Patrii Dii

These are, properly speaking, all the gods whose worship has been handed down in a nation or a family from the time of their fathers, whence in some instances they are the spirits of departed ancestors themselves. Among the Romans we find the divinities avenging the death of parents, that is, the Furiae or Erinyes, designated as Patrii Dii.1 But the name was also applied to the gods or heroes from whom the gentes derived their origin.2

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References

Notes

  1. Cicero. Against Verres ii, 1, 3; comp. Livy. The History of Rome xl, 10.
  2. Servius on Virgil's Aeneid iii, 832; Statius. Thebaid iv, 111.

Source

  • Smith, William. (1870). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. London: Taylor, Walton, and Maberly.

This article incorporates text from Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) by William Smith, which is in the public domain.