be the
prototypes of the Dances of Death so popular in the Middle Ages? We find
something very similar on the well-known silver cups discovered at Bosco
Reale, though Death itself does not seem to have been represented in
this way. Some of the designs in the medieval series would certainly
have appealed to the average bourgeois Roman of the Trimalchio
type--e.g., "Les Trois Vifs et les Trois Morts," the three men riding
gaily out hunting and meeting their own skeletons. Such crude contrasts
are just what one would expect to find at Pompeii.

Lemures and Larvae are often confused, but Lemures is the regular word
for the dead not at rest--the "Lemuri," or spirits of the churchyard, of
some parts of modern Italy. They were evil spirits, propitiated in early
days with blood. Hence the first gladiatorial games were given in
connection with funerals. Both in Greece and in Rome there were special
festivals for appeasing these restless spirits. Originally they were of
a public character, for murder was common in primitive times, and such
spirits would be numerous, as is proved by the festival lasting three
days.

In Athens the Nemesia were held during Anthesterion (February-March). As
in Rome, the days were unlucky. Temples were closed and business was
suspended, for the dead were abroad. In the morning the doors were
smeared with pitch, and those in the house chewed whitethorn to keep off
the evil spirits. On the last day of the festival offerings were made
to Hermes, and the dead were formally bidden to depart.[21]

Ovid describes the Lemuria or Lemuralia.[22] They took place in May,
which was consequently regarded as an unlucky month for marriages, and
is still so regarded almost as universally in England to-day as it was
in Rome during the principate of Augustus. The name of the festival Ovid
derives from Remus, as the ghost of his murdered brother was said to
have appeared to Romulus in his sleep and to have demanded burial. Hence
the institution of the Lemuria.

The head of the family walked through the house with bare feet at dead
of night, making the mystic sign with his first and fourth fingers
extended, the other fingers being turned inwards and the thumb crossed
over them, in case he might run against an unsubstantial spirit as he
moved noiselessly along. This is the sign of "le corna," held to be
infallible against the Evil Eye in modern Italy. After solemnly washing
his hands, he places black beans in his mout