Talk:Lares

Copy-edit proposal
A basic and quite drastic re-write's overdue, with a more detailed, chronological and contextual approach. There'll be a deal of stripping out; very little citation's provided in the article as it stands, and the good, specialist scholarship available on this topic makes redundant most of what's based (presumably) on the Encyclopedias listed as references. I'm surprised that the topic is regarded as one of low importance. Commonplace and domestic practices are the stuff of real, everyday lives. The Lares cult was fostered as part of Rome's Augustan transformation; little statues with some big issues attached. Haploidavey (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The mother of the Lares
I've pasted in disproportionately long section on her; the rest of the article will eventually be of equal weight. She's there because without her, the Lares themselves lack dimension. Taylor and others lead me to disagree on Lar - at least the archaic Lar - as truly equivalent to Genius loci; the Lar, if genius, seems essentially intermediate and liminal; boundary rather than place, though one does not of course preclude the other. For now (and the next couple of weeks), could interested editors just bear with me? Haploidavey (talk) 17:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * The long passage on Mater Larum will probably be best trimmed down and a summary left here, with links to a new article Mater Larum. In due course. Haploidavey (talk) 15:09, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

top image
Is there a content reason for placing the current image (which isn't of great photographic quality) at the top instead of the Lar from Spain? If there's a reason, I didn't want to swap them just because the one from Spain's prettier. Cynwolfe (talk) 03:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * They're in that order because... that's the order they're in. If you want to justify a shuffle on grounds of relative prettiness, that's fine by me. Anyway, the Spanish Lar's nice'n rustic. Haploidavey (talk) 11:30, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I thought maybe it was a question of provenance (like, maybe that one's from Rome or Pompeii instead of the provinces). Also, I dread pointing this out, but the, erm, era convention is not consistent throughout: the Spanish lar caption uses AD and the top one CE. You may know which it's supposed to be. For all I know (since I don't remember), I'm the one who added the one from Spain, and used the wrong convention. Cynwolfe (talk) 12:26, 2 December 2011 (UTC)


 * What, more horrors?! Do we go for AfD, RfC or WP:Era? I opt for the last. Haploidavey (talk) 12:52, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I definitely think the whole article should be deleted because of this, and that I should be blocked even if I wasn't the one who did it. The only editor I know who can use an emoticon and still maintain his gravitas is Pmanderson, but for the benefit of readers unaccustomed to our banter, let me add :) Cynwolfe (talk) 13:42, 2 December 2011 (UTC)
 * A year and a half later … if it's OK, Davey, I'm moving the better-quality image of the Lar from Spain to the top; the shadows and background distraction on the other still bug me. I might do a little image rearranging to accommodate one of the inscriptions to the Lares from Commons. Nothing convulsive. Cynwolfe (talk) 13:31, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Imperial bias
As usual in articles on roman religion edited by Haplodavey and Cynwulf using Anglophone sources undue emphasis and weight is given to augustan cults and imperial restoration without digging into its grounding traditions, often primitive. How can we have the list of the Lares starting with augusti? This should be at most at the end.Aldrasto11 (talk) 02:53, 11 August 2012 (UTC)

I did some editing on the important Lares Grundules.Aldrasto11 (talk) 05:12, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I have to say, I'm disappointed at the implications and tone of some of these comments. But in response: I wasn't aware that Anglophone sources were thought a problem on the English-language wikipedia. The list sequence isn't a matter of emphasis and weight. It's alphabetical. That's why it starts with "A". A list in chronological sequence wouldn't work because on the whole, the development of the Lares is mooted and disputed. The material changes are welcome, of course... except that "Aeneas" is now cited to L.R. Taylor, in connection with the Lares Grundules. Taylor discusses the Lares Grundules in relation to Romulus and Remus, not Aeneas. I'll fix that error. Otherwise, please comment on article content, not editors.  Haploidavey (talk) 08:23, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * I do not know why/how a learned scholar as L. R. Taylor would make such a blunder. I noticed that beforehand when I first edited the passage it cited a certain Lytt. This is probably due to a version of the myth in which Romulus and Remus are Aeneas's sons, but this is of course anachronistic and should be explained or we can suppose that another Romulus, i.e. Romus is intended.


 * As for the comments nothing personal I meant to point out a streak that keeps surfacing as leading in your editing and in my opinion is not beneficial to the presentations.Aldrasto11 (talk) 09:05, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Nevertheless, Taylor makes the Romulus connection and is, as you say, a learned scholar; therefore we can and should cite her description without prejudice, along with those (much appreciated, btw) which you provided - of course, and self-evidently, there are several versions and contexts, and our submissions of these should have nothing to do with what we believe to be"right", "wrong", or even what seems the more or less likely sequence and chronology. It also has nothing to do with the preferences or tendencies you perceive in anyone's editing (on which, btw, you're quite mistaken). Please, keep calm. Ranting thus (!!) in edit summaries doesn't help anyone. If you want Taylor's own citations, they're "Cassius Hemina up. Diomedes I, p. 384 K; Nonius, p. 114 M." (cut and pasted - she doesn't specify the editions. I see that this much is already cited in the article). Haploidavey (talk) 09:37, 11 August 2012 (UTC)
 * In my view it is the editor ' s responsibility to check whether his sec. source makes a mistake. My sec. source quoted the same passage by C. Hemina attribuing the story to Aeneas, which is supported by Dionysius. I think one should investigate Hemina was referring to what character. If we leave the Romulus attribution without clarification it will engender confusion with readers on one of the most important points of the Roman religious legends. Aldrasto11 (talk) 01:32, 12 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, it's not up to us to describe apparent secondary source-variance as error. I agree we should check these things; I do just that whenever possible. But here we simply have two versions, given in various secondary sources. As none of those sources argues one version versus another, nor should we. One source says Aeneas, another says Romulus. C'est tout; and it's presumably not something grabbed out of thin air. And Taylor is not alone; for an additional secondary source that offers both the Romulus connection and the Aeneas connection, please see Dominique Briquel, "L'oiseau omnial, la louve de Mars, la truie féconde," Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome, Antiquité,  1976  (Vol.  88,  88-1) at persee -, pp. 41 - 43, including footnote 3 on p. 43, in which Schilling.is cited. Haploidavey (talk) 13:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC) (forgot to sign earlier)
 * Indeed it looks we have hit a big problem here. I trust Briquel more than Liou, who makes a rather uncritical presentation of Roman foundation legends (and BTW ignores that Stercutus is Saturn, i.e. she did not read Macrobius). I must thank you for the attention and the link as the issue is full of implications on the question of the original myth and the real nature of these Lares. I feel it may well be worth doing some digging (and could be the subject of an article), as well as bearing on the question of the Alban origins and of the relationship with the Latins. I do apologise for the tone, but I hope the discussion will be fruitful.Aldrasto11 (talk) 01:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Another question is that Marcianus has two other lar: caelestis and omnium cunctalis, if the article lists his l. militaris should also list the other two. The problem though is whether they were a Roman/Latin or Etruscan figures.Aldrasto11 (talk) 03:54, 13 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I feel Briquel and Schilling may be right and probably these lares grundules had originally nothing to do with the 30 grunting animals but were probably twins related to the roof or eaves grundae. See article divine twins.


 * I wonder whether it would feasable to start a project on Roman religion.Aldrasto11 (talk) 06:01, 14 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, definitely worth the research. We might well find enough material for a separate article on this obscure matter - unnecessarily obscure, I'd say, but for the single google-scholar page on results for "Lares Grundules". Not very promising. Interim, I wouldn't worry too much, as long as we're very clear on who says what, and give weight only where it's due. Agreed on the value here of Briquel and Schilling. And agreed that we should include Macrobius' Lares caelestis and omnium cunctalis. I can find no modern scholarly commentary on either of those; nor on Weinstock's preferred reading of the marker/altar from (I forget where - was it Lanuvium? Umbria?) Latium to Lar Aeneas. Nor even much on "Lar", and what seems to me - rightly or wrongly - a very obvious Etruscan connection.


 * A Roman religion project? I'm not sure... it's feasible all right, and a far better descriptor for what we actually do here (by and large) than "Roman Mythology". But doesn't it seem a lot of work? I've so little time, these days.  Haploidavey (talk) 13:47, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Lares and Lar
While Latin usage always has the plural, whenever one comes across a Lar (Caealestis, Militaris etc.) this is certainly Etruscan.

My readings have led me to think that the etymology of Lares is from laveres, stones, rocks.Aldrasto11 (talk) 14:37, 9 February 2013 (UTC)

Arnobius states from Greek laurai meaning vici.Aldrasto11 (talk) 08:20, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

Describing gods as Sabine
There is a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Classical Greece and Rome which relates to recent edits here and in other articles. NebY (talk) 18:25, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Just squeezing "and Sabine" in beside "Roman religion" in the introduction is seriously WP:UNDUE, completely disproportionate to Varro's simple assertion - or his educated guesses and the remnants thereof - which besides are not automatically accepted by modern, reliable scholarly sources; which is probably why Varro's list of (mostly) Sabine connections (maybe) is reproduced in rather cagey, uncommitted fashion, not always taken literally. See for example Woodard, 2006, pp.116-117, describing the Mother of the Lares (aka Mania (deity) at the darkest edges of Etruscan and Roman religion in Ovid's Fasti (see the Mother of the Lares article).

Varro is interesting and erudite but being Varro does not always make him right. He sometimes contradicts himself. He has the limitations of any primary source, and all the more reason to handle with care, not to introject our own ideas, not to stretch the article to fit them. Was he just trying to fit particular altars and shrines into Rome's traditional foundation myth? And traditions regarding Titus Tatius? Not for us to say. There's virtually nothing known about Sabine culture or Sabine religion, save for the legendary "coming together as one" through truce. Which I suppose to be shorthand for Roman domination. Whatever "Sabine religion" on the ground was like by Varro's day, I'd guess it had long been subsumed, and become Roman. Haploidavey (talk) 20:36, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Hardly any mainstream secondary sources make anything of the Sabine connection, let alone a Sabine origin for the Lares and their Mother. They simply mention the possibility, and the primary source, without further comment. This being the majority viewpoint, we should follow it. Haploidavey (talk) 20:51, 29 June 2023 (UTC)