More on the Iconography of the Penates

Capture1 — Detail of the Ara Pacis panel showing the Aeneas offering sacrifice

In past posts, I’ve worried quite a bit about the penates. I may have to write this all up eventually as a proper article or something. I’m still working on Dionysius ahead of my Yale talk this coming Saturday. And, my work led me back to passage on the Penates in book 1. And I found this comment by A. E. Dumser on the aedes Penates on the Mapping Augustan Rome Website.

Here are some more images just for further context:

ara-pacis-ng — Notice the prominent placement of this panel and even the depiction of the Penates shrine itself in relation to the monument as a whole. Aeneas’ piety is echoed by the piety of the those who are participating in the sacrifice at this very altar.

Update 6/30/17 – just a bibliographical reference for when I come back to the penates:

M. Stöckinger, Inalienable Possessions : the di penates in the Aeneid and in Augustan Culture, p. 129-48 in Mario Labate, Gianpiero Rosati (ed.), La costruzione del mito augusteo. Bibliothek der klassischen Altertumswissenschaften, Band 141. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 2013. ISBN 9783825361136.