the household gods of the Romans, whether private, as relating to the family proper, or public, as relating to the family of citizens or the state. The word is derived by Freund ("Lexicon," v. "Penates") from the root PEN, expressing the idea of entering, interior; and hence signifies properly deities of the interior (penetralia) of the house. The Lares were included among the penates with which they were not unfrequently confounded. (See LARES.) Of the former, however, a family had usually but one, whereas the penates are always spoken of in the plural, their number and names being indeed indefinite, as we learn from Varro. (Arnob. iii. 40, 123; Macrob. iii. 4.) These divinities included Jupiter, Juno, and Vesta, as the promoters of domestic union and happiness; but authorities do not always agree as to the exact divinities worshipped as penates. Their original seat is generally represented as Lavinium, whither they had been borne by Æneas from Troy. The private penates were worshipped at the hearth of every house, where a perpetual fire was kept burning in their honour, and on the table stood always the salt-cellar and the first fruits of the ground. Every meal was virtually a sacrifice to the penates. On going abroad, a prayer was offered to these divinities for a happy journey; and on returning to the hearth, the penates were saluted like the living inhabitants. A chapel to the penates of Rome stood near the centre of the city, in a place called Sub-Velia. (See Hartung, Die Relig. der Römer; Smith's Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biog. and Myth.; and Adam's Roman Antiquities.)