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LECTISTERNIUM (from Lat. lectum stern...
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See also:LECTISTERNIUM (from See also:Lat. lectum sternere, "to spread a See also:couch "; urpwyvai in See also:Dion. Halic. xii. 9) , in See also:ancient See also:Rome, a propitiatory ceremony, consisting of a See also:meal offered to gods and goddesses, represented by their busts or statues, or by portable figures of See also:wood, with heads of See also:bronze, See also:wax or See also:marble, and covered with drapery. Another See also:suggestion is that the symbols of the gods consisted of bundles of sacred herbs, tied together in the See also:form of a See also:head, covered by a waxen See also:mask so aS to resemble a See also:kind of bust (cf. the See also:straw puppets called See also:Argei). These symbols were laid upon a couch (lectus), the See also:left See also:arm resting on a See also:cushion (pulvinus, whence the couch itself was often called pulvinar) in the attitude of reclining. In front of the couch, which was placed in the open See also:street, a meal was set out on a table. It is definitely stated by See also:Livy (v. 13) that the ceremony took See also:place " for the first See also:time " in Rome in the See also:year 399 B.C., after the Sibylline books had been consulted by their keepers and interpreters (duumviri sacris faciendis), on the occasion of a pestilence. Three couches were prepared for three pairs of gods—See also:Apollo and See also:Latona, See also:Hercules and See also:Diana, See also:Mercury and See also:Neptune. The feast, which on that occasion lasted for eight (or seven) days, was also celebrated by private individuals; the citizens kept open See also:house, quarrels were forgotten, debtors and prisoners were released, and everything done to banish sorrow. Similar honours were paid to other divinities in subsequent times—See also:Fortuna, Saturnus, See also:Juno See also:Regina of the Aventine, the three Capitoline deities (See also:Jupiter, Juno, See also:Minerva), and in 217, after the defeat of See also:lake Trasimenus, a lectisternium was held for three days to six pairs of gods, corresponding to the twelve See also:great gods of See also:Olympus—Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, See also:Mars, See also:Venus, Apollo, Diana, See also:Vulcan, See also:Vesta, Mercury, See also:Ceres. In 205, alarmed by unfavourable prodigies, the See also:Romans were ordered to fetch the Great See also:Mother of the gods from See also:Pessinus in See also:Phrygia; in the following year the See also:image was brought to Rome, and a lectisternium held. In later times, the lectisternium became of See also:constant (even daily) occurrence, and was celebrated in the different temples. Such celebrations must be distinguished from those which were ordered, like the earlier lectisternia, by the Sibylline books in See also:special emergencies. Although undoubtedly offerings of See also:food were made to the gods in very See also:early See also:Roman times on such occasions as the ceremony of confarreatio, and the epulum Jovis (often confounded with the lectisternium), it is generally agreed that the lectisternia were of See also:Greek origin. In favour of this may be mentioned: the similarity of the Greek Oeo vta, in which, however, the gods played the See also:part of hosts; the gods associated with it were either previously unknown to Roman See also:religion, though often concealed under Roman names, or were provided with a new cult (thus Hercules was not worshipped as at the Ara See also:Maxima, where, according to Servius on Aeneid, viii. 176 and See also:Cornelius See also:Balbus, ap. See also:Macrobius, Sat. iii. 6, a lectisternium was forbidden); the Sibylline books, which decided whether a lectisternium was to be held or not, were of Greek origin; the See also:custom of reclining at meals was Greek. Some, however, assign an See also:Etruscan origin to the ceremony, the Sibylline books themselves being looked upon as old See also:Italian " See also:black books." A probable explanation of the confusion between the lectisternia and genuine old Italian ceremonies is that, as the lectisternia became an almost everyday occurrence in Rome, See also:people forgot their See also:foreign origin and the circumstances in which they were first introduced, and then the word pulvinar with its associations was transferred to times in which it had no existence. In imperial times, according to See also:Tacitus (See also:Annals, xv. 44), chairs were substituted for couches in the See also:case of goddesses, and the lectisternium in their case became a sellisternium (the See also:reading, however, is not certain). This was in accordance with Roman custom, since in the earliest times all the members of a See also:family sat at meals, and in later times at least the See also:women and See also:children. This is a point of distinction between the See also:original practice at the lectisternium and the epulum Jovis, the goddesses at the latter being provided with chairs, whereas in the lectisternium they reclined. In See also:Christian times the word was used for a feast in memory of the dead (Sidonius See also:Apollinaris, Epistulae, iv. 15). See See also:article by A. Bouche-Leclercq in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire See also:des anliquites; See also:Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, iii. 45, 187 (1885); G. Wissowa, Religion and Kultus der Romer, p. 355 seq. ; monograph by Wackermann (See also:Hanau, 1888) ; C. See also:Pascal, Studii di anlichiti e mitologia (1896). Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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