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In the second century B.C. old Cato had described the paterfamilias, on his arrival at his farm from the city, saluting the Lar familiaris before he goes about his round of inspection; and even Horace hardly shows a trace of the agnostic when he pictures the slaves of the farm, and the master with them, sitting at their meal in front of the image of the Lar . We may perhaps guess that with the renewal of the love of country life, and with that revival of the cultivation of the vine and olive, and indeed of husbandry in general, which is recognisable as a feature of the last years of the Republic, and which is known to us from Varro's work on farming, and from Virgil's Georgics, the old religion of the household gained a new life.
Thus among the divinities of the household we shall see later that the Genius and even the Lar Familiaris, though they attained great dignity of conception, and were the centre of the family life, and to some extent of the family morality, never quite rose to the position of full-grown gods; while among the spirits of the field the wildness and impishness of character associated with Faunus and his companion Inuus almost the cobolds or hobgoblins of the flocks reflects clearly the old 'animistic' belief in the natural evilness of the spirits and their hostility to men.
TREE-CREEPER. Certhia familiaris, Linnaeus. French, "Grimpereau," "Grimpereau familier." The Tree-creeper is resident and not uncommon in all the Islands, except perhaps Alderney, in which Island I have never seen it. In Guernsey it may be seen in most of the wooded parts, and frequently near the town, in the trees on the lawns at Candie, Castle Carey, and in the New Ground.
The whole season closed on February 22 with the festival of the Caristia or cara cognatio, a family reunion of the survivors in a kind of 'love-feast, which centred in the worship of the Lar Familiaris. Here we seem to have simply, as in the family rites, a peaceful and solemn acknowledgment by the community as a whole of the still subsisting relation of the living and the dead.
A further important point of resemblance between the Canis lupus and the Canis familiaris lies in the fact that the period of gestation in both species is sixty-three days. There are from three to nine cubs in a wolf's litter, and these are blind for twenty-one days.
"Absolutely decline discuss crab, scorpion and grandmother by wire; final. Vivian. "Scandalous! not behaviour of gentleman; Madame cut to heart; infamous. Sagittarius." "Mater familiaris pallidibus ira. Madame Sagittarius." "If receive no reply as to grandmother and crab, et cetera, shall start at once for Square. Jupiter and Madame Sagittarius."
Do you really still care to live amongst the majestic people of the Philistines who rule the world nowadays? Ah! as long as we possess fancy we can pull along somehow. My poor dear little parrot is also dead! He was my spiritus familiaris, the good brownie of my house. Farewell, and forgive me. Always and wholly thine, ENGE, ZURICH, February 18th, 1851.
Two other deities are very prominent in the worship of the early household, and each is a characteristic product of Roman religious feeling, the Lar Familiaris and the Genius.
When this prince had the equestrian statue of himself by Antonio Tassi, Gianbologna's pupil, erected in the square of the Corte, he secretly caused to be made, says my anonymous MS., a silver statuette of his familiar genius or angel "familiaris ejus angelus seu genius, quod a vulgo dicitur idolino" which statuette or idol, after having been consecrated by the astrologers "ab astrologis quibusdam ritibus sacrato" was placed in the cavity of the chest of the effigy by Tassi, in order, says the MS., that his soul might rest until the general Resurrection.
And the two the natural and supernatural were not distinct from each other, but associated, in fact almost identical; the hearth-fire was the dwelling of Vesta, the spirit of the flame; the Penates were the spirits of the stores on which the family subsisted, and dwelt in the store-cupboard or larder; the paterfamilias had himself a supernatural side, in the shape of his Genius; and the Lar familiaris was the protecting spirit of the farmland, who had found his way into the house in course of time, perhaps with the slave labourers, who always had a share in his worship.
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