Afterlife

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See also: Afterlife (Nova Roma)

Funeral rites of the religio Romana celebrate the transition from life as a birth into a new life. Roman iconography depicted this transition as a journey across the Western Seas to the Blessed Isles where an eternal spring blooms in the Garden of Venus. The dead were believed to sail across the Western Seas to the Blessed Isles where they would take up their new life as one of the divine Manes. Images of the Blessed Isles show the souls of the dead as winged Cupids, children of Venus, engaged in idyllic settings. Among the Cupids is an infant Minerva wearing Her helmet and aegis and an infant Hercules wearing His lion skin, where both of these deities played a role in mortals attaining immortality as Lares. The journey to the Blessed Isles was at times depicted with the recently deceased riding in a carriage drawn by Cupids to a port. Otherwise shown was the voyage across the Western Seas with the deceased in a boat manned by cupids and propelled along its way by the Gods of the seas.

Roman iconography depicted the journey of the dead sailing to the Blessed Isles on ships or else as Nerieds and Cupids led over the waves by friendly sea creatures. At times they are seen in chariots pulled by a team of doves, the bird of Venus, driven by Cupid, as though heading to port. At times the soul is depicted as a psyche with butterfly wings, conducted by Cupid, or else the person is seen being received by the winged figure of a Lasa, as in a wall painting at Pompeii. Other depictions are of the Blessed Isles where the Manes appear as cupids or putti engaged in viticulture and farming, and among them is an infant Minerva as the conqueress of death. At times Roman views on death and the journey to the Blessed Isles was reflected in funeral rites.

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