have brought to light--the 'blazing hearth' (such seems to be the
meaning of Vesta) would be the most conspicuously sacred thing; it is
therefore not surprising to find that her simple cult was the most
persistent of all throughout the history of Rome, and did not vary from
its original notion. Even Ovid can tell the inquirer 'think not Vesta
to be ought else than living flame,' and again, 'Vesta and fire require
no effigy'--notions in which he has come curiously near to the
conceptions of the earliest religion. The Penates in the same way were
at first 'the spirits'--whoever they might be--who preserved and
increased the store in the cupboard. Then as the conception of
individual deities became clearer, they were identified with some one
or other of the gods of the country or the state, among whom the
individual householder would select those who should be the particular
Penates of his family: Ceres, Iuno, Iuppiter, Pales would be some of
those chosen in the earlier period. Nor are we to suppose that
selection was merely arbitrary: the tradition of family and clan, even
possibly of locality, would determine the choice, much as the
patron-saints of a church are now determined in a Roman Catholic
country.

Two other deities are very prominent in the worship of the early
household, and each is a characteristic product of Roman religious
feeling, the Lar Familiaris and the Genius. The Lares[5] seem to have
been in origin the spirits of the family fields: they were worshipped,
as Cicero tells us, 'on the farm in sight of the house,' and they had
their annual festival in the Compitalia, celebrated at the
_compita_--places where two or more properties marched. But one of
these spirits, the _Lar Familiaris_, had special charge of the house
and household, and as such was worshipped with the other domestic gods
at the hearth. As his protection extended over all the household,