Complex sentence: It appears to have been functioned as a cleansing ritual-families held the informal banquets of Caristia on the following day, to celebrate their mutual affections and the amity between themselves and their ancestral dead, possibly represented by Lares statues at the feast.
Split into simpler sentences: It appears to have functioned as a cleansing ritual-families held the informal banquets of Caristia on the following day. In Caristia, the living celebrated their mutual affections and the amity between themselves and their ancestral dead, who were possibly represented by Lares statues at the feast.