Manes

For other uses, see Manes (disambiguation).

In ancient Roman religion, the Manes /meniz/ or Di
Manes are chthonic deities sometimes thought to represent souls of deceased loved ones. They were associated with the Lares, Lemures, Genii, and Di Penates as
deities (di) that pertained to domestic, local, and personal
cult. They belonged broadly to the category of di inferi,
those who dwell below,[1] the undierentiated collective of divine dead.[2] The Manes were honored during
the Parentalia and Feralia in February.
The theologian Augustine, writing about the subject a few
centuries after most of the Latin pagan references to such
spirits, dierentiated Manes from other types of Roman
spirits:
The abbreviation D.M. at the top of this 3rd-century Christian
tombstone stands for Diis Manibus, to the Spirits of the Dead

"Apuleius says, indeed, that the souls of

men are demons, and that men become Lares
if they are good, Lemures or Larvae if they are
bad, and Manes if it is uncertain whether they
deserve well or ill.
For, however wicked men have been, if
they suppose they shall become Larvae or divine Manes, they will become the worse the
more love they have for inicting injury; for,
as the Larvae are hurtful demons made out of
wicked men, these men must suppose that after death they will be invoked with sacrices
and divine honors that they may inict injuries.
But this question we must not pursue. He also
states that the blessed are called in Greek eudaimones, because they are good souls, that is
to say, good demons, conrming his opinion
that the souls of men are demons.
City of God, Book IX, Chapter 11[3]

The Manes were oered blood sacrices.

The
gladiatorial games, originally held at funerals, may have
been instituted in the honor of the Manes.[5] According
to Cicero, the Manes could be called forth from the caves
near Lake Avernus.[5]

2 Lapis manalis
Main article: Lapis manalis
When a new town was founded, a round hole would be
dug and a stone called a lapis manalis would be placed in
the foundations, representing a gate to the underworld.[5]
Due to similar names, the lapis manalis is often confused
with the lapis manilis in commentaries even in antiquity:

Latin spells of antiquity were often addressed to the

Manes.[4]

The owing stone must not be confused with the stone of the same name which,
according to Festus, was the gateway to the
underworld.[6]

Etymology and inscriptions

Bailey (1907) states:

Manes may be derived from an archaic adjective manus

good which was the opposite of immanis".[5]

There is, for instance, what anthropology describes as 'sympathetic magic'the attempt to inuence the powers of nature by an
imitation of the process which it is desired
that they should perform. Of this we have

Roman tombstones often included the letters D.M., which

stood for dis manibus, for the Manes, an abbreviation
that continued to appear even in Christian inscriptions.
1

4
a characteristic example in the ceremony of
the aquaelicium, designed to produce rain after a long drought. In classical times the ceremony consisted in a procession headed by the
pontices, which bore the sacred rain-stone
from its resting-place by the Porta Capena to
the Capitol, where oerings were made to the
sky-deity, Iuppiter, but from the analogy of
other primitive cults and the sacred title of the
stone (lapis manalis), it is practically certain
that the original ritual was the purely imitative
process of pouring water over the stone.[7]

Notes

[1] Varro, De lingua latina 6.13.

[2] Death, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece
and Rome (Oxford University Press, 2010), p. 366.
[3] St. Augustine of Hippo (1995). City of God. Hendrickson
Publishers. p. 171. ISBN 1-56563-096-3. Retrieved 13
February 2012.
[4] John G. Gager (15 November 1999). Curse tablets and
binding spells from the ancient world. Oxford University
Press US. pp. 12. ISBN 978-0-19-513482-7. Retrieved
22 August 2010.
[5] Aldington, Richard; Ames, Delano (1968) New Larousse
Encyclopedia of Mythology. Yugoslavia: The Hamlyn
Publishing Group Limited, 213.
[6] Burriss, Chapter 4 (accessed: August 21, 2007)
[7] Bailey, Chapter 2 (accessed: August 21, 2007)

References
Bailey, Cyril (1907). The Religion of Ancient Rome.
London, UK: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd.
Source: gutenberg.org (Accessed: August 21, 2007)
Burriss, Eli Edward (1931). Taboo, Magic, Spirits:
A Study of Primitive Elements in Roman Religion.
New York, USA: Macmillan Company. Source:
sacred-texts.com (Accessed: August 21, 2007)

REFERENCES

Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses

5.1

Text

Manes Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manes?oldid=641099992 Contributors: Tucci528, Ihcoyc, Harris7, Magnus.de, Maximus

Rex, Ed g2s, GreatWhiteNortherner, Curps, Bacchiad, Manuel Anastcio, Quadell, Rama, Silence, Mandramas, Kwamikagami, Phoenix
Hacker, Sburke, Mandarax, Ketiltrout, Asinkecualo, Botteville, SmackBot, Hardyplants, Alex earlier account, Tartan, Dave314159, Manes
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5.2

Images

File:Bas_relief_from_Arch_of_Marcus_Aurelius_showing_sacrifice.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/

7/78/Bas_relief_from_Arch_of_Marcus_Aurelius_showing_sacrifice.jpg License: CC BY-SA 3.0 Contributors: Own work Original artist:
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File:Stele_Licinia_Amias_Terme_67646.jpg Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Stele_Licinia_Amias_
Terme_67646.jpg License: Public domain Contributors: Jastrow (2006) Original artist: Unknown

5.3

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