LEMU´RIA
LEMU´RIA a festival for the souls of the departed,
which was celebrated at Rome every year in the month of May. It was said to
have been instituted by Romulus to appease the spirit of Remus whom he had
slain (Ovid,
Ov. Fast. 5.473, &c.),
and to have been called originally Remuria (clearly a fanciful derivation).
It was celebrated at night and in silence, and during three alternate days,
that is, on the 9th, 11th, and 13th of May. During this season the temples
of the gods were closed, and it was thought unlucky for women to marry at
this time and during the whole month of May, and those who ventured to marry
were believed to die soon after, whence the proverb
mense
Maio malae nubent. Those who celebrated the Lemuria walked
barefooted through the house, washed their hands three times, and threw
black beans nine times behind their backs. At the same time the words were
used, “I redeem myself and my household with these beans,” and
the ghosts were bidden to quit the house. It was supposed that they followed
behind the thrower and gathered up the beans. The Lemures, as the Larvae,
represented the spirits of the wicked and haunted a house for evil: beans
were sacred to the infernal powers, for which reason the Flamen Dialis was
forbidden to touch or even to name them, just as he was forbidden to
approach a grave or a dead body (
Gel. 10.15);
and
black beans, like the
πάμμελας ὀἰ̈ς of Homer, would be particularly appropriate
to the Lemures. That the festival was a very ancient one may be conjectured
from its fetishlike character, and from the fact that it was celebrated by
the father of the family for his own household. (For the date of the
Lemuria, see Marquardt,
Staatsverwaltung, 3.575: and for
details of the ceremony, Ovid,
l.c.; Preller,
Röm. Myth. 499.)
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L.S] [
G.E.M]
