Final Draft - Preview Matter - Florida State University

Vergil’s statement that Aeneas was unsure whether the snake embodied the Genius Loci or his
father’s attendant spirit indicates that the same confusion must have affected the Genius Loci and
the Genius of an ancestor. It is also important to note that, Aeneas is performing rites for his
dead father when the Genius Loci emerges from Anchises’ tomb; this indicates a clear
connection to the cult of the dead. The constant grouping of Lares, Genius, and serpent is
instructive, and it is difficult to say whether or not a Roman would have conceptualized these
figures as entirely distinct entities. The generative powers of the Genius are closely tied to the
grave and the ancestors, 214 and the serpent, as we have seen, is a symbol of both fertility and
death. Even if we limit the serpent’s role to function as a guardian spirit of a particular place, 215
its consistent appearance in household shrines with or without other figures associated with the
cult of the ancestors indicate that the Genius and Genius Loci share similar meaning and
function. 216 The Lares, Penates, Genius, and Genius Loci are all part of the same cultic context,
and the worship of one’s ancestors was of critical importance to the ancient Romans. 217 It was
part of a family’s duties and the mos maiorum. 218 As Turcan notes,
There was nothing more specifically Roman than domestic worship; it was what
immediately distinguished Roman religion, for example on Delos, from the Greek
environment, in the case of the colonists who lived on the island. 219
It is thus significant, that a key feature of Roman identity involves cult focused on a deity
in serpent form.
As one can see from this assortment of deities, the serpent’s symbolism is manifold. It is
associated with both the healing and harmful forces of nature, fertility and procreative power, and
life and death in a more general way. In Aesculapius, the embodiment of all these ideas, we also
find an example of a Greek god imported to Italy whose myths and cult were adopted with little
change by the people of Rome. Aesculapius also serves as an example of a therianthropic deity
whose depictions in literature and art are not consistent with his worshippers’ conception in cult.
214 Altheim 1938, 169.
215 Wiseman (2004, 22) refers to the Genius as a “guardian angel” of the paterfamilias and the Lares as protectors of
the home. Fowler (1969, 19) refers to the Genius as “permanent companion and protector throughout life.”
216 Boyce 1942, 13. It should also not seem odd that the Genius Loci, a chthonic spirit, received offerings associated
with the cult of the dead. In fact, it is quite logical.
217 Fowler (1969, 23) notes that the deified ancestors were thought of collectively as the di parentes (in the case of a
specific family) or the di Manes (for all of the dead). Groups of gods with indistinct identities are characteristic of
the Roman conception of the ancestors in the afterlife.
218 It is the close association with Roman family values that made the Genius Augusti such a powerful part of
Augustus’ propaganda. For Augustus as paterfamilias of the state, see Turcan 2000, 136.
219 Turcan 2000, 14.
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