Roman Questions (51-52)

Question 51. Why is a dog set before the Lares, whom they properly call Praestites, while the Lares themselves are covered with dogs’ skins?

Solution. Is it that Praestites are they that preside, and it is fit that presidents should be keepers, and should be frightful to strangers (as dogs are) but mild and gentle to those of the family? Or is it rather what some Romans assert, that—as some philosophers who follow Chrysippus are of the opinion that evil spirits wander up and down, which the Gods do use as public executioners of unholy and wicked men—so the Lares are a certain sort of furious and revengeful daemons, that are observers of men’s lives and families, and are here clothed with dogs’ skins and have a dog sitting by them, as being sagacious to hunt upon the foot and to prosecute wicked men?

Question 52. Why do they sacrifice a dog to Mana Geneta, and pray that no home-born should become good?

Solution. Is the reason that Geneta is a deity that is employed about the generation and purgation of corruptible things? For this word signifies a certain flux (i.e. Mana from manare) and generation, or a flowing generation; for as the Greeks do sacrifice a dog to Hecate, so do the Romans to Geneta on the behalf of the natives of the house. Moreover, Socrates saith that the Argives do sacrifice a dog to Eilioneia (Lucina) to procure a facility of delivery. But what if the prayer be not made for men, but for dogs puppied at home, that none of them should be good; for dogs ought to be currish and fierce? Or is it that they that are deceased are pleasantly called good; and hence, speaking mystically in their prayer, they signify their desire that no home-born should die? Neither ought this to seem strange; for Aristotle says that it is written in the treaty of the Arcadians with the Lacedaemonians that none of the Tegeates should be made good on account of aid rendered