Lararium

Lararium in the house of the Vettiers in Pompeii

Lararium in Pompeii

Lararium from Pompeii (left sacrificial altar, framed by two snakes as representatives of the Lares Loci, above the altar picture of a pine cone and two eggs, above a sacrificial scene, right niche for the figurines of the gods)

The lararium ( plural : larariums ) was the cult shrine of the lares familiares , the patron gods of the house or family , in the Roman house .

The Lares are guardian spirits who are bound to a fixed place. They serve as guardian spirits of houses or crossroads ( lares compitales ). In addition to the Lares , the Romans also paid homage to the Genii in the Lararia . They were worshiped as guardian spirits by people. One example of this is the genius augusti , the emperor's guardian spirit. The representation of the Genii follows a certain pattern. Mostly they wear a toga and a veiled head in the pictures. In their right hand they hold a bowl for libations ( patera ), in their left hand a cornucopia ( cornucopia ). A third type of guardian spirit are the Penates . They were the Roman guardian spirits of the house and the supply and were also worshiped in the lararia .

The lararium was originally mostly located in the atrium . With the relocation of the hearth from the atrium to a separate kitchen, the lararium was also relocated, often to the kitchen, pistrinum or the bedroom, sometimes also to the peristyle or the garden.

The findings in Pompeii suggest that the lararium was often only painted, there are also numerous finds of elaborately furnished larariums. In addition to the larars, portraits of other protective gods were also placed. The Historia Augusta (which is considered unreliable) reports that Alexander Severus put up the portraits of Apollonios of Tyana , Christ , Abraham and Orpheus . The ancestral portraits were also often set up in the lararium.

The term is first documented from the imperial era . The shrines were previously called sacrarium , sacellum or aedicula .

The lar shrines at the crossroads and roads, the compitalia , are not referred to as larariums in archeology. The Romans worshiped the Lares publici or Lares compitales in these Lares shrines . In their honor there was a three-day festival every January, the Compitalia .

literature

• George Boyce: Corpus of the Lararia of Pompeii . Rome 1937.
• Werner Eisenhut: Lararium. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 493.
• Thomas Fröhlich : Lararian and facade pictures in the Vesuvius cities. Investigations into the “popular” Pompeian painting (= communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Roman Department 32nd supplementary book). von Zabern, Mainz 1991, ISBN 3-8053-1202-4 .
• Annemarie Kaufmann-Heinimann : Gods and Lararians from Augusta Raurica. Production, context of finds and sacred function of figural bronzes in a Roman city (= research in Augst, vol. 26). Römermuseum Augst, Augst 1998, ISBN 3-7151-0026-5 .
• Christoph Höcker: Lararium. In: The New Pauly (DNP). Volume 6, Metzler, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-476-01476-2 , Sp. 1145.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Wolfram-Aslan Maharam: Genius . In: The New Pauly . tape 4 . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1998, p. 915-917 .
2. ↑ Jerzy Linderski: Penates (Di Penates). In: The New Pauly. Hubert Cancik, Helmuth Schneider, Manfred Landfester, 2006, accessed on June 11, 2017 . 
3. ^ Attilio Mastrocinque: Laren . In: The New Pauly . tape 6 . Metzler, Darmstadt 1999, p. 1147-1150 .