Genius (mythology)

In Roman religion, the genius (Latin: [ˈɡɛnɪ.ʊs]; pl.: genii) is the individual instance of a general divine nature that is present in every individual person, place, or thing.^[1] Much like a guardian angel, the genius would follow each man from the hour of his birth until the day he died.^[2] For women, it was the Juno spirit that would accompany each of them.

Nature

Each individual place had a genius (genius loci) and so did powerful objects, such as volcanoes. 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. It was extremely important in the Roman mind to propitiate the appropriate genii for the major undertakings and events of their lives.

Thus man, following the dictates of his heart, venerated something higher and more divine than he could find in his own limited individuality, and brought to "this great unknown of himself" offerings as a god; thus compensating by veneration for the indistinct knowledge of his divine origin.^[3]

The Christian theologian

Although the term genius might apply to any divinity whatsoever, most of the higher-level and state genii had their own well-established names. 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. Houses, doors, gates, streets, districts, tribes, each one had its own genius.

Genii were often viewed as protective spirits, as one would propitiate them for protection. 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").^[7] Certainly, if those genii did not perform their proper function well, the infant would be in danger.

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. Each lararium features a panel fresco containing the same theme: two peripheral figures (Lares) attend on a central figure (family genius) or two figures (genius and juno) who may or may not be at an altar. In the foreground is one or two serpents crawling toward the genius through a meadow motif. Campania and Calabria preserved an ancient practice of keeping a propitious house snake, here linked with the genius.^[8]

History of the concept

Origin

The English term is

The genius appears explicitly in Roman literature as early as Plautus, where one character jests that the father of another is so avaricious that he uses cheap Samian ware in sacrifices to his own genius, so as not to tempt the genius to steal it.^[11] In this passage, the genius is not identical to the person, as to propitiate oneself would be absurd, and yet the genius also has the avarice of the person; that is, the same character, the implication being, like person, like genius.

Horace, writing when the first emperor was introducing the cult of his own genius, describes the genius as "the companion which controls the natal star; the god of human nature, in that he is mortal for each person, with a changing expression, white or black".^[12]

Imperial genii

If the genius of the

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 (

Penates to be treason, ending their official terms.^[16]

The concept, however, continued in representation and speech under different names or with accepted modifications.

Roman iconography

Coins

The genius of a corporate social body is often a

Siscia in Croatia, 270–275 AD, featuring a standing image of the GENIUS ILLVR (Genius Exercitus Illyriciani,^[18] "Genius of the Illyrian Army") on the reverse;^[19] an aureus of Rome, 134–138 AD, with an image of a youth holding a cornucopia and patera (sacrificial dish) and the inscription GENIOPR, genio populi Romani, "to the genius of the Roman people", on the reverse.^[20]

• 
  Scene from lararium, Pompeii
• 
  Genius of Augustus
• 
  Genius of Antoninus Pius
• 
  Unknown Roman genius near Pompeii, 1st century BC
• 
  Lararium with small, central ancestral genius figure flanked by Lares, above a serpent-genius representing fertility. House of Iulius Polybius, Pompeii.
• 
  Ancestral genius (upper centre) flanked by Lares, with serpent below. Lararium, House of the Vettii Pompeii.
• 
  Bacchus clad with grapes, and a serpentine Agathodaimon

  ("good divinity"), genius of the soil around Vesuvius

Modern-era representations

• 
  Genius of love, Meister des Rosenromans, c. 1420–1430
• 
  Genius of victory, Michelangelo, 1532–34
• 
  Genius of Palermo, Ignazio Marabitti, c. 1778
• 
  Genius of liberty,

  Augustin Dumont

  , 1840
• 
  Genius of Alexander,

  Marie Louise Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

  , 1814
• 
  Genius of war, Elías Martín, 19th century
• 
  Genius of the resistance,

  Antoine Etex

  , 1833–36
• 
  Genius of

  Beethoven
• 
  Genius of America, Adolphe Yvon, 1858
• 
  Genius of the Peace of Paris, Chr. Dan. Rauch
• 
  Genius, Carl Milles, 1932–40
• 
  Genius of painting, Geo Verbanck, 1912, monument in honour of the Van Eyck brothers – backside, Ghent, Belgium

See also

• Daemon
• Di Penates
• Holy Guardian Angel
• Jinn
• Kami
• Qareen
• Religion in ancient Rome
• Tutelary deity
• Yidam

References

1. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (2009). "genius". A Latin Dictionary. Meford, MA: Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. Retrieved 1 July 2009.
2. ^ Mary Ann Dwight Grecian and Roman Mythology p.253
3. ISBN 978-1314004731
   .
4. ISBN 0-14-044894-2
   . Varro says that a 'genius' is the rational soul of each man ... and that the soul of the world itself is a universal 'genius', and that this is what they call Jupiter.
5. ^ Grimal, P. (1965). "Rome: Gods by Conquest". Larousse World Mythology. The Hamlyn Publishing Group Limited. p. 181.
6. ISBN 0-8154-0073-X
   .
7. ^ Schmitz, Leonhard (2005) [1867]. "Cuba". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Little, Brown & Company, The Ancient Library. p. 900. Archived from the original on 14 May 2011.
8. ^ Orr, David Gerald (1980). Browne, Ray Broadus (ed.). Roman Domestic Religion: The Archaeology of Roman Popular Art. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green University Popular Press. pp. 88–103. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
9. ^ Harper, Douglas (2001). "Genius". Online Etymological Dictionary. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
10. ^
    Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879). "gens"
    . A Latin Dictionary. Perseus Digital Library. Retrieved 8 March 2019.
11. ^ Plautus, Captivi 2.2.
12. ^ Horace, Epistles, II, 2, 187-189.
13. ISBN 90-04-07179-2
    .
14. ^ Ward, John (2003) [1911]. "Chapter VI Religions of Roman Britain". Roman Era in Britain. London, Chicago: Methuen & Co. Ltd.; LacusCurtius, University of Chicago. pp. 102–103.
15. ^ Murley, Joseph Clyde (1922). The cults of Cisalpine Gaul as seen in the inscriptions. Menasha Wisconsin: George Banta Publishing Company. pp. 19–24.
16. ISBN 1-4325-5089-6. The authors cite Codex Theodosianus
    XVI.x.xii.
17. ^ "Bust of Genius Populi Romani, Illustration of Boston 42.527". Medford: Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. 1998. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
18. ^ Rasche, Christopher, ed. (1785). Lexicon Universae Rei Numariae Veterum et Praecipue Graecorum ac Romanorum. Vol. 2 Part 1. Libraria Gleditschia. p. 1379.
19. ^ "Genius, wearing modius on head, holding a wreath; military standard at right, Illustration of Boston 66.426". Medford: Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. 1998. Retrieved 2 July 2009.
20. ^ "Reverse: Genius standing: Illustration of Boston 1974.521". Medford: Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University. 1998. Retrieved 12 July 2009.

Further reading

• Dwight, Mary Ann (1860). "Genii and Inferior Deities". Grecian and Roman mythology. New York: A.S. Barnes & Burr.
  ISBN 0-524-02016-7
  .
• Fowler, W. Warde (2007). "Lecture I: Sketch of the Course: Domestic Deities". Roman Ideas of Deity in the Last Century before the Christian Era - Lectures Delivered in Oxford for the Common University Fund. Holyoake Press.
  ISBN 978-1-4067-6774-2
  .

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Genius.

• Schmitz, Leonhard (2005) [1867]. "Genius". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 2. Little, Brown & Company, The Ancient Library. pp. 241–242. Archived from the original on 23 June 2009.
• Brewer, E. Cobham, ed. (2009) [1894]. "Genius, Genii (Roman mythology)". Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. fromoldbooks.org. Retrieved 3 July 2009.
• "Genius". mythindex.com. 2007–2008. Archived from the original on 24 April 2009. Retrieved 3 July 2009.