This year, the fifth time since the building of the city, the lectisternium was performed at Rome for procuring the favour of the same deities to whom it was addressed before.
For not to enumerate all the sacred rites severally and all the gods, whether in the banquet of Jupiter can the lectisternium be performed in any other place, save in the Capitol?
This is a point of distinction between the original practice at the lectisternium and the epulum Jovis, the goddesses at the latter being provided with chairs, whereas in the lectisternium they reclined.
In 205, alarmed by unfavourable prodigies, the Romans were ordered to fetch the Great Mother of the gods from Pessinus in Phrygia; in the following year the image was brought to Rome, and a lectisternium held.
In later times, the lectisternium became of constant (even daily) occurrence, and was celebrated in the different temples.
Sibylline books, which decided whether a lectisternium was to be held or not, were of Greek origin; the custom of reclining at meals was Greek.
In the public forum, where a lectisternium was being celebrated, there was an earthquake, and the heads of the gods who were on the couches turned away their faces, and the cloak and robes placed on Jupiter fell off.
Lastly, it being now the month of December, a sacrifice was made at the temple of Saturn at Rome, and a lectisternium ordered, in which senators prepared the couch and a public banquet.
Then a lectisternium was celebrated for three days, the decemviri for sacred things superintending.
The people in crowds carried presents to the goddess in the Palatium; a lectisternium was celebrated, with games called the Megalesian.
Lectisternium was a sacrifice: the image of the god was laid on a bed with a pillow under the left arm, and beside the image was placed a table and a meal, which as a sacrifice was offered to the god.
So far as Hermes-Mercury is concerned, the Roman annals inform us that he got his first lectisternium in the year 399 before Christ by order from the Sibylline books.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "lectisternium" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
