Lares in Wikipedia
Lares (sing. Lar) – or archaically, Lases – were ancient Roman
protective deities. Their origin is uncertain; they may have
been guardians of the house, fields, boundaries or
fruitfulness, unnamed hero-ancestors, or an amalgam of these.
In the late Republican era they were venerated in the form of
small statues of a standardised form, usually paired.
Lares were thought to observe and influence all that happened
within the boundaries of their location or function. The
statues of domestic Lares were placed at table during family
meals; their presence, cult and blessing seem to have been
required at all important family functions. Some ancient (and
some modern) scholarship therefore categorises them as
household gods. Roman writers sometimes identify or conflate
them with ancestor-deities, domestic Penates and gods of the
hearth. Compared to Rome's major deities, their scope and
potency were limited but they were important objects of cult:
by analogy, a homeward-bound Roman could be described as
returning ad Larem (to the Lares)...
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