The Seba library treats Manes in 6 passages, across 2 authors (including Onians, R B, Otto, Walter F).
quisque suos patimur manis could thus naturally mean 'each suffers those infernal agencies which are his due'. Not all the infernal powers afflict each individual.
Onians argues that Manes denote individualized underworld agencies of punishment and purgation assigned to each soul according to its particular deserts, not a generic collective of the dead.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
The bones appear to be referred to as the manes. Livy attributes to the Athenians this complaint against the Macedonians: omnia sepulchra monumentaque diruta esse... omnium nudatos manes, nullius ossa terra tegi.
Onians demonstrates that in Roman literary usage the Manes are effectively identified with the bones of the dead, locating the surviving spiritual power materially within the cremated or interred remains.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988thesis
he touches the head, the seat of the life-soul he is offering to the manes, or, explicitly, of the genius he is honouring
Onians connects the Roman ritual gesture of touching the head to the offering of the life-soul to the Manes, linking the concept to the genius and to the head as the corporeal seat of spiritual power.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
since, when thus disembodied, its procreative activity is no longer to the fore, we find... it is commonly referred to by terms expressive of its present state, umbra and anima, or by the vaguely flattering manes.
Onians situates Manes within a semantic cluster of Roman soul-terms — alongside umbra, anima, and genius — as the honorific designation applied to the departed spirit once separated from its embodied procreative function.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988supporting
Te di manes tui ut quietam patiantur atque ita tueantur optamus.
Otto's dedication to his Dionysus volume invokes the Manes in their classical ritual formula — 'May your divine Manes permit you to rest in peace and protect you' — enacting within scholarly discourse the living force of Roman soul-belief.
, Dionysus Myth and Cult (1965), 1965supporting
The identification or intimate relation of soul and name is a commonplace elsewhere and appears to lie behind the rite of calling the name over the dead.
Onians notes that the Roman practice of calling the name over the dead — tied to the genius and to funeral ritual — forms part of the broader complex within which the Manes receive their proper address and propitiation.
, The origins of European thought about the body, the mind,, 1988aside