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The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
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Ancient Romans believed that after death their souls became spirits. There is some debate about the nature of these Roman ghosts. According to the Christian theologian St. Augustine whose writing follows by a few centuries most of the Latin literary and pagan references to ghosts, there were the following different types: lares if good; lemures (larvae) if evil, and manes if indeterminate.

The Words of Augustus on Lemures and Demon:From Chapter 11. City of God, by St. Augustine: "He [Plotinus] says, indeed, that the souls of men are demons, and that men > become Lares if they are good, Lemures or Larvae if they are bad, and Manes if it is uncertain whether they deserve well or ill. Who does not see at a  glance that this is a mere whirlpool sucking men to moral destruction?  For, however wicked men have been, if they suppose they shall become Larvae or divine Manes, they will become the worse the more love they have for inflicting injury; for, as the Larvae are hurtful demons made out of wicked men, these men must suppose that after death they will be invoked with  sacrifices and divine honors that they may inflict injuries. But this  question we must not pursue. He also states that the blessed are called in Greek eudaimones, because they are good souls, that is to say, good demons,  confirming his opinion that the souls of men are demons."

Another Interpretation of the Lemures - Haunting Spirits:
Instead of being evil spirits, lemures (larvae) may have been souls that  could find no rest because they met with a violent or premature death and  were unhappy. They wandered among the living haunting people and driving   them to madness.

Lemuria - Festivals to Placate the Lemures:
 No sane Roman wanted to be haunted, so they had ceremonies to satisfy the spirits. The lemures (larvae) were propitiated during the nine-day Lemuria  festival in May. At the Parentalia or Feralia on the 18th and 21st of  February, the living descendants shared a meal with the benevolent spirits  of their ancestors (manes or di parentes). 

Ovid (43 B.C. - A.D. 17) on the Lemures and Manes:  In Ovid's Fasti 5.422, the Manes and Lemures are synonymous and both  hostile, in need of exorcism via the Lemuria. Ovid incorrectly derives the  Lemuria from Remuria, saying it was to placate Remus, the brother of 
Romulus.Larvae and Lemures: Usually considered the same, not all ancient authors considered them as such. In the Apocolocyntosis 9.3 and Pliny's Natural History, Larvae are  tormentors of the dead. Manes:were originally good spirits (in the plural), whose name was  usually seen with the word for gods, di, as in Di manes. Manes came to be  used for the ghosts of individuals. The first writer to make this use is  Cicero (January 3, 106 B.C. - December 7, 43 B.C.).

References: "Aeneas and the Demands of the Dead," by Kristina P. Nielson. The  Classical Journal, Vol. 79, No. 3. (Feb. - Mar., 1984). 
"Lemures and Larvae," by George Thaniel. The American Journal of Philology 1973.
See: Aeneid in the Realm of Hades;  Odysseus in the Underworld - Nekuia
"Lemures and Larvae," by George Thaniel The American Journal of Philology.  Vol. 94, No. 2 (Summer, 1973), pp. 182-187

 

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