The Lares

Reading notes

• The Loves §1.8 household gods

  The Lares who guard hearth and home; the poet's parting curse wishes Dipsas 'no Lares' - homelessness - and unending thirst.

• The Festivals §4.21 the Lares

  The household gods, moved to new dwellings at Rome's founding — one proposed origin of the fire-leaping.

• The Festivals §5.1 Lares Praestites

  The 'guardian' Lares who watched over the whole city, depicted with a dog at their feet.

• The Festivals §6.27 Lares

  The guardian household and crossroads gods, who received their shrines on June 27.

• Ibis §3 Lares

  Roman household and crossroads guardian-spirits, here numbered among the lesser gods summoned to the curse.

• The Cure for Love §8 fathers' hearth

  The Lares, household gods of the home and ancestral hearth ('Lar patrius'); leaving them is the painful first step of the cure.

• Sorrows §1.3 Lares

  The household guardian-gods of the Roman home, before whom Ovid's wife prostrates herself.