Genius (mythology)

The concept extended to some specifics: the genius of the theatre, of vineyards, and of festivals, which made performances successful, grapes grow, and celebrations succeed, respectively.

Genius applied most often to individual places or people not generally known; that is, to the smallest units of society and settlements, families and their homes.

For example, to protect infants one propitiated a number of deities concerned with birth and childrearing: Cuba ("lying down to sleep"), Cunina ("of the cradle") and Rumina ("of breast-feeding").

Hundreds of lararia, or family shrines, have been discovered at Pompeii, typically off the atrium, kitchen or garden, where the smoke of burnt offerings could vent through the opening in the roof.

[8] The English term is borrowed from Latin genius, "household guardian spirit"; earlier, "innate male power of a race or clan", deriving from the Indo-European root *g̑enh₁-, "give birth, produce", which is also reflected in Latin gignō, "give birth", and gēns, gentis, "tribe, people".

[12] Octavius Caesar on return to Rome after the final victory of the Roman Civil War at the Battle of Actium appeared to the Senate to be a man of great power and success, clearly a mark of divinity.

[15] Surviving from the time of the empire hundreds of dedicatory, votive and sepulchral inscriptions ranging over the entire territory testify to the flourishing of official cult (cultus) of genius.

In 392 AD with the final victory of Christianity Theodosius I declared the veneration of the genii, Lares and Penates to be treason, ending their official terms.