A complete dictionary of the Greek and Roman antiquities explaining the obscure places in classic authors and ancient historians relating to the religion, mythology, history, geography and chronology of the ancient Greeks and Romans, their ... rites and customs, laws, polity, arts and engines of war : also an account of their navigations, arts and sciences and the inventors of them : with the lives and opinions of their philosophers / compiled originally in French ... by Monsieur Danet ; made English, with the addition of very useful mapps.

MANIA;

was taken by the Ancients to be the Mother of the Lares, or Houshold Gods; they offered Sacrifice to her at certain Feasts called Compitalia, instituted by Brutus, wherein the Slaves intermix'd with their Masters, as in the Saturnalia, eat and drank with them, and diverted themselves in the Cross-ways. It was a Custom at first to Sacrifice little Children to her for the Preservation of the whole Family, in Obedience to the Oracle, but Brutus having expelled Tarquin, gave the Oracle of Apollo ano∣ther Interpretation than it had before, and or∣dered that instead of Mens Heads, they should use those of Poppy and Onions, they also placed as many of the Effigies of Men and Women, stuffed with Flax or Chaff, before the Doors of their Houses, and in the Cross-ways, as there were Free Persons in each House, and as many Balls of Wool, as there were Slaves there, that so neither Mania, nor the Houshold Gods her

Children, might do any Mischief to the Living, as Festus informs us:

Quibus tot pilae, quot capita servorum; tot effi∣gies, quot essent liberi, ponebantur, ut vivis par∣cerent, & essent his pilis & simulachris contenti.