41. We can, if it is thought
proper, speak briefly of the Lares also, whom the mass think to be the
gods of streets and ways, because the Greeks name streets
lauræ. In different parts of his writings, Nigidius
speaks of them now as the guardians of houses and dwellings; now
as the Curetes, who are said to have once concealed, by the clashing of
cymbals,4061
| 4061
Æribus. Cf. Lucretius, ii. 633–636. |
the infantile
cries of
Jupiter; now the five Digiti Samothracii, who, the
Greeks tell
us, were named
Idæi Dactyli. Varro, with like
hesitation, says at one time that they are the Manes,
4062
| 4062
The ms. reads manas,
corrected as above by all edd. except Hild., who reads
Manias. |
and therefore the mother of the Lares
was named Mania; at another time, again, he maintains that they are
gods of the air, and are termed heroes; at another, following the
opinion of the ancients, he says that the Lares are ghosts, as it were
a kind of tutelary demon, spirits of dead
4063
| 4063
The ms. reads effunctorum;
LB. et funct., from the correction of Stewechius; Gelenius, with
most of the other edd., def. |
men.
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