Crossword-Solution: PARENTALIA 10 letters, 1 clue 🏆 scrabble score: 12

The February celebration, the so-called _Parentalia_, was calm and dignified and represented all that was least superstitious and fearful in the generally terrifying worship of the dead.

Some scholars have attempted to explain the difference between these two festivals on the assumption that the Parentalia represents the commemoration of the duly buried dead, the Lemuria the apotropaic right for the aversion of the unburied, and therefore hostile spirits; but Ovid has given a far more significant hint, when he tells us that the Lemuria was the more ancient festival of the two.

Lastly, the same kind of feeling which added Parentalia to Lemuria developed the vague general notion of the Di Manes, not the deified spirits of the dead, but peaceful and on the whole kindly divinities holding sway in the world of dead spirits, yet accessible to the prayers of the living.

Unfortunately, he has left no record, and the _Parentalia_, written by his son, helps us very little, containing nothing more than his theory that the order began with Gothic architecture.

The cake of rice and honey borne in the dead hand for Cerberus, the periodical offerings to the ghosts of the departed, as at the festivals called Feralia and Parentalia,41 the pictures of the scenery of the under world, hung in the temples, of which there was a famous one by Polygnotus,42 all imply a literal crediting of the vulgar doctrine.