Note 1504 — PERSIUS.

Lemures. After his murder by Romulus, the shade of his brother Remus was said to have appeared to Faustulus and his wife Acca Larentia, and to have desired that a propitiatory festival to his Manes should be instituted. This was therefore done, and three days were kept in May (the 7th, 5th, and 3d before the Ides) under the name of Remuria or Lemuria. They were kept at night, during which time they went with bare feet, washed their hands thrice, and threw black beans nine times behind their backs, which ceremonies were supposed to deliver them from the terrors of the Lemures. During these days all the temples of the gods were kept strictly closed, and all marriages contracted in the month of May were held inauspicious. Ov., Fast., v., 421-92. Hor., ii, Ep. ii., 208, "Somnia, terrores magicos, miracula, sagas, nocturnos Lemures portentaque Thessala rides." The Lemures seem from Apuleius to have been identical with the Larvæ, which is a cognate form to Lax. (For a good Roman ghost story, see Plin., vii., Epist. 27.)