MANES. This term, which is clearly euphemistic, meaning “goodies” or “good fellows,” was applied by the Romans to the spirits of the departed. As in all nations of antiquity, and in many existing savage tribes, these spirits were held by them in great awe and veneration, as being powerful for good or for harm. The doctrine, whether imported from the Egyptian theology or of Turanian origin through the Etruscan tomb-builders, is closely allied to that of the Greek belief in the existence of the souls of heroes, ancestors, and generally of the “mighty dead,” whom they called δαίμονες, but, of course, in a sense widely different from our notion of demons. Thus in Aeschylus the spirits of Agamemnon and of Darius are invoked as δαίμονες, and in the Suppliant Women (24) they are appealed to as βαρν-ημοι χθόνιοι, where the notion of “heavily-punishing” seems conveyed by the compound epithet. Generally, the daemones were regarded as hostile, or at least dangerous, and blood-offerings (εvαγurμoi) were made to them to propitiate their wrath, and to induce them to send aid or material blessings from the realms below. The idea appears to have been that the spirits ranged the earth, hungry and forlorn, and seeking whom they might devour. Hence pestilences and sudden deaths were attributed to them, and in this sense they came to be regarded as the enemies of the living. Victims were given to them, that they might not themselves make victims of whomsoever they pleased. Offerings of all kinds were placed in the tomb or burnt on the pyre, and the rites of burial were, with the lamentations of surviving friends, thought necessary for the repose of the ghost. Hesiod, however, in a remarkable passage (Op. et D., 122), speaks of the ...δαίμονες in terms more allied to our ideas of “guardian angels.” He says they were the souls or spirits of the men who lived in the golden age, and that their office now is to walk the earth unseen, and to watch the actions and conduct of man. The meaning of the word demon is very obscure. Some connect it with 8ιF, the root of Bis, Byaus, Zeυ<s, Juppiter, &c., others with δαiαv, “to allot,” “to distribute,” (Curtius, Gr. Etym., i. 230), while others, with Plato (Cratylus, p. 398, B), have supposed that 8aημMv, “knowing,”is the original sense. In a general way, δαίμων meant a man’s luck or fortune in life, and hence δυσδαiμωv and ev8alμMv are common phrases for “unfortunate” and “prosperous.”
The word manes seems referable to an old adjective, of which there were two forms, manis and manus, “good.” From the former comes immanis, applied to things or persons of formidable size, power, dimensions, <tc., and so “huge,” “savage,” or in any sense “uncanny.” The morning is mane, “the good or lucky time,” because there was an old proverb (Hesiod, Op. et D., 578) that morning was the best time for work. It is generally used as an ablative, mane novo, &c., yet Virgil has dτιm mane novum, (Georg, iii. 325). Manus is found in the old Italian divinity Genita Mana, the “good mother,” also called Mania and Larunda, the reputed mother of the Lares or household gods. To this goddess Pliny tells us (N. II. xxix. 58) the Romans offered in sacrifice a puppy-dog, catulus. In xxi. 11 he says that chaplets used to be offered to the manes, and in xxxiii. 2 he speaks of men digging mines to get wealth in sede manium, in the depths where the spirits reside.
There can be no doubt that food offerings were, according to a widely spread superstition, offered to the manes, as to the Lar, to Hecate, to Trivia, and to other infernal powers. Thus Virgil (who is fond of the use of the word) says in Aen. iii. 63, “aggeritur tumulo tellus; stant Manibus arae.” On these altars, he adds, goblets of milk and the blood of victims were offered, though he evidently has in view the Greek rite of appeasing the daemons. Perhaps there were not such solemn propitiatory sacrifices made to the manes as to the Greek δαίμονες. But all nations have reverenced the spirits of their ancestors, and especially those nations which retain strongly patriarchal traditions and the distinctions of caste.
The genius was a kind of attendant on the living, the sharer of his fortunes, and perhaps to some extent regulating them, from birth to death. To indulge one’s genius originally meant to please him with good cheer, an idea that lay at the root of all primitive notions of sacrifice. Of this notion there is no Greek equivalent. It seems more nearly allied to the superstition of a “double” or “wraith,” a kind of alter ego who at once was, and was not, identical with the individual person. (See Hor., Epist. ii. 2, 187.)
Between the manes and the received idea of souls there was a pretty close analogy. When Virgil says (Aen. vi. 743), “quisque suos patimur manes,” he appears to mean that the souls of all receive the reward of deeds done in life. There was, of course, a corresponding idea that the manes could be conjured up, and could appear as ghosts. Thus Propertius (El., v. 7), commencing with the verse “Sunt aliquid manes, letum non omnia finit,” describes how the ghost of his Cynthia appeared to him and upbraided him for his faithlessness. See also Virg., Aen. iv. 490 and v. 99. Like the 8aigove<s, they were also supposed to have the power of sending dreams (ibid. vi. 897).
In sepulchral inscriptions, even on early Christian tombs, the dedication dis manibus is common, showing the strong tendency to deify which prevailed with the Romans under the empire.
