Kal. Iun. (May 29). C.
The Ambarvalia, originally a religious procession round the land of the early Roman community, the object of which was to purify the crops from evil influences, does not appear in the Julian calendars, not being feriae stativae; but it is indicated in the later rustic calendars by the words, Segetes lustrantur. Its date may be taken as May 29[[491]]: and this fixity will not appear incompatible with its character as a sacrum conceptivum, if we accept Mommsen’s explanation of the way in which some feasts might be fixed to a day according to the usage of the Italian farmer, but of varying date according to the civil calendar[[492]].
There has been much discussion whether the Ambarvalia was identical with the similar festival of the Fratres Arvales. On the ground that the acta fratrum Arvalium seemed to prove a general similarity of the two in time and place, and at least in some points of ritual, Mommsen, Henzen, and Jordan answer in the affirmative[[493]]. On the other side there is no authority of any real weight. The judicious Marquardt[[494]] found a difficulty in the absence of any mention in the acta fratrum Arvalium of a lustratio in the form of a procession; but it should be remembered (1) that we have not the whole of the acta; (2) that it is almost certain that, as the Roman territory continued to increase, the brethren must have dropped the duty of driving victims round it, for obvious reasons. A passage in Paulus[[495]] places the matter beyond doubt if we can be sure of the reading: ‘Ambarvales hostiae dicebantur quae pro arvis a duodecim (MSS. duobus) fratribus sacrificantur.’ As no duo fratres are known, the old emendation duodecim seems certain, but will of course not convince those who disbelieve in the identity of the Ambarvalia and the sacra fratrum Arvalium. The question is, however, for us of no great importance, as the acta do not add to our knowledge of what was done at the Ambarvalia.
The best description we have of such lustrations as the Ambarvalia is that of Virgil; it is not indeed to be taken as an exact description of the Roman rite, but rather as referring to Italian customs generally:
In primis venerare deos, atque annua magnae
Sacra refer Cereri laetis operatus in herbis,
Extremae sub casum hiemis, iam vere sereno.
Tum pingues agni, et tum mollissima vina;
Tum somni dulces densaeque in montibus umbrae.
Cuncta tibi Cererem pubes agrestis adoret,
Cui tu lacte favos et miti dilue Baccho,
Terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges,
Omnis quam chorus et socii comitentur ovantes,
Et Cererem clamore vocent in tecta; neque ante
Falcem maturis quisquam supponat aristis,
Quam Cereri torta redimitus tempora quercu
Det motus inconpositos et carmina dicat[[496]].
It is not clear to what festival or festivals Virgil is alluding in the first few of these lines[[497]]; probably to certain rustic rites which did not exactly correspond to those in the city of Rome. But from line 343 onwards the reference is certainly to Ambarvalia of some kind, perhaps to the private lustratio of the farmer before harvest began, of which the Roman festival was a magnified copy. His description answers closely to the well-known directions of Cato[[498]]; and if it is Ceres who appears in Virgil’s lines, and not Mars, the deity most prominent in Cato’s account, this may be explained by the undoubted extension of the worship of Ceres, and the corresponding contraction of that of Mars, as the latter became more and more converted into a god of war[[499]].
The leading feature in the original rite was the procession of victims—bull, sheep, and pig—all round the fields, driven by a garlanded crowd, carrying olive branches and chanting. These victims represent all the farmer’s most valuable stock, thus devoted to the appeasing of the god. The time was that when the crops were ripening, and were in greatest peril from storms and diseases; before the harvest was begun, and before the Vestalia took place in the early part of June, which was, as we shall see, a festival preliminary to harvest. Three times the procession went round the land; at the end of the third round the victims were sacrificed, and a solemn prayer was offered in antique language, which ran, in Cato’s formula of the farmer’s lustration, as follows: ‘Father Mars, I pray and beseech thee to be willing and propitious to me, my household, and my slaves; for the which object I have caused this threefold sacrifice to be driven round my farm and land. I pray thee keep, avert, and turn from us all disease, seen or unseen, all desolation, ruin, damage, and unseasonable influence; I pray thee give increase to the fruits, the corn, the vines, and the plantations, and bring them to a prosperous issue. Keep also in safety the shepherds and their flocks, and give good health and vigour to me, my house, and household. To this end it is, as I have said—namely, for the purification and making due lustration of my farm, my land cultivated and uncultivated—that I pray thee to bless this threefold sacrifice of sucklings. O Father Mars, to this same end I pray thee bless this threefold sacrifice of sucklings[[500]].’
Not only in this prayer, but in the ritual that follows, as also in other religious directions given in the preceding chapters, we may no doubt see examples of the oldest agricultural type of the genuine Italian worship. They are simple rustic specimens of the same type as the elaborate urban ritual of Iguvium, fortunately preserved to us[[501]]; and we may fairly assume that they stood in much the same relation to the Roman ritual of the Ambarvalia.
Of all the Roman festivals this is the only one which can be said with any truth to be still surviving. When the Italian priest leads his flock round the fields with the ritual of the Litania major in Rogation week he is doing very much what the Fratres Arvales did in the infancy of Rome, and with the same object. In other countries, England among them, the same custom was taken up by the Church, which rightly appreciated its utility, both spiritual and material; the bounds of the parish were fixed in the memory of the young, and the wrath of God was averted by an act of duty from man, cattle, and crops. ‘It was a general custom formerly, and is still observed in some country parishes, to go round the bounds and limits of the parish on one of the three days before Ascension-day; when the Minister, accompanied by his Churchwardens and Parishioners, was wont to deprecate the vengeance of God, beg a blessing on the fruits of the earth, and preserve the rights and properties of the parish[[502]].’
At Oxford, and it is to be hoped in some other places, this laudable custom still survives. But the modern clergy, from want of interest in ritual, except such as is carried on within their churches, or from some strong distrust of any merry-making not initiated by their own zeal, are apt to drop the ceremonies; and there is some danger that even in Oxford the processions and peeled wands may soon be things of the past. To all such ministers I would recommend the practice of the judicious Hooker, as described by his biographer, Isaak Walton:
‘He would by no means omit the customary time of procession, persuading all, both rich and poor, if they desired the preservation of Love, and their Parish rights and liberties, to accompany him in his Perambulation—and most did so; in which Perambulation he would usually express more pleasant Discourse than at other times, and would then always drop some loving and facetious Observations, to be remembered against the next year, especially by the Boys and young people; still inclining them, and all his present Parishioners, to meekness and mutual Kindnesses and Love.’
At Charlton-on-Otmoor, near Oxford, there was a survival of the ‘agri lustratio’ until recent years. On the beautiful rood-screen of the parish church there is a cross, which was carried in procession through the parish[[503]], freshly decorated with flowers, on May-day; it was then restored to its place on the screen, and remained there until the May-day of the next year. It may still be seen there, but it is no longer carried round, and its decoration seems to have been transferred from May-day to the harvest-festival[[504]].