DI PENATES

The Di Penates (always invoked in the plural) were strictly Roman deities with no Greek counterpart. They were spirits of the innermost part of the house, protectors of the household provisions, and Roman families performed regular rituals in their honor. There were also Penates publici who protected the Roman state and the imperial family. Vergil projected these very Roman spirits back into the Trojan past in the Aeneid, when he had the ghost of Hector tell Aeneas to take the Penates of Troy with him to Italy; the Romans believed that these original Penates were kept in the Temple of Vesta along with the Palladium.

This Roman silver figurine of one of the Penates dates from the third century CE; it was part of a hoard of silver statuettes and coins buried in Mâcon, France after 260 CE and may have come from a sanctuary. The god wears a mural crown (representing the walls of a city) and holds a libation bowl and cornucopia, indicating his role as guardian of abundance within the household and the city.