Lemures
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"The ancients supposed that men's souls after death wandered all over the world and disturbed the peace of its inhabitants. The good spirits were called Lares familiares, and the evil ones were known by the name of Larvae, or Lemures. They terrified the good, and continually haunted the wicked and impious; and the Romans had the custom of celebrating festivals in their honour, called Lemuria, or Lemuralia, in the month of May. They were first instituted by Romulus to appease the ghost of his brother Remus, from whom they were called Remuria, and, by corruption, Lemuria. These solemnities continued three nights, during which the temples of the gods were shut and marriages were prohibited. It was usual for the people to throw black beans on the graves of the deceased, or to burn them, as the smell was supposed to be insupportable to them. They also muttered magical words, and, by beating kettles and drums, they believed that the ghosts would depart and no longer come to terrify their relations upon earth."--Bibliotheca Classica (1788) by John Lemprière |
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The lemures were shades or spirits of the restless or malignant dead in Roman religion, and are probably cognate with an extended sense of larvae (from Latin larva, "mask") as disturbing or frightening.
Lemures is the more common literary term but even this is rare: it is used by the Augustan poets Horace and Ovid, the latter in his Fasti, the six-book calendar poem on Roman holidays and religious customs.
