The early Romans made very realistic wax masks called “imagines” that were painted to represent deceased family members of the nobility. The masks were worn by actors during funeral processions and other ceremonial public occasions and thus the ancestral members of these noble classes stayed familiar to the people and, in a sense, took part in Roman life.
Today the term “imagines” is used to define idealized mental images of other people or of the self. Interestingly, the word has also found usage as the plural form of the word “imago” referring to an insect in its final, adult, sexually mature state.

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