United States or Libya ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
No doubt later the Genius was accredited with powers over the fortune and misfortune of his possessor, but he never really developed anything like the independence of a god, and remained always rather a numen. The individual revered his own Genius, but the household cult was concerned, as one would expect, with the Genius of the master of the house, the pre-eminent Genius of the family.
When a deity has become the numen of a tribe, his worship will naturally coalesce with the veneration felt by the tribe for some tree, which will then be conceived of as sacred to the god.
The notion of the numen is always vague and indefinite: even its sex may be uncertain. 'Be thou god or goddess' is the form of address in the farmer's prayer already quoted from Cato: 'be it male or female' is the constant formula in liturgies and even dedicatory inscriptions of a much later period.
Everybody is engaged or inclined to help you; the ministers, English and German, the principal ladies, and most of the foreign ministers; so that I may apply to you, 'nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia'. Du Perron will, I believe, be back there from Turin much about the time you get there: pray be very attentive to him, and connect yourself with him as much as ever you can; for, besides that he is a very pretty and well-informed man, he is very much in fashion at Hanover, is personally very well with the King and certain ladies; so that a visible intimacy and connection with him will do you credit and service.
In fact, when the special fetishes which are naturally alike are united in a single type, the object, animal, or phenomenon which corresponds to it in this early stage of polytheism is no longer perceived, but a numen is evolved from this type, which has not only human power, but a human form; and hence follow the specific idols of serpents, birds, and all natural phenomena, in which the primitive fetish has been incarnated.
Everybody is engaged or inclined to help you; the ministers, English and German, the principal ladies, and most of the foreign ministers; so that I may apply to you, 'nullum numen abest, si sit prudentia'. Du Perron will, I believe, be back there from Turin much about the time you get there: pray be very attentive to him, and connect yourself with him as much as ever you can; for, besides that he is a very pretty and well-informed man, he is very much in fashion at Hanover, is personally very well with the King and certain ladies; so that a visible intimacy and connection with him will do you credit and service.
He was in the spare room, the gruesome centre of legend, the dwelling of ghostly awe. Not yet apparently had its numen forsaken it, for through him passed a thrill at the discovery.
MY DEAR FRIEND: I can now with great truth apply your own motto to you, 'Nullum numen abest, si sit Prudentia'. You are sure of being, as early as your age will permit, a member of that House; which is the only road to figure and fortune in this country.
But fortunately Lecoq was acquainted with a man whose knowledge of the trade might at once throw light on the matter. This individual was an old Hollander, named Van Numen, who as a connoisseur in precious stones, was probably without his rival in Paris. He was employed by the Prefecture of Police as an expert in all such matters. He was considered rich.
A very curious feature of the ritual was the fastening of fire-brands to the tails of foxes, which were then let loose in what was afterwards the Circus Maximus: a symbol possibly, as Wissowa thinks, of sunlight, possibly of the vegetation-spirit. But the most important of the April ceremonies is undoubtedly the Parilia of the 21st, the festival of the very ancient rustic numen, Pales.
Word Of The Day