Lemures

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Shades or spirits in Roman mythology

title: "Lemures" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["undead", "roman-underworld", "ancient-roman-religion", "legendary-creatures-in-roman-mythology", "demons", "demonology"] description: "Shades or spirits in Roman mythology" topic_path: "society/religion" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemures" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Shades or spirits in Roman mythology ::

The lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead in Roman religion, sometimes used interchangeably with the term larvae (from Latin larva, 'mask'). | last1 = Thaniel | first1 = George | date = 1973 | title = Lemures and Larvae | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/294451 | journal = The American Journal of Philology | volume = 94 | issue = 2 | pages = 182-187 | doi = 10.2307/294451 | access-date = 20 October 2024 | url-access = subscription The term lemures was first used by the Augustan poet Horace (in Epistles 2.2.209), and was the more common literary term during the Augustan era, with larvae being used only once by Horace. However, lemures is also uncommon: Ovid being the other main figure to employ it, in his Fasti, the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs. Later the two terms were used nearly or completely interchangeably, e.g. by St. Augustine in De Civitate Dei. | title = Lemures | encyclopedia = A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology | date = | year = 1873 | last = Smith | first = William | publisher = Spottiswoode and Co. | location = New-Street Square and Parliament Street | id = | url = https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0104%3Aalphabetic+letter%3DL%3Aentry+group%3D7%3Aentry%3Dlemures-bio-1 | access-date = 20 October 2024

The word lemures can be traced to the Proto-Indo-European stem lem-, which also appears in the name of the Greek monster Lamia.

Description

Lemures may represent the wandering and vengeful spirits of those not afforded proper burial, funeral rites or affectionate cult by the living: they are thus not attested by tomb or votive inscriptions. Ovid interprets them as vagrant, unsatiated and potentially vengeful di manes or di parentes, ancestral gods or spirits of the underworld. To him, the rites of their cult suggest an incomprehensibly archaic, quasi-magical and probably very ancient rural tradition.

Lemures were formless and liminal, associated with darkness and its dread. In Republican and Imperial Rome, May 9, 11, and 13 were dedicated to their placation in the household practices of Lemuralia or Lemuria. The head of household (paterfamilias) would rise at midnight and cast black beans behind him with averted gaze; the Lemures were presumed to feast on them. Black was the appropriate colour for offerings to chthonic deities. William Warde Fowler interprets the gift of beans as an offer of life, and points out that they were a ritual pollution for priests of Jupiter. The lemures themselves were both fearsome and fearful: any malevolent shades dissatisfied with the offering of the paterfamilias could be startled into flight by the loud banging of bronze pots.

In scientific Latin

The lemures inspired Linnaeus's Modern Latin backformation lemur (denoting a type of primates). According to Linnaeus' own explanation, the name was selected because of the nocturnal activity and slow movements of the slender loris. Being familiar with the works of Virgil and Ovid and seeing an analogy that fit with his naming scheme, Linnaeus adapted the term lemur for these nocturnal primates. However, it has been commonly and falsely assumed that Linnaeus was referring to the ghost-like appearance, reflective eyes, and ghostly cries of lemurs. In Goethe's Faust, a chorus of Lemurs who serve Mephistopheles dig Faustus' grave.

In the English ''Daemonologie''

Main article: Daemonologie

In the book by King James I of England, Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogie, Divided into three Bookes, it is written:

References

ca:Larves_(mitologia) de:Larvae es:Larvae pl:Larwy (mitologia) ru:Лярва sv:Larver (mytologi)

References

  1. Cirlot, J. E.. (1971). "A Dictionary of Symbols". Dorset Press.
  2. Horace, ''Epistles'' 2.2.209; Ovid, ''Fasti'' 2.500-539.
  3. (1997). "Spirit". Taylor & Francis.
  4. W. Warde Fowler, ''The Roman Festivals of the period of the Republic'', MacMillan (New York, 1899) ''Mensis Maius'', 106–10: {{ISBN?
  5. Thaniel, G. (1973). Lemures and Larvae, ''The American Journal of Philology'', 94.2, 182–187.
  6. Beard, M., North, J., Price, S. (1998). ''Religions of Rome'', Vol 1, 31, 50, Cambridge.
  7. A.R. Dunkel, J.S. Zijlstra, and C.P. Groves, C.P. (2011/2012). "Giant Rabbits, Marmosets, and British Comedies: Etymology of Lemur Names, part 1" Lemur News 16 (2100/12) 64–70. ISSN 1608-1439.[http://www.aeecl.org/lemurnews/lemurnews2011_16.pdf] {{Webarchive. link. (2016-11-06)
  8. W. Blunt and W.T. Stearn, ''Linnaeus: The Compleat Naturalist'' (Princeton University Press, 2002), p. 252. 978-0-691-09636-0
  9. Dunkel et al., "Giant Rabbits, Marmosets, and British Comedies," p. 65.
  10. Goethe, ''Faust'' 11515-11611.
  11. (1603). "Daemonologie, In Forme of a Dialogie, Divided into three Bookes".

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