Lemures were in ancient Rome, ghosts of people who died without a surviving family, or a ghost evil in nature. The lemures were one of two classes of ghosts in Roman belief (see Lares), and were associated with larvae, or evil spirits.

The Romans considered it a curse to die without surviving issue. Thus, those who did so were doomed to become lemures. Other lemures included the spirits of those who had died prematurely and were trapped on the earth until their allotted lifespan was up; victims of murder and violent death; executed criminals; and drowning victims. To prevent a lemure from returning from the grave, the Romans burned black beans around the tomb as the body was interred. If a lemure succeeded in haunting the living, it was exorcised by banging on drums. Lemures were propitiated each year at a festival called Lemuria.

SEE ALSO:

• Beans
• Ghost Folklore

FURTHER READING:

• Haining, Peter. A Dictionary of Ghost Lore. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1984.
• Leach, Maria, and Jerome Fried, eds. Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1979.

SOURCE:

The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits– Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – September 1, 2007

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