numen

But the symbol carried with it the numen of the goddess symbolized, and there can be little doubt that Ashērah came to be regarded as Yahweh’s consort.

Great they knew was “Jupiter Best and Greatest” of conquering Rome; and great the numen of the Cæsar, to which everywhere in this rich and servile province shrines were rising.

The deities are already clear-cut, individual personalities of distinct ethos, plastically shaped figures such as the later sculpture and painting could work upon, not vaguely conceived numina like the forms of the old Roman religion.

The word thus gradually lost its original meaning; the nameless local genii became an expression for the universality of the divinum numen and were sometimes identified with the higher gods.

In another passage Horace speaks of the Roman as worshipping the ‘numen’ of Caesar along with the Lares, ‘even as Greece keeps Castor and mighty Hercules in memory33.’