Note 132 — Chapter V · THE CULT OF SOULS

The idea of the Lar familiaris can be translated into Greek not inadequately by the words ὁ κατ’ οἰκίαν ἥρως, ἥρως οἰκουρός, as is done by Dionys. Hal., and Plutarch in their accounts of the story of Ocrisia (D.H. 4, 2, 3; Plu. Fort. Rom. 9, p. 323 C). But this was not an idea current among the Greeks. The Latin genius generis = Lar familiaris (Laber. 54 Rib.) is most nearly approached by the remarkable expression ἥρως συγγενείας, CIA. iii, 1460. Inside the house, at the family hearth (in whose μυχοί, “dwells” Hekate: E., Med. 397), the Greeks worshipped—no longer the spirits of the ancestors—but the θεοὶ πατρῷοι, κτήσιοι, μύχιοι, ἑρκεῖοι. These were compared with the Roman Penates (D.H. 1, 67, 3; cf. Hyg. ap. Macr. 3, 4, 13), but their relationship to the spirits of the house and of the family is considerably less apparent than in the case of the Penates. (It is simply imitation of Roman custom that makes the dying Peregrinus call upon the δαίμονες πατρῷοι καὶ μητρῷοι: Luc., Peregr. 36. Στέφανος τοῖς τοῦ πατρὸς αὑτοῦ δαίμοσιν, ins. from Lykia, CIG. 4232 = BCH. xv, 552, n. 26. τοῖς δαίμοσι τῆς ἀποθανούσης γυναικός, Philo, Leg. ad G. 65, ii, p. 555 M. More in Lob., Agl. 769 n.)