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The lectisternium was an Ancient Rome Propitiation ceremony, consisting of a meal offered to gods and goddesses. The word derives from lectum sternere, "to spread (or "drape") a couch."Dionysius of Halicarnassus, xii. 9, gives the Greek equivalent as στρωμναί. 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 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 Roman 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.
Similar honors were paid to other divinities in subsequent times: Fortuna, Saturnus, Juno Regina of the Aventine Hill, the three Capitoline Hill deities (Jupiter, Juno, Minerva). In 217 BC, after the Roman defeat at Lake Trasimene, a lectisternium was held for three days to six pairs of gods, corresponding to the Twelve Olympians of ancient Greek religion: Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Minerva, Mars, Venus, Apollo, Diana, Vulcan, Vesta, Mercury, Ceres.
In 205 BC, alarmed by unfavorable 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 a constant or even daily occurrence, celebrated in the different temples. Occasionally the "Draping of Couches" was part of Roman Triumph celebrations. Aulus Hirtius reports that Julius Caesar was greeted with "draped dining couches" following his victory in Gaul, in anticipation of a forthcoming triumph.Aulus Hirtius, Bellum Gallicum 8.51.3. Such celebrations must be distinguished from those which were ordered, like the earlier lectisternia, by the Sibylline Books in special emergencies.
In the Roman Empire, chairs were substituted for sofas in the case of goddesses, and the lectisternium in their case became a sellisternium.Tacitus, Annals, xv. 44; the reading, however, is not certain. This was in accordance with Roman custom, since in the earliest times all the members of a family sat at meals, and in later times at least the women and children. 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 Christian times the word was used for a feast in memory of the dead.Sidonius Apollinaris, Epistulae, iv. 15.
Some, however, assign an Etruscan origin to the ceremony, the Sibylline Books themselves being looked upon as old Italian "black books." It may be that as the lectisternia became an almost everyday occurrence in Rome, people forgot their foreign origin and the circumstances in which they were first introduced, and then the word pulvinar with its associations was transferred to times in which it had no existence.
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