Lectisternium

The lectisternium was an ancient Roman propitiatory ceremony, consisting of a meal offered to gods and goddesses. The word derives from lectum sternere, "to spread (or "drape") a couch."^[1] The deities were represented by their busts or statues, or by portable figures of wood, with heads of bronze, wax or marble. It has also been suggested^{[by whom?]} that the divine images were bundles of sacred herbs tied together in the form of a head, covered by a waxen mask so as to resemble a kind of bust, rather like the straw figures called Argei. A couch (lectus) was prepared by draping it with fabric. The figures or sacred objects pertaining to the deity (such as the wreath awarded in a triumph) were laid upon it. Each couch held a pair of deities, sometimes male with female equivalent. If the image was anthropomorphic, the left arms were rested on a cushion (pulvinus) in the attitude of reclining to eat. The couches (pulvinar) were set out in the open street, or a temple forecourt, or in the case of ludi, in the pulvinar or viewing box, and a meal was served on a table before the couch.

^ Dionysius of Halicarnassus, xii. 9, gives the Greek equivalent as στρωμναί.

[1] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, xii. 9, gives the Greek equivalent as στρωμναί.

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