Portable lararium

From NovaRoma

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This is a provisional page, created to house a posting by Pontifex Maximus M. Moravius Piscinus Horatianus about portable altars, made on the religio Romana mailing list on January 25 2009, in response to someone who asked for instructions on how to make a nonobtrusive lararium while living with Christian relatives and also asked whether statues of gods and goddesses are essential.

This post was them followed by a more general one on how to worship when travelling, which can be found here.

The topic will need editing and integrating. Here is the original post:

M. Moravius Piscinus Pont. Max. Helioi, cultoribus Deorum et omnibus s. p. d.

"[Numa] conceived of the first principle of being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt, and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade the Romans to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there any painted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the space of the first hundred and seventy years, all of which time their temples and chapels were kept free and pure from images; to such baser objects they deemed it impious to liken the highest, and all access to God impossible, except by the pure act of the intellect. His sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the ceremonial of Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with effusion of blood, but consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly offerings." ~ Plutarch, Life of Numa 8.7

Images are not required in Roman rites. Varro was Plutarch's source on Roman not having any images of the Gods before 181 BCE, which is about the time that marble statues were introduced. There were decorative statues of terracotta before then but some hold that within a temple the presence of a God or Goddess was represented by a fire rather than by a statue. In fact with some of the oldest culti Deorum, statues were never introduced. One example of course is that of Vesta, although images of Her, or rather that of Hestia, were eventually introduced during the imperial period. We are told that Varro also held the opinion that "had that custom been retained (of not using images), the worship of the Gods would be more reverently performed (Aug. De Civitas Dei 4.31)."

What is most important is the altar itself. You touch the altar, and thereby instill your own numen, from your divine genius, into the altar. Making your own altars as you suggest would act even moreso to instill your numen into your altars. A family altar, used for many generations, was considered to be the most holy of places, as Cicero argued before the pontifices in pleading for a return of his domus. A family altar is most holy for the very reason that it contains the numina of a family's Lares.

Since an altar is where the numen of a God or Goddess descends to receive the vital essence of the sacrifice and thereby channel it upward to the heavens, an altar will also contain the numen of that God or Goddess. Used for the same purpose many times, the numina will thus build up through accretion. This is why, properly speaking, an altar should be dedicated to serve only one deity. In that way only the numina of that particular deity receives sacrifices from that altar and deposits a portion of His or Her numen into the altar itself. The altar, not any statue, becomes a living representation of a God when its altar fire is lit because it is at that moment that the connection is made between heaven and earth through the numen that the God sends down as a kind of channel.

An altar should be understood as the meeting place of the cultor with his or her Lares in joint worship, and where their numina are then joined to the numen of the God. The more often used, the greater the bond between the God and the cultores.

These ideas are not unique to the religio Romana alone. They were carried forward, for example, into Christianity. A Roman Catholic altar is not sanctified until it receives a number of relics of saints. That is, Catholics physically instill an altar with the numina of saints, as we might think of having the numina of our Lares or of any ohers who have touched the altar in worship. And the Catholics often do this in a similar manner for the relics are usually some bit of cloth or piece of wood that has been touched to another relic, thereby 'transferring' a part of a part of some saint's numen. While their altars must have so many relics implanted (I think it may be a minimum of five) they do not really have the concept of building up the sanctity of the altar over time through continued use in the same way as is found in the religio Romana and other traditions.

A Roman altar is properly built with a palas stone held within. This stone is where the numina of the God or Goddess is invoked into. That is, the palas stone acts somewhat like a cenotaph for the genius of a family member who has died in a distant land or at sea. Roman Catholic altars also held palas stones, until the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Although there I am not certain what purpose they were intended to serve.

In Greek temples a variety of mechanical devices were attached to altars to enhance the display. Heron of Alexandria apparently devised some clever devices that employed the altar fire in conjunction with hydraulics to work dancing statues, lactating statues, and statues that cried tears of blood. Temples in other Greek cities followed suit. Roman visitors to Greek temples were amazed by such displays, but thought such duplicity was impious. Perhaps that is what lies behind Varro's opinion that the introduction of images (from the Greeks) had led to a less than pious or reverent form of worship in his own time.

I like the idea that you will focus on creating portable altars for your practice. The ideas on altar expressed above give my reasons for supporting this. Decorating the altars with images should be understood as instilling your own numen into the objects all the more, and this can be an offering in itself if you so dedicate your work. You should make separate altars for the individual deities that you worship. although in modern practice we do not emphasize this point. Altars for celestial Gods should be rectangular, and the fire you build for Them in the focus should likewise be in a rectangular shape. It is in these square altars that a palas stone is properly placed. For terrestrial gods, hollow round altars should be used, and the fire build in a circular form down inside the altar. These round altars do not need palas stones, as there placement on the ground acts in the same manner. Alternately large stones, placed by Nature, or hollow tree trunks, or tree branches could be used. It depends on what deity you are invoking and how you sacrifice offerings. Libations of wine, milk, or honey can be poured over a stone, votives can be hung from trees. For deities of the sea, or of rivers, springs, or lakes, an altar wouldn't necessarily be used but the offering thrown into the water itself. You could construct a vessel on which to place an offering, burn incense and perhaps a candle, then send it down a river in sacrifice. For infernal deities natural crevices serve, otherwise wells might be used, or else you are to dig a pit first and build your fire within in a round form. For the Manes, terracotta altars were built in a rectangular form and placed in pits, and then covered with earth afterward. That is, their rites combined features for the infernal and for the celestial Gods since, although part of them first travelled to the infernal regions, the better part, their divine genii, would go on to a celestial home beneath the Gods.

Images are decorations and not required in Roman practice. It could even be argued that use of images is contrary to Roman practice, at least in the Numa tradition of the religio Romana. Where as the type and construction of an altar used in a caeremonia is all important and should be designed in the manner proper for the rites being performed.

Di Deaeque vos bene ament.