Di Penates
{{Short description|Household deities in ancient Roman religion}}
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| image = Image:AR serrate denarius of C. Sulpicius C. f. Galba.jpg
| caption_left = O: Two jugate heads of Di Penates Publici
D · P · P
| caption_right = R: Soldiers with spears pointing at lying sow
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| footer =Reverse depicts scene from Aeneid. According to the prophecy, in the place where a white sow casts 30 piglets under an oak tree, a new city shall be built (Lavinium); also, a new city called after the white sow shall be built by Ascanius 30 years later (Alba Longa).
Silver serrate denarius struck by C. Sulpicius C. f. Galba in Rome 106 BC.
ref.: Sulpicia 1., Sydenham 572., Crawford 312/1
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File:Aeneis 3 147.jpeg and the Penates, from a 4th-century manuscript]]
In ancient Roman religion, the Di Penates ({{IPA|la|ˈdiː pɛˈnaːteːs|lang}}) or Penates ({{IPAc-en|lang|p|ᵻ|ˈ|n|eɪ|t|iː|z}} {{respell|pin|AY|teez}}) were among the dii familiares, or household deities, invoked most often in domestic rituals. When the family had a meal, they threw a bit into the fire on the hearth for the Penates.Servius, note to Aeneid 1.730, as cited by Robert Schilling, "The Penates," in Roman and European Mythologies (University of Chicago Press, 1981, 1992), p. 138. They were thus associated with Vesta, the Lares, and the Genius of the pater familias in the "little universe" of the domus.Cicero, De natura deorum 2.60–69, as cited by Jane Chance, Medieval Mythography: From Roman North Africa to the School of Chartres, A.D. 433–1177 (University Press of Florida, 1994), p. 73.
Like other domestic deities, the Penates had a public counterpart.Celia E. Schutz, Women's Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (University of North Carolina Press, 2006), p. 123.
Function
An etymological interpretation of the Penates would make them in origin tutelary deities of the storeroom, Latin penus, the innermost part of the house, where they guarded the household's food, wine, oil, and other supplies.Schutz, Women's Religious Activity, p. 123; Sarah Iles Johnston, Religions of the Ancient World (Harvard University Press, 2004), p. 435; Schilling, "The Penates," p. 138. As they were originally associated with the source of food, they eventually became a symbol of the continuing life of the family.{{cite book|last=Morford|first=Mark P.O.|title=Classical Mythology|year=2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=9780195397703|pages=80–82|edition=Ninth|author2=Lenardon, Robert J. |author3=Sham, Michael }} Cicero explained that they "dwell inside, from which they are also called penetrales by the poets".Cicero, De natura deorum 2.68, as cited by Schilling, "The Penates," p. 138. The 2nd-century AD grammarian Festus defined penus, however, as "the most secret site in the shrine of Vesta, which is surrounded by curtains."Festus 296L, as cited by Schilling, "The Penates," p. 138. Macrobius reports the theological view of Varro that "those who dig out truth more diligently have said that the Penates are those through whom we breathe in our inner core (penitus), through whom we have a body, through whom we possess a rational mind."Qui diligentius eruunt veritatem Penates esse dixerunt per quos penitus spiramus, per quos habemus corpus, per quos rationem animi possidemus: Macrobius, Saturnalia 3.4.8–9, quoting Varro; Sabine MacCormack, The Shadows of Poetry: Vergil in the Mind of Augustine (University of California Press, 1998), p. 77; H. Cancik and H. Cancik-Lindemaier, "The Truth of Images: Cicero and Varro on Image Worship," in Representation in Religion: Studies in Honor of Moshe Barasch (Brill, 2001), pp. 48–49.
Public Penates
The Penates of Rome (Penates Publici Populi Romani) had a temple on the Velia near the Palatine. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says it housed statues of two youths in the archaic style.Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities 1.68.
The public cult of the ancestral gods of the Roman people originated in Lavinium,Varro, De lingua latina 5.144, says of Lavinium that "this is where our Penates are"; Tim Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000–264 BC) (Routledge, 1995), p. 66. where they were also closely linked with Vesta. One tradition identified the public Penates as the sacred objects rescued by Aeneas from Troy and carried by him to Italy.Ovid, Fasti 3.615; Propertius 4.1. They, or perhaps rival duplicates, were eventually housed in the Temple of Vesta in the Forum. Thus, the Penates, unlike the localized Lares, are portable deities.Johnston, Religions of the Ancient World, p. 435.
Archaeological evidence from Lavinium shows marked influence from Greece in the archaic period, and Aeneas was venerated there as Jupiter Indiges.Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome, pp. 66, 68 and 109; Schutz, Women's Religious Activity, p. 123. At the New Year on March 1, Roman magistrates first sacrificed to Capitoline Jupiter at Rome, and then traveled to Lavinium for sacrifices to Jupiter Indiges and Vesta, and a ceremonial visit to the "Trojan" Penates.Emma Dench, Romulus' Asylum: Roman Identities from the Age of Alexander to the Age of Hadrian (Oxford University Press, 2005), p. 202; Arnaldo Momigliano, "How to Reconcile Greeks and Trojans," in On Pagans, Jews, and Christians (Wesleyan University Press, 1987), p. 272.
See also
References
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Category:Ancient Roman religion