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Manes

In ancient Roman religion, the Manes (Latin: Manes, pronounced Mah-nays) were the collective spirits of the deceased, revered as deified ancestors known collectively as Di Manes, meaning "the divine dead" or "the benevolent gods."^[1]^[2] These spirits embodied the enduring divine spark of life believed to reside in every individual, influencing the living through blessings or curses depending on the fulfillment of familial duties.^[1]^[2] The Manes played a central role in Roman society as guardians of family continuity and pietas (filial devotion), with their cult encompassing both individual ancestors and the broader collective of the dead.^[2] Worship involved rituals at household shrines, where ancestral busts (imagines) served as their symbolic dwelling places in the atrium, and offerings of food, wine, and prayers to ensure their benevolence.^[1] Neglect of these rites could transform the Manes into lemures—restless, malevolent ghosts that disrupted the living during festivals like the Lemuria.^[1]^[2] Key festivals honored the Manes, including the Parentalia (February 13–21), a nine-day period of private family sacrifices and tomb visitations to commemorate parentes (deceased kin), culminating in the public Feralia on February 21 with communal feasts and floral offerings.^[1]^[2] The Lemuria (May 9, 11, and 13) specifically appeased potentially harmful spirits with rituals like black bean scattering and finger snapping to ward off their influence.^[1]^[2] Funerary practices, such as inscribing Dis Manibus ("to the Manes") on tombs, underscored their status as minor deities capable of granting prosperity or retribution, reflecting a belief system where the dead sustained life and shaped the afterlife for the living.^[2] This cult extended beyond elites to include slaves and the poor, emphasizing social inclusivity in Roman ancestor veneration.^[2]

Overview and Role

Definition

In ancient Roman religion, the Manes, also known as di manes, were the deified souls of deceased individuals who had received proper funerary rites, transforming them into minor deities classified among the di inferi, or underworld gods. These spirits were not mere ghosts but elevated entities requiring ongoing veneration to maintain their favor, with their graves serving as sacred sites for interaction between the living and the dead. This status as deified dead underscored their integration into the divine realm, distinct from the undifferentiated shades of the underworld.^[3] The core attributes of the Manes centered on their benevolent and protective role toward surviving family members and communities, where they were believed to offer supernatural aid such as guidance, safeguarding against harm, and even extending the lifespan of the pious. They monitored the conduct of the living, enforcing familial loyalty and oaths while intervening positively in daily affairs, such as ensuring agricultural prosperity or communal well-being. In stark contrast to malevolent underworld entities like lemures or larvae—restless, harmful ghosts unappeased by rites—the Manes embodied a positive ancestral presence, capable of withholding benefits or enacting retribution only if neglected, thereby reinforcing pietas, or dutiful respect.^[3] The term "manes" was employed almost exclusively in the plural form to refer collectively to all honored ancestral spirits or to the souls of multiple individuals, as commonly inscribed on tombstones with phrases like "Dis Manibus" to invoke their collective power. The singular "manis," denoting an individual spirit, was rare and grammatically debated, appearing sporadically in personal dedications or literary contexts to specify a single deified ancestor.^[3]

Significance in Roman Afterlife

In Roman eschatology, the Manes represented the deified spirits of deceased individuals who inhabited the underworld, serving as benevolent intermediaries between the living and the chthonic deities such as Dis Pater, the god of the infernal regions.^[3] These spirits were believed to possess the power to influence the fates of their surviving kin, granting protection, prosperity, and even a favorable posthumous existence if properly honored through offerings and rituals, thereby ensuring the continuity of familial well-being in the afterlife. By petitioning the Manes, the living could seek intercession with underworld powers, reinforcing the notion that death did not sever ties but transformed them into a reciprocal bond of mutual benefit.^[3] The social function of the Manes underscored the Roman virtue of pietas, the dutiful respect toward ancestors, family, and the gods, which bound personal morality to the approval of the deceased. Honoring the Manes was not merely religious but a moral imperative that validated inheritance rights and social alliances, as neglect could invite ancestral displeasure, manifesting as misfortune or exclusion from family legacies.^[3] This obligation extended beyond blood relations to include friends or patrons linked by pietas, where cultic duties often aligned with legal and financial responsibilities, such as maintaining tombs or providing commemorative feasts, thereby perpetuating social hierarchies and communal harmony. The cult's inclusivity encompassed all social strata, including slaves and freedmen, highlighting its broad reach across Roman society.^[3] Over time, the conception of the Manes evolved from a primarily patrilineal focus in the early Republic, where pontifical law emphasized agnatic ancestors within the gens to preserve lineage purity, to a more inclusive practice in the Imperial era that encompassed all deceased kin regardless of direct descent.^[3] This shift reflected broader societal changes, including the expansion of citizenship and family structures under the Empire, as evidenced by the widespread use of dis manibus inscriptions on tombs that invoked the Manes for a diverse array of the dead, prioritizing emotional and social bonds over strict lineage.^[2] By the late Empire, this democratization of ancestor veneration further integrated the Manes into everyday pietas, adapting to multicultural influences while maintaining their core role in familial continuity.^[3]

Etymology and Historical Evidence

Linguistic Origins

The term manes originates from Old Latin mānis, an archaic adjective meaning "good," employed substantively in the masculine plural form to signify "the good ones." This usage functioned as a euphemism for the benevolent spirits of the deceased, contrasting with more malevolent shades like the lemures.^[4] The root traces to the Proto-Indo-European méh₂no-, denoting "good" or "beneficial," which itself stems from the base meh₂- ("timely" or "opportune"), reflecting a conceptual link between maturity, timeliness, and positive qualities.^[5] This etymological development underscores the Roman tendency to invoke auspicious attributes when referring to chthonic entities. Related Latin terms further illuminate this origin, such as immānis ("monstrous" or "savage"), formed as a negation of mānis to indicate the absence of goodness. While direct cognates in other Italic languages are sparse in surviving records, the semantic field of benevolent ancestral forces appears in broader Italic contexts, emphasizing shared cultural notions of deified forebears. The adjective mānis itself is attested sparingly in early literature, highlighting its specialized, euphemistic role in funerary and religious discourse. In archaic Latin texts, such as the fragments of Ennius's Annales (3rd century BCE), manes initially referred to good or protective spirits among the broader category of the dead, evoking a general sense of divine favor from beyond the grave.^[6] Over time, particularly by the late Republic (ca. 100–27 BCE), the term underwent a semantic narrowing to specifically designate the deified souls of ancestors, often honored collectively as di manes ("the divine good ones"). This evolution is evident in its frequent appearance in inscriptions, where it symbolizes the sanctified dead deserving of ongoing veneration.^[7]

Archaeological and Literary Sources

The primary literary evidence for the Manes emerges from key Augustan-era texts that portray them as the pacified shades of the deceased, integral to Roman conceptions of the afterlife. In Virgil's Aeneid (Book 6), the Manes are invoked during Aeneas's descent into the underworld, where they represent the collective spirits of the dead; for instance, at line 119, Orpheus is said to have summoned the Manes of his wife Eurydice, emphasizing their accessibility through ritual, while at line 505, Aeneas honors the "magna Manes" of the fallen Trojan Deiphobus with a tomb and threefold invocation.^[8] Similarly, Ovid's Fasti (Book 2, lines 533–570) describes the Manes in the context of ancestral veneration during the Feralia, urging readers to appease "the souls of your fathers" with modest offerings like garlands, corn, and violets at tombs, portraying them as benevolent ghosts who value piety over extravagance and who wander unsubstantially if neglected.^[9] These depictions, drawing on earlier poetic traditions, illustrate the Manes as deified yet approachable entities, distinct from more malevolent underworld spirits. Epigraphic sources provide concrete attestations of the Manes from the late Republic onward, often through dedications on funerary monuments that underscore their role as recipients of ongoing offerings. The phrase "Dis Manibus" (abbreviated D.M. or DM), meaning "to the Manes-gods" or "to the divine shades," appears frequently on sarcophagi and tombs as a sacred invocation consecrating the site to the deified dead, with examples dating to the first century BCE in Republican contexts such as the tombs along the Via Appia.^[2] In the Imperial period, this evolved into more elaborate funerary stelai, such as those from the second century CE in Rome and Ostia, which explicitly link the Manes to familial offerings, as in inscriptions requesting libations or sacrifices "to the Manes of [named individual]" to ensure the spirit's pacification and protection for the living. These inscriptions, numbering in the thousands across the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, reflect a standardized practice of treating individual deceased as part of the collective Di Manes, blending personal commemoration with communal cult.^[2] Archaeological remains further illuminate the domestic and funerary veneration of the Manes, though evidence from before the Imperial era remains fragmentary due to reliance on oral traditions and perishable materials in early Roman religion. Household shrines known as lararia, preserved in sites like Pompeii and Herculaneum from the first century BCE–CE, often featured niches or shelves displaying ancestral busts (imagines) alongside figures of Lares, suggesting the Manes were honored as protective family spirits through daily offerings of food and incense.^[10] In funerary contexts, catacomb and tomb art from the Imperial period depicts scenes of libation and procession honoring the dead, underscoring their role as Manes. The scarcity of pre-Imperial artifacts, such as those predating the second century BCE, highlights how beliefs in the Manes were initially transmitted orally within families and priesthoods, with written and material records proliferating only under the Republic's expansion.

Worship and Festivals

Parentalia

The Parentalia, also known as the dies parentales, was a nine-day festival observed from February 13 to 21 in the Roman calendar, dedicated to honoring deceased family members as the di Manes. This period marked a time of solemn ancestor veneration, during which public business was suspended, temples remained closed, and marriages were prohibited to preserve the rites' intimate and pious character.^[11] The festival emphasized private family rituals over public spectacles, allowing households to focus on personal connections with their forebears without external interference.^[12] Central to the Parentalia were family visits to ancestral tombs outside the city walls, where participants performed offerings and sacrifices to appease the shades of the dead. These rituals included scattering garlands of violets, grains of wheat and salt, and bread soaked in wine upon a brick or tile placed at the tomb, accompanied by prayers and small fires.^[9] Families often held the cena nova, a communal feast at the tomb site, reinforcing bonds between the living and the Manes through shared meals that symbolized ongoing nourishment for the ancestral spirits. Such practices underscored the festival's role in maintaining familial piety and ensuring the protective benevolence of the dead.^[11] The festival's origins trace back to the Roman Republic, with literary evidence suggesting it was instituted as a structured observance of ancestral cults during this era. The poet Ovid, writing in the early principate, attributed its establishment to Aeneas, the Trojan hero and legendary founder of the Roman line, who introduced the custom of solemn offerings to paternal spirits upon arriving in Latium; from this act, the Romans learned the foundational rites of piety toward the dead.^[9] By late antiquity, however, the Parentalia gradually declined amid the spread of Christianity, as emerging religious norms shifted focus away from traditional pagan ancestor worship toward new commemorative practices, though elements of familial tomb rituals persisted in adapted forms among some communities.^[11]

Feralia and Other Rites

The Feralia, observed on February 21, marked the public culmination of the Parentalia observances dedicated to ancestral spirits.^[9] As a communal rite honoring the di Manes, it involved Roman citizens visiting tombs to present modest offerings, such as grains of corn, salt, bread soaked in wine, and violets, placed on a potsherd at the graveside to "feed" and propitiate the shades of the deceased.^[9] These acts emphasized piety over extravagance, with accompanying prayers invoking the Manes to remain gracious toward the living.^[9] The name Feralia derives from the Latin ferre, meaning "to bear" or "to carry," reflecting the practice of transporting these dues to the dead.^[9] The Parentalia cycle concluded on February 22 with the Caristia (also known as Cara Cognatio), a joyous family festival celebrating kinship and reconciliation among the living while honoring the Manes. Families gathered for feasts, exchanged gifts, and offered prayers to ancestral spirits for household harmony and prosperity, marking a transition from mourning to familial unity.^[13] Beyond the Feralia, Romans maintained ongoing household rites for the Manes through annual libations, known as libatio, poured on the dies natalis (birthday) and dies mortis (death anniversary) of deceased kin.^[14] These private pourings of wine or milk at home altars or graves served to sustain the ancestral spirits and seek their ongoing protection.^[15] Complementing such propitiations were the Lemuria rites in May, conducted as counter-measures to appease potentially restless dead who might disrupt households, involving nocturnal offerings of black beans scattered to exorcise malevolent influences.^[16] During the expansion of the Roman Empire, Manes worship, including the Feralia, incorporated state-sponsored public elements such as communal sacrifices and processions, yet retained its core as a folk practice rooted in familial devotion and local customs.^[1] This blend persisted into later imperial periods, adapting to broader societal inclusion of all deceased while preserving intimate ancestral ties.^[2]

Lapis Manalis

The term lapis manalis referred to two distinct sacred stones in ancient Roman religion, but in the context of the Manes, it specifically denotes the stone covering the mundus, a pit symbolizing the gateway to the underworld and abode of the dead. This stone, known as the "stone of the Manes," was located in the Comitium at the foot of the Capitoline Hill and was ceremonially removed three times a year—on August 24, October 5, and November 8—to open the mundus and allow the spirits of the deceased, including the Manes, to interact with the living world.^[17] The lapis manalis of the mundus embodied the chthonic connection between the living and the divine dead, reinforcing the Manes' role as ancestral mediators. During these openings, which coincided with major festivals, rituals honored the Manes and other subterranean deities, emphasizing themes of fertility, purification, and the cyclical passage between worlds. Ancient sources, such as Festus, link the stone directly to the Manes, portraying it as a symbolic barrier whose removal invoked their influence on earthly prosperity and communal well-being.^[18] Scholars suggest possible Etruscan origins for the mundus concept, with the lapis manalis representing pre-Roman Italic traditions of underworld access and ancestor veneration. Archaeological evidence from the Comitium, including foundational remains and votive deposits, supports its role in early Roman funerary and chthonic rituals, though interpretations vary due to limited direct inscriptions. The stone's function distinguished it from the unrelated rain-making lapis manalis kept near the Porta Capena, which derived its name from manare ("to flow") and served in drought ceremonies without direct ties to the Manes.^[19]

Comparison with Lemures and Other Spirits

In Roman religion, the Manes represented the benevolent, deified spirits of deceased ancestors who protected their families when properly honored, in stark contrast to the lemures, which were viewed as restless and malevolent ghosts, often of those who died prematurely, violently, or without burial. While the Manes were venerated collectively as the di Manes during festivals like the Parentalia to maintain familial bonds and ensure posthumous goodwill, lemures were propitiated through the Lemuria rites in May to exorcise their potential to haunt homes and cause harm.^[20]^[3] This ritual opposition underscores a key distinction: Manes as integrated, positive forces in the afterlife versus lemures as disruptive entities requiring aversion. Etymologically, "manes" likely derives from the archaic Latin mānis, connoting "good" or "beneficent," reflecting their honored status, whereas "lemures" has an obscure origin, possibly linked to a non-Indo-European root for spectral shades or to Remuria as a folk etymology in Ovid's Fasti, emphasizing their ghostly, sorrowful nature.^[20] Some modern scholarship reconciles the two by positing lemures as neglected or angered aspects of the Manes, transforming through ritual failure, though ancient sources maintain their oppositional roles.^[21] The larvae, frequently used interchangeably with lemures or as a subset thereof, denoted generic evil shades or demons, particularly those of the unburied dead who wandered as noxious influences, causing madness, disease, or terror among the living. Unlike the Manes' elevated, deified position within the familial pantheon, larvae lacked any veneration and were instead feared as impersonal threats, often warded off through incantations or offerings to prevent their malevolent interventions.^[22] Their name derives from larva, meaning "mask" or "ghostly guise," evoking the disguised, theatrical horrors they embodied in literature, such as in Plautus and Seneca, where they appear as tormentors or insanity-inducing specters.^[20] This contrasts sharply with the Manes, whose structured worship in tombs and home shrines affirmed their protective legacy, highlighting a Roman dichotomy between integrated ancestors and chaotic, unmoored undead. Distinguishing the Manes from the genii further clarifies their post-mortem exclusivity: genii were the innate, procreative life-spirits or guardian doubles of living individuals, especially the male head of household (paterfamilias), worshiped on birthdays to safeguard vitality and lineage continuity. While the genius represented an active, corporeal force tied to the living—often depicted in lararia alongside household lares—the Manes emerged only after death, as the transitioned souls of the departed integrated into the ancestral collective.^[1] Upon demise, a person's genius might conceptually merge with their manes, but the two remained conceptually separate, with genii focused on earthly prosperity rather than chthonic commemoration.^[22] The Manes' unique status as the di Manes—a divine assembly of all deified dead—set them apart from these other spectral entities, forming a foundational element of Roman ancestor cult that influenced early Christian practices, notably All Souls' Day, which parallels the Parentalia in its communal prayer for the departed souls in purgatory.^[3] This evolution addressed common misconceptions by reframing pagan veneration of the dead within a monotheistic framework, emphasizing intercession over propitiation.^[23]

References

[1]
Roman Household Spirits: Manes, Panes and Lares
Oct 28, 2019 · To the ancient Romans, everything was imbued with a divine spirit (numen, plural: numina) which gave it life.
[2]
The ancient Roman afterlife: di manes, belief, and the cult of the dead
Feb 12, 2021 · The manes were not generally worshipped as the collective dead but rather as the divinized spirits of specific, named individuals.
[3]
The Ancient Roman Afterlife - University of Texas Press
$$55.00Apr 28, 2020 · These deified dead, known as the manes, watched over and protected their surviving family members, possibly even extending those relatives' ...
[4]
manes - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Hyphenation: ma‧nes. Etymology 1. Borrowed from Latin manes. Noun. manes m pl (plural only). (Roman mythology) manes (spirits of the dead). Etymology 2. Verb.
[5]
manis - Wiktionary, the free dictionary
... of Indonesia, 2016. Latin. Alternative forms. mānus. Etymology. From Proto-Indo-European *meh₂- (“to ripen, to mature”); related to mānus (“good”), mātūrus (“ ...
[6]
Ennius: Annales (fragments) - ATTALUS
The archaic writers used this plural form, for example Ennius in the second book - ... manes ;. NONIUS : Prognariter, actively, valiantly and steadfastly ...
[7]
Who Were Roman Lares, Larvae, Lemures, and Manes? - ThoughtCo
Jan 17, 2020 · What Were the Manes? The Manes (in the plural) were originally good spirits. Their name was usually placed with the word for gods, di, as in ...Missing: religion | Show results with:religion
[8]
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0055%3Abook%3D6
[9]
OVID, FASTI BOOK 2 - Theoi Classical Texts Library
### Sections from Ovid Fasti Book 2 Mentioning Manes or Ancestral Spirits
[10]
[PDF] A Study of the Roman Lararia by David Gerald Orr - Ostia-antica.org
The household shrines (lararia) of Pompeii are discussed in detail. Lararia from other parts of the Roman world are also studied.
[11]
HONOURING THE FAMILY DEAD ON THE PARENTALIA - jstor
it “represents wholesome duty, pietas, towards Roman ancestors duly practised by decent Roman families.” Yet the emphasis on wholesomeness stands out in a ...
[12]
https://www.udallasclassics.org/wp-content/uploads/maurer_files/Romedict.htm
[13]
Roman Ceremonies Honouring Departed Ancestors Based on ...
Jul 13, 2025 · The Romans visited the graves of their loved ones frequently but did so invariably on the birth and death anniversaries as well as during ...
[14]
The Ancient Roman Libation Tubes That Connected the Living to the ...
Oct 31, 2018 · The ancient Roman Libation Tubes that connected the living to the dead. Families poured offerings through vessels directly installed into graves.
[15]
Nocturnal Rites to Appease the Untimely Dead: The Lemuria in Its ...
Ovid (Fast. 5.429–444) tells us that the Romans undertook the rites of the Lemuria on three nights in May to appease the lemures, the restless dead.Missing: counter- | Show results with:counter-
[16]
LacusCurtius • Temples of Mars (Platner & Ashby, 1929)
### Summary of Lapis Manalis Information
[17]
Classical Weather Lore of Thunder and Lightning (Continued) - jstor
Outside the Porta Capena of Rome there was kept a lapis manalis, which was escorted into the city with proper ceremonies whenever the Romans wished to end a ...
[18]
[PDF] Magic in Private and Public Lives of the Ancient Romans
known as lapis manalis into Rome's borders”. Paulus Festus connects the use of the verb elicěre in the rite's name to one of Jupiter's epithets (Elicius) ...
[19]
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Religion of Ancient Rome, by ...
... (lapis manalis), it is practically certain that the original ritual was the purely imitative process of pouring water over the stone. A similar rain-charm ...
[20]
"Lapis Manalis, Aquaelicium, Jupiter Elicius: A Study in Roman ...
Callahan, Paul Vincent, "Lapis Manalis, Aquaelicium, Jupiter Elicius: A Study in Roman Weather-Magic" (1952). ETD Collection for Fordham University.Missing: scholarly | Show results with:scholarly
[21]
[PDF] The religious experience of the Roman people, from the earliest ...
... Etruscan origin. Mean- ing of cult-titles Optimus Maximus, and significance ... aquaelicium^ without doubt a genuine case of magical " rain-making ...
[22]
None
Below is a merged summary of the key points on Manes, Lemures, and Larvae, including their definitions, differences, etymologies, roles, and sources. To retain all information in a dense and organized format, I’ve used tables in CSV-style text, followed by a narrative summary for additional context. This ensures all details from the provided segments are included without loss.
[23]
Charles W. King. 2020. The ancient Roman afterlife: di manes, belief ...
Oct 19, 2020 · King reconciles the manes venerated in cemeteries during the Parentalia festival with the lemures worshipped at home in the Lemuria festival, ...
[24]
[PDF] To Seek the Boundaries of the Roman Lares - CORE
benevolent spirits, the Lares are comparable to deified ancestors, the di Manes, rather than malevolent chthonic specters like the Larvae or Lemures.
[25]
The liturgy of All Souls Day - Catholicireland.net
The Romans kept their festival of Parentalia, a commemoration of dead relatives, from 13 February to 21 February, at the end of their year which began anew on ...