Lemuria (festival)
The Lemuria or Lemuralia were a religious celebration of the Roman festival calendar , which was celebrated on May 9th , 11th and 13th and was named after the spirits of the dead, the lemures . The separated souls ( lemures , larvae , lares , manes ) were an eminently important theme in Roman religiosity ; on the one hand, feasts of the dead ( parentalia ) reinforced the ties with the deceased family members, on the other hand, the intercourse with these also showed unmistakably apotropaic features. The lemuria were characterized by the fear of ghosts, the temples were closed, and weddings did not take place. In general, May, which was derived from maiores ("ancestors") according to folk etymology , was an unhappy month.
In the Fasti (5,419–492) Ovid describes the rite in which the pater familias , after rinsing his hands with pure spring water and placing his fingers on the middle of the thumb as a defense magic (digitis medio cum pollice iunctis) , went barefoot in the dead of night walked through the house and, looking ahead, threw black beans behind him, saying the words haec ego mitto, his [...] redimo meque meosque fabis (“this is what I am sacrificing, and with these beans I buy myself and my family off "). Then he wet his hands again, rattled with ore tools and called out manes exiti paterni (“out, you spirits of the ancestors”) nine times . The spell ended with a look back to confirm the success.
The pre- and post-history of the lemuria is subject to some guesswork. The derivation of the festival, which can also be found in Ovid, from a funeral of Romulus in honor of his brother Remus, which was originally called remuria , is certainly incorrect . There is also speculation about a connection between lemuria and All Saints' Day , since Pope Boniface IV consecrated the Roman pantheon on May 13, 609 or 610 to the Mother of God and all martyrs or saints. He had chosen the date (which shifted to November 1st in the first third of the 9th century ) with care in order to put a Christian instead of the pagan festival.
literature
- Werner Eisenhut: Lemures. Lemuria. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 3, Stuttgart 1969, column 555 f.
- Georg Wissowa : Lemuria . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume XII, 2, Stuttgart 1925, Sp. 1931-1933.