The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner

by Harriet I. Flower

The most pervasive gods in ancient Rome had no traditional mythology attached to them, nor was their worship organized by elites. Throughout the Roman world, neighborhood street corners, farm boundaries, and household hearths featured small shrines to the beloved lares, a pair of cheerful little dancing gods. These shrines were maintained primarily by ordinary Romans, and often by slaves and freedmen, for whom the lares cult provided a unique public leadership role. In this comprehensive and richly illustrated book, the first to focus on the lares, Harriet Flower offers a strikingly original account of these gods and a new way of understanding the lived experience of everyday Roman religion.

Weaving together a wide range of evidence, Flower sets forth a new interpretation of the much-disputed nature of the lares. She makes the case that they are not spirits of the dead, as many have argued, but rather benevolent protectors--gods of place, especially the household and the neighborhood, and of travel. She examines the rituals honoring the lares, their cult sites, and their iconography, as well as the meaning of the snakes often depicted alongside lares in paintings of gardens. She also looks at Compitalia, a popular midwinter neighborhood festival in honor of the lares, and describes how its politics played a key role in Rome's increasing violence in the 60s and 50s BC, as well as in the efforts of Augustus to reach out to ordinary people living in the city's local neighborhoods.

A reconsideration of seemingly humble gods that were central to the religious world of the Romans, this is also the first major account of the full range of lares worship in the homes, neighborhoods, and temples of ancient Rome.

Genres: History, Religion, Ancient History, Roman History, Nonfiction

416 pages, Hardcover

First published September 26, 2017

Reviews

[Theo · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is possibly the most delightful academic writing I've ever encountered, on a truly fascinating topic. I'm so happy to have read this. Flower provides excellent insight on this ill-understood corner of Roman religious life. Strongly recommended.

[Bonnie_blu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flower's analysis of the ancient Roman cults of the" lares," "penates," "genius," "juno," etc. is superb. Her investigation into these cults is thorough, insightful, and fascinating. She makes use of all available sources, i.e., art, written materials, archeological findings, and more. For the most part, Ms. Flower restricts her investigation to the late Republic and early Empire, however, she does draw attention to evidence from earlier and later periods. After finishing the book, I had a much better understanding and appreciation for these spiritual practices (the ancient Romans did not have a religion as we understand it).

NOTE: The book is not really suited to the casual historian. It is a very detail investigation, and a good foundation in ancient Roman history is recommended.

[James Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flower covers the Lares from many different angles including their social role as deities of place bringing together communities, their class role with slaves and freemen, their structural roles in census and lustratio, their celebratory roles in compitalia, their political roles in popular voice and collective defence and mass supplicatio, the Augustan role too.

Along the way she challenges the claim they had a link to the dead as seen in Beard, North and Price etc. and claims the Lares Augusti are not Augustus' Lares (genitive sing), but August Lares (nominative pl adjective), linking them to his auctoritas, but not his ancestors or directly him.

I learned a great deal.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant analysis of the evidence for the Roman household cult . . .

An account and analysis of the extant evidence for the Roman household cult - that of the lares, penates, genius loci, genius of the pater familias, etc. Literary accounts are linked to archaeological evidence, and the synthesis of information into a more coherent picture of household religious activity (and other lares, such as those of the crossroads and sea) is insightful and brilliant at times . . .

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I certainly learned a lot! Highly recommended.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I do so love reading about ancient Roman religion. Also snakes. Snakes are cool.