or spirit of womanhood, which are worshipped on the birthdays of their
owners. No doubt later the Genius was accredited with powers over the
fortune and misfortune of his possessor, but he never really developed
anything like the independence of a god, and remained always rather a
_numen_. The individual revered his own Genius, but the household cult
was concerned, as one would expect, with the Genius of the master of
the house, the pre-eminent Genius of the family. Its special locality
was, for the reason just noticed, the marriage-bed and its symbol, the
house-snake, kept as a revered inmate and cherished in the feeling that
evil happening to it meant misfortune to the master. The festival of
the Genius was naturally the master's birthday, and on that day slaves
and freedmen kept holiday with the family and brought offerings to the
_Genius domus_. It is a significant fact, and may serve to bring out
the underlying notion, that in later paintings, when anthropomorphism
and sensuous representation held sway over all Roman religion, though
the other gods of the household were depicted after the manner of Greek
deities, the Genius is either represented by his symbolic snake or
appears with the human features and characteristics of the head of the
house, his owner.

The spirit-gods then of the door and the hearth, the specially chosen
deities of the store-cupboard, the particular field-power presiding
over the household, and the spirit of the master's personality were the
gods of the early home, and round their worship centred the domestic
religion. We must attempt to see what was its relation to family life.

=2. Religion and the Family Life.=--We have already noticed the main
occasions of regular sacrifice to the deities of the household, the
offerings to the Lar on Calends, Nones, and Ides, to the Genius on the
master's birthday, and so on, and we are enabled to form a fair picture