The Romans carried out their household rites in the lararium, a little sacred space within the house dedicated to the protector deities of the hearth and the family.

Lares, Penates and Genii were worshipped in the lararium; the rites were generally performed by the head of the household (pater familias) for the benefit of the family nucleus, the property and activities in general.

(Image: Lararium dated to the first century in the House of the Vettii, Pompeii)

@collispalatinus

Perhaps it’s worth clarifying that the meaning of this rather shocking statement is purification from bodily attachment. It does not suggest that life is meaningless, bad, or valueless. Indeed, it can’t mean those things, as Plato clearly felt that care for the body was important (though secondary to care of the soul) and that the state should be well ordered and protected.

See the prayer of Simplicius a few posts earlier to get some further clarity on this issue.

"Let not your feeble eyes expect to sleep
Until you have rehearsed each of the day's deeds three times:
'Where have I transgressed? what have I done? what duty not fulfilled?'
Beginning from the first go through them in detail, and then
Rebuke yourself for the mean things you have done, but delight in the good."

To honour the beings superior by nature according to their substantial rank; to accord parents and relatives the highest esteem; to welcome and befriend good men; to prevail over our bodily functions; to feel shame before oneself everywhere; to engage in justice; to know beforehand that our possessions and ephemeral lives are easily destroyed; to welcome our lot in life as assigned to us by divine judgement; to use prudent thought that is pleasing to god and to change one's thinking for the better; to practise the love of speaking, using real arguments; to be immune to deception and slavishness for the preservation of virtue; to use good counsel before we act, as a result of which our actions will be free from regret; to be pure of conceit; to pursue a life informed by knowledge; to reform the body and externals to make them cooperate with virtue. These are the prenoscriptions of the lawgiving intellect for souls. Our reflective power, after it has accepted these, becomes an untiring judge of itself, often saying to itself, 'Where have I transgressed? what have I done?', and undertaking to remember everything in orderly succession for the sake of virtue.

Hierocles, Commentary on the Golden Verses 19.3-4

For most people, [Epictetus] says, flatter women right from a young age, and honor them, addressing them as 'Ladies', with no other end in view than sleeping with them. Hence the women quite reasonably make themselves ready for this: they 'beautify themselves and put all of their hopes in this'. Nor should they be held responsible so much as the men, who honor them on this account. Hence it is necessary to provide them right from the start with the awareness that among us they would be honored for no other reason than that their characters have become orderly, and that they have subordinated themselves to their husbands through respect. For the woman who has these qualities will then easily be habituated to housework, child-rearing and caring for her husband, and the frugal life, all of which befit women who are going to be beautiful.

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus' Handbook 127.20-30

Gold-helmeted, strong Ares, chariot-mounted,
Hard in your will, hand, shield, and spear; bronze-armored,
Staunch city saver, bulwark of Olympus,
Father of Victory, helper of Themis,
Tyrant to enemies, leader of good men,
King over manliness! Your fiery globe whirls
Among the seven planets' tracks, your horses
Blazing forever over the third orbit.
Hear me, ally of mortals, maker of fine youth;
Rain gently from on high into my being
Brightness and martial strength. Let me have power
To shake out of my head the bitter panic,
Defeating with my mind my soul's false impulse,
And yet keep down the temper that provokes me
Toward icy strife. But, blessed god, give courage -
The kind that lives in peace among the mild laws,
Away from combat and death's savage demons.

Homeric Hymn To Ares

When you receive an impression of some pleasure, take care not to get carried away by it, as with impressions in general; but rather, make it wait for you, and allow yourself some slight delay. And next, think about these two moments in time, that in which you’ll enjoy the pleasure, and that in which you’ll come to repent after having enjoyed it and will reproach yourself; and set against all of that how you’ll rejoice if you’ve abstained from the pleasure, and will congratulate yourself for having done so. If you think, however, that a suitable occasion has come for you to engage in this task, take care that you’re not overcome by its allure, and by the pleasantness and attraction of it; but set against this the thought of how much better it is to be conscious of having gained a victory over it.

Epictetus, Handbook 34

[Plato] taught, then, that the Principle of all things is one, not two, as Empedocles believed, nor infinite, as the Epicureans thought; that this one principle is not a body, as the Stoics said, but incorporeal; that, being incorporeal, it is not life (or else everything would be alive) nor soul nor intelligence nor being (for the same negative reason), but the One, which he also calls the Good. After it, he says, are the Limit and the Infinite; then the intelligible world; then the supra-mundane, and then the intra-mundane Gods; then twelve orders of angels; then human souls; then those of irrational animals; next vegetative soul; after it body, material and immaterial, mortal and immortal; material form; finally matter.

Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy 12.3-12

Or have you ever grasped [the Just itself, Beauty, or the Good] with any of your bodily senses? I am speaking of all things such as Bigness, Health, Strength and, in a word, the reality of all other things, that which each of them essentially is. Is what is most true in them contemplated through the body, or is this the position: whoever of us prepares himself best and most accurately to grasp that thing itself which he is investigating will come closest to the knowledge of it? Then he will do this most perfectly who approaches the object with thought alone, without associating any sight with his thought, or dragging in any sense perception with his reasoning, but who, using pure thought alone, tries to track down each reality pure and by itself, freeing himself as far as possible from eyes and ears and, in a word, from the whole body, because the body confuses the soul and does not allow it to acquire truth and wisdom whenever it is associated with it. Will not that man reach reality, Simmias, if anyone does?

Plato, Phaedo 65d-66a

Since, then, there exists soul which reasons about what is right and good, and discursive reasoning which enquires about the rightness and goodness of this or that particular thing, there must be some further permanent rightness from which arises the discursive reasoning in the realm of soul. Or how else would it manage to reason? And if soul sometimes reasons about the right and good and sometimes does not, there must be in us Intellect which does not reason discursively but always possesses the right, and there must be also the principle and cause and God of Intellect. He is not divided, but abides, and as he does not abide in place he is contemplated in many beings, in each and every one of those capable of receiving him as another self, just as the centre of a circle exists by itself, but every one of the radii in the circle has its point in the centre and the lines bring their individuality to it. For it is with something of this sort in ourselves that we are in contact with god and are with him and depend upon him; and those of us who converge towards him are firmly established in him.

Plotinus, Enneads 5.1.11

"The fountain and origin of all beings is the Good. For what everything strives for, and what everything stretches up towards, is the origin and goal of all things. The Good produces everything from itself, both the first things, and the intermediate things, and the lowest things. But it produces the first things contiguous to it and like itself. One Goodness produces many goodnesses, one Simplicity produces many simplicities, one Henad above all henads produces many henads, and one Origin produces many origins. For the same thing is One, and Origin, and Good, and God, since God is the first thing, and the cause of everything. But it is necessary that what is first must also be most simple, because what is composite in any way and has plurality is secondary to the one, from which the composite things and plurality come. ... It is also necessary that it should have the highest power, and all power. Superabundance of power means that in producing everything from itself it produces the things that are like it before the things that are unlike it. ... For all of the beings, which are differentiated from one another and are pluralised by their own proper differentia, are referred back each to their own single origin. (For instance, all beautiful things, whether in intellects, souls or bodies, are referred back to one fountain of beauty. ...)."

Simplicius, Commentary on Epictetus' Handbook 5.2-28

"It is well to invoke God at the beginning and end both of supper and dinner, not because he is in want of anything of the kind, but in order that the soul may be transfigured by the recollection of divinity. For since we proceed from him, and participate in a divine nature, we should honor him. Since also God is just, we should act justly in all things."

Diotogenes, On Sanctity

And if someone assumed that the origin of love was the longing for beauty itself which was there before in men's souls, and their recognition of it and kinship with it and unreasoned awareness that it is something of their own, he would hit, I think, on the truth about its cause. For the ugly is opposed to nature and to God. For nature when it creates looks towards beauty, and it looks towards the definite, which is "in the column of the good"; but the indefinite is ugly and belongs to the other column. And nature has its origin from above, from the Good, and obviously, from Beauty.

Plotinus, Enneads 3.5.1

"For all things pray according to the rank they occupy and hymn the Leaders who preside over the whole of their 'chains', either spiritually, rationally, naturally or in a sensory manner. So the sunflower moves with what makes it open as much as it can, and if one could hear how it makes the air vibrate as it turns around, one would realize from the sound that it is making a hymn to its King, of the kind that a plant can sing."

Proclus, On the Sacred Art

"After he had created people, Zeus immediately implanted in them all the possible human character traits, but he forgot about Shame. Since he didn't know how to get Shame inside the human body, he ordered her to go in from behind. At first Shame protested, considering Zeus's request to be beneath her dignity. When Zeus kept insisting, she said, 'All right, I will go in there, on the condition that if anything comes in there after me, I will leave immediately.' As a result, people who engage in sodomy have no sense of shame."

Aesop, Zeus and Shame

Again, therefore, attend to the assertions of our fathers on this subject. For they say, that the Demiurgus is the common father and king of all things, and that to other nations he has distributed Gods, who are the prefects of nations, and the curators of cities, each of which governs his own allotment, in an appropriate manner. For since in the father all things are perfect, and all things are one, but in the natures distributed from him, a different power has dominion in a different divinity, hence Mars presides over the warlike concerns of nations; Minerva over the same concerns in conjunction with wisdom; but Hermes over such as rather pertain to sagacity than bold undertakings; and thus the nations which are governed by the several divinities follow the essence of their presiding Gods.

Emperor Julian, Against the Christians

Image created by Twitter account @VirtueCultivate

"But again, if unification is in itself good, and all good tends to create unity, then the Good unqualified and the One unqualified merge in a single principle, a principle which makes things one and in doing so makes them good. Hence it is that things which in some fashion have fallen away from their good are at the same stroke deprived of participation of unity; and in like manner things which have lost their portion in unity, being infected with division, are deprived of their good. Goodness, then, is unification, and unification is goodness; the Good is one, and the One is primal good."

Proclus, Elements of Theology 13

The attendance offerings made to the dead on a battlefield in the normal course of observance corresponded closely to the traditional rites of necromantic evocation, as in the case of tomb attendance. This emerges with particular clarity from Plutarch's denoscription of the annual offerings made to the dead of the battle of Plataea, which were still made at the end of the first century AD., when he wrote. An elaborate procession went from the city to the battlefield. Offerings were made of wine, milk, olive oil, and sacred-spring water, as well as myrtle leaves, garlands, and myrrh. A black bull was sacrificed, and the dead were explicitly invited to drink its blood (no doubt about the blood offering here, but these glorious dead warriors should presumably be considered heroized). Prayers were made to chthonic Zeus and chthonic Hermes. Offerings of some sort were already being made to the dead of the battle by the citizens of Plataea in 427 B.C., at which point they were already hallowed by tradition. ~ Daniel Ogden

"It is possible to know oneself with respect to one's external possessions; and of course it is possible to know oneself with respect to one's body; and it is possible to know oneself as a civic or social person, when one knows oneself in the tripartition of one's soul; and it is possible to know oneself as a purificatory person, when one knows oneself in the act of liberation from the affections; and it is possible to know oneself as a contemplative person, when a person contemplates himself as liberated; it is possible to know oneself theologically, when a person knows himself according to his paradigmatic Form; and it is possible to know oneself as an inspired person, when a person knows himself as a unity and, thus bonded to his proper god, acts with inspiration."

Olympiodorus, On Plato's First Alcibiades 172.5

"Plotinus, chief with Plato among the professors of philosophy, in a treatise On the Virtues, arranges the grades of the virtues according to a proper and natural classification. In his scheme each of the above four virtues embraces four types: the first, political virtues; the second, cleansing virtues; the third, virtues of the purified mind; and the fourth, the exemplary virtues.

Man has political virtues because he is a social animal. By these virtues upright men devote themselves to their commonwealths, protect cities, revere parents, love their children, and cherish relatives; by these they direct the welfare of the citizens, and by these they safeguard their allies with anxious forethought and bind them with the liberality of their justice; by these "They have won remembrance among men." To have political prudence one must direct all his thoughts and actions by the standard of reason, and wish for or do nothing but what is right, and have regard for human affairs as he would for divine authority. In prudence we find reason, understanding, circumspection, foresight, willingness to learn, and caution. To have political courage, one must exalt his mind above all dread of danger, fear nothing except disgrace, and bear manfully both adversity and prosperity. Courage endows one with magnanimity, confidence, composure, nobleness, constancy, endurance, and steadfastness. To have political temperance, one must strive after nothing that is base, in no instance overstepping the bounds of moderation but subduing all immodest desires beneath the yoke of reason. Temperance is accompanied by modesty, humility, self-restraint, chastity, integrity, moderation, frugality, sobriety, and purity. To have political justice, one must safeguard for each man that which belongs to him. From justice comes uprightness, friendship, harmony, sense of duty, piety, love, human sympathy. By these virtues the good man is first made lord of himself and then ruler of the state, and is just and prudent in his regard for human welfare, never forgetting his obligations."

Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio 1.8.5-8