which the household went out to work in the morning and returned at evening, the hearth, the giver of warmth and nourishment, and the store-cupboard, where was preserved the food for future use. At first, in all probability, the worship was actually of the objects themselves, but by the time that Rome can be said to have existed at all, 'animism' had undoubtedly transformed it into a veneration of the indwelling spirits, Ianus, Vesta, and the Penates. Of the domestic worship of Ianus no information has come down to us, but we may well suppose that as the defence of the door and its main use lay with the men of the household, so they, under the control of the _pater familias_, were responsible for the cult of its spirit. Vesta was, of course, worshipped at the hearth by the women, who most often used it in the preparation of the domestic meals. In the original round hut, such as the primitive Roman dwelt in--witness the models which he buried with his dead and which recent excavations in the Forum |
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