Frequently a more elaborate shrine was provided, a diminutive temple raised on a foundation, placed against a wall of the atrium or of the garden. An example is the one at the rear of the peristyle in the house of the Tragic Poet (Fig. 153). In rare instances a small, separate chapel was devoted to the domestic worship, as in the house of the Centenary. In a house of the ninth Region (IX. viii. 7) there is such a chapel in the garden, a niche for the images being placed in the wall. [Illustration: Fig. 126.--Niche for the images of the household gods, in a corner of the kitchen in the house of Apollo. Underneath, a painted serpent represented as about to take offerings from a round altar. In front is a square altar for the domestic worship.] The Lares are the guardian spirits of the household. Originally but one was worshipped in each house; they began to be honored in plurality after the time of Cicero, and at Pompeii we invariably find them in pairs. They are represented as youths clad in a short tunic confined by a girdle (Fig. 127), stepping lightly or dancing, with one hand high uplifted in which a drinking horn, _rhyton_, is seen; from the end of the horn a jet of wine spurts in a graceful curve, falling into a small pail, _situla_, or into a libation saucer, _patera_, held in the other hand. Simple offerings were made to these beneficent spirits,--fruits, sacrificial cakes, garlands, and incense,--and at every meal a portion was set aside for them in little dishes. When a sacrifice was offered to the Lares, the victim was a pig. With the worship of the Lares was associated that of the Genius, the tutelary divinity of the master of the house. He is represented as a standing figure, the face being a portrait of the master. The toga is drawn over his head, after the manner of one sacrificing; in the left hand there is usually a cornucopia, sometimes a box of incense, _acerra_; with the right hand he pours a drink offering from a patera. Very rarely we find a representation of the Genius of the mistress of the house. In one painting she appears with the attributes of Juno; the Genius of a woman was often called Juno, as in the inscription on the bust stone of Tyche, the slave of Julia Augusta (p. 418). As a man might swear in the name of his Genius, so a woman's oath might be 'By my Juno.' The Lares and the Genius are often found together both in the hearth paintings, and in the groups of little bronze images frequently placed in the shrines. They are associated also in an inscription on the shrine in the house of Epidius Rufus: _Genio M[arci] n[ostri] et Laribus duo Diadumeni liberti_,--'To the Genius of our Marcus and the Lares; (dedicated by) his two freedmen with the name of Diadumenus.' Marcus was the first name of the head of the household.