GENII. According to the belief of the old Italian races, genii were protecting spirits, who accompanied every created thing from its origin to its final decay, like a second spiritual self. They were appropriated not only to men, but to all timings ani mate and inanimate, and more especially to places. They were regarded as effluences of the Divinity, and were therefore worshipped with divine honors; sacrifices were annually made to them on various occasions, especially on birthdays, and (luring the period of harvest. Nay, Jupiter himself was called the genius of men, and Juno of women. Not only had every individual his genius, but likewise the whole people. The statue of the national genius was placed in the vicinity of the Roman forum, and is often seen on the coins of Hadrian and Trajan. The genius of an individual was represented by the Romans as a figure in a toga, having the head veiled. and the cornu copia or patera in the hands; while local genii appear under the figure of serpents eating fruit set before them. (Compare Hartung Die Relig. der Rom. 1 p. 82. etc., and Schei n-I:inn De This Laribus,r et Geniis, Greifswald. 1840.)The-Gie.xii of the cast bear no resemblance' tb the. old Italian genii. Their proper Arabic name is djinn or jinn; and there seems to have been no better reason for translating the word by the Latin term genius, than the casual similarity of the sounds. The word djiun is from an Arabic root, signifying to "veil" or "conceal," and properly denotes an "invisible being." The djinns, or eastern genii, are, in fact, regarded by the Arabs and Persians as an intermediate class of beings between angels and men, and inferior in dignity to both. They are described in poetry as the subjects of a certain Jan Ibn Jan, and as
inhabiting the world before the present race of human beings; but they having excited the auger of God by their rebellion, he sent his favorite angel, 'Maris, or according to others, Azazel, to punish and govern them. Sonic time after, llharis himself rebelled, whereupon God condemned him to eternal punishment. From this period, on account of his despair or his apostasy, he was called Ebbs or Iblis. The djinns can assume, in an instant, any form they please, whether of man, brute, or monster; the last—in accordance with the popular view of their wicked character—being the one most fre quently selected. Such as have read the Arabian Nights will have a vivid recollection of the hideous and gigantic shapes under which the genii are wont to manifest them selves, accompanied at times with smoke and thunderings, to terror-stricken mortals. They are in no degree whatever guardian spirits like the genii of the old Italians; on the contrary, they are inimical to man's happiness, and can only be subdued by the spells of powerful magicians. See FAMILIAR Spann's. The better-informed easterns, however, do not believe, it is said, in the actual existence of such beings. The Mussul man doctors, it is true, affirm the existence of djinns as an invisible race of super natural beings, who carry out the purposes of deity, but they reject altogether the gro tesque and repulsive inventions of the Arab and Persian romances and poets.