| Religion in ancient Rome |
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Thedi inferi ordii inferi (Latin, "the gods below")[1] were a shadowy collective ofancient Roman deities associated with death and the underworld.[2] Theepithetinferi is also given to the mysteriousManes,[3] a collective of ancestral spirits. The most likely origin of the wordManes is frommanus ormanis (more often in Latin as its antonymimmanis), meaning "good" or "kindly," which was a euphemistic way to speak of theinferi so as to avert their potential to harm or cause fear.[4]
Varro (1st century BC)[5] distinguishes among thedi superi ("gods above"), whose sites for offerings are calledaltaria; thedi terrestres ("terrestrial gods"), whose altars arearae; anddi inferi, to whom offerings are made by means offoci, "hearths," on the ground or in a pit. In general,animal sacrifice to gods of the upper world usually resulted in communal meals, with the cooked victim apportioned to divine and human recipients. Infernal gods, by contrast, received burnt offerings (holocausts), in which the sacrificial victims were burnt to ash, because the living were prohibited from sharing a meal with the dead. This prohibition is reflected also infuneral rites, where the deceased's passage into the realm of the dead is marked with a holocaust to his Manes at his tomb, while his family returns home to share a sacrificial meal at which his exclusion from the feast was ritually pronounced. Thereafter, he was considered part of the collective Manes, sharing in the sacrifices made to them.[6]
Thus, victims for public sacrifices were most often domesticated animals that were a normal part of the Roman diet, while offerings of victims the Romans considered inedible, such as horses and puppies, mark a chthonic aspect of the deity propitiated, whether the divinity belonged to the underworld entirely. Secret ritual practices characterized as "magic" were often holocausts directed at underworld gods, and puppies were a not uncommon offering, especially toHecate.[7]Di inferi were often invoked in binding spells(defixiones), which offer personal enemies to them.[8] The infernal gods were also the recipients on the rare occasions whenhuman sacrifice was carried out in Rome.[9] The ritual ofdevotio, when a general pledged his own life as an offering along with the enemy, was directed at the gods of the underworld under the nameDi Manes.[10]
Religious sites and rituals for thedi inferi were properly outside thepomerium, Rome's sacred boundary, as were tombs.[11] Horse racing along with thepropitiation of underworld gods was characteristic of "old and obscure"Roman festivals such as theConsualia, theOctober Horse, theTaurian Games, and sites in theCampus Martius such as theTarentum and theTrigarium. The Taurian Games were celebrated specifically to propitiate thedi inferi.[12]
The rarely raced three-horse chariot(triga, from which thetrigarium, as a generic term for "field for equestrian exercise", took its name) was sacred to thedi inferi. According toIsidore of Seville, the three horses represented the three stages of a human life: childhood, youth, and old age.[13]
In theEtruscan tradition of tree divination, thedi inferi were thetutelaries of certain trees and shrubs, on one list thebuckthorn,red cornel,fern,black fig, "those that bear a black berry and black fruit,"holly,woodland pear,butcher's broom,briar, andbrambles."[14] The wood of these trees, calledarbores infelices ("inauspicious trees"), hadapotropaic powers and was used for burning objects regarded as ill omens.[15]
Theearly Christian poetPrudentius regarded thedi inferi as integral to the ancestral religion of Rome, and criticized thegladiatorial games held for them as representative of the underworld gods' inhumane and horrifying nature. To Prudentius, the other Roman gods were merely false, easily explained aseuhemerized mortals, but an act of devotion to thedi inferi constituteddevil worship, because Christians assimilated thedi inferi to their beliefs pertaining toHell and the figure variously known as theDevil,Satan, orLucifer.[16]
The following list includes deities who were thought to dwell in the underworld, or whose functions mark them as primarily or significantlychthonic or concerned with death. They typically receive nocturnal sacrifices, or dark-colored animals as offerings. Other deities may have had a secondary or disputed chthonic aspect. Rituals pertaining toMars, particularly in a form influenced byEtruscan tradition, suggest a role in the cycle of birth and death.Mercury moves between the realms of upper- and underworld as apsychopomp. The agricultural godConsus had analtar that was underground, like that of Dis and Proserpina.Deities concerned with birth are often cultivated like death deities, with nocturnal offerings that suggest a theological view of birth and death as a cycle.
The deities listed below are not to be regarded as collectively forming thedi inferi, whose individual identities are obscure.
