Public inferiae for Lucius
Private inferiae were traditionally memorial gifts or offerings given by surviving family members and dependents to the manes of their family's deceased. They are closely associated with tombs—Catullus 101 famously describes the poet's visit to the tomb of his brother to offer inferiae.
Bringing inferiae was normally appropriate on the birthday of the deceased and during the period of public memorial days set aside in the state calendar on February 13-21, the dies parentales or Parentalia (on the Parentalia, see Dolansky 2011b with background and bibliography). The use of inferiae as a mode of lasting public commemoration for imperial “princes” in the early empire is attested for the first time for Lucius. It came to be a standard honor during the Julio-Claudian principate for male members of the domus Augusta who died in good standing. The inferiae for Lucius at Rome were performed at the Mausoleum where he was buried, but the rites at Pisa were, obviously, not held at Lucius's tomb. The Pisans acquired a piece of property at public expense to be the site where they brought inferiae for Lucius's manes (ll. 13-16). It was another innovation that the public inferiae for Lucius at Rome and Pisa were held on the anniversary of his death, not on his birthday or during the dies parentales.In an important article in 1993, Scheid compared the Pisan rites with Virgil's description of the public memorial sacrifices and rites that Aeneas organized for his father Anchises in Aen. 5.55-103. Scheid (193-200) outlines the close parallels between the two and suggests convincingly that Vergil and the decree both reflect a developing new central model for public commemoration of deceased members of the imperial dynasty that adapted the traditionally private rites of inferiae and parentatio. Augusto Fraschetti (1984) points out that the whole affair also drew heavily from Greek hero cult.
Scheid (198-200) notes that since the new ritual was based on established Roman ways of commemorating the dead, not worshiping gods, it made an important point about the public status of members of the new dynasty, the domus Augusta. As a member of the domus, Lucius was important to the public welfare and thus, upon his death, deserving of special public commemoration. However, the commemorative rituals in the Aeneid and at Pisa did not move Anchises or Lucius from the status of being dead into that of being divine. When the senate created the new memorial rites, it established that Lucius be commemorated not worshiped.This was a key distinction at a time when the roles of deification and emperor worship in the creation of the new order were still being formulated. The rites at Pisa reflect a hierarchy of members of the imperial dynasty, living and dead, that placed Lucius in a privileged position, but one that was nevertheless subordinate to that of Julius Caesar (Divus lulius) and Augustus himself. There was already a temple for Augustus, an Augusteum at Pisa, in 2 CE. Since the apotheosis of Roman emperors came to be intricately connected with their funerals, the promulgation of a senate decree that identified inferiae as the proper forum of commemoration may have served to forestall communities from establishing overtly divine rites for Lucius.