AMBARVA´LIA
AMBARVA´LIA a rural festival among the Romans for
the purification (
lustratio) of the country,
and for invoking the blessing of Ceres upon the fruits of the earth. The
name is explained by Servius (
ad
Verg. Ecl. 3.77),
Dicitur autem hoc
sacrificium Ambarvale, quod arva ambiat victima; and by
Macrobius (
Macr. 3.5,
7) after Festus:
Ambarvalis hostia est, ut ait
Pompeius Festus, quae rei divinae causa circum arva ducitur ab his, qui
pro frugibus faciunt.
There were two kinds of Ambarvalia, private and public, though some writers,
as Hunziker (ap. D. and S.) reckon only the former. The private Ambarvalia
are those alluded to in
Verg. Ecl. 3.77,
5.75, and described more in detail, and
with singular beauty,
Georg. 1.338 ff.; Tibull.
Eleg. 2.1,
passim. The victim
(
Georg. 1.345) or rather victims (Cato,
Cat. Agr. 141,
Impera
suovetaurilia circumagi [
SUOVETAURILIA]) were led three times round the
cornfields, before the sickle was put in, accompanied by a crowd of
merry-makers (
chorus et socii, 5.346), the
reapers and servants dancing and singing the praises of Ceres, while they
offered her libations of milk, honey, and wine. The public Ambarvalia are
certainly to be distinguished from the Amburbium [
AMBURBIUM], but have been identified by several
writers (Mommsen, Henzen, Jordan) with the sacrifice of the Fratres Arvales
to Dea Dia. Marquardt, who on the whole decides (with Marini, Huschke,
Preller, and De' Rossi) against the identity of the two festivals, observes
that the correspondence of time and place is in favour of it, as well as the
fact that the
suovetaurilia were offered at
both; but, as he also points out, there is no mention of the Fratres Arvales
beating the bounds (
circumire or
lustrare). The time and place of the two solemnities
do not, however, correspond with so much exactness as is here implied. For,
first, the Ambarvalia at Rome were fixed for May 29; in other parts of Italy
the day varied in different districts, but was an immovable feast (
feriae stativae) in each district. The feast of Dea
Dia, on the other hand, was proclaimed every year; and May 29 might, or
might not, coincide with one of the days on which it was held [ARVALES]. Next, as regards the locality, the Roman
Ambarvalia were performed, according to Strabo, at a spot called Festi,
between five and six miles from the city on the way to Alba (
Strab. v. p.230): this spot is identified
beyond doubt with the Fossa Cluilia of Livy (
1.23), Dionysius, and Plutarch; the Campus Sacer Horatiorum, where
the legendary encounter took place; and the ruins now called Roma Vecchia,
on the left-hand side of the Appian Way at the fifth milestone (Burn,
Rome and the Campagna, p. 416). The Lucus Deae Diae was
at about the same distance from Rome, but on a different road, the Via
Portuensis, in a southerly not an easterly direction. Both were doubtless on
the boundary of the ager Romanus, or original Roman territory; and in this
last circumstance we may trace a connexion between the festival of the
Arvales and the Ambarvalia without assuming that they were identical. What
this connexion was may perhaps be inferred from the statement of Strabo,
that the pontiffs, whom he calls
ἱερομνήμονες, offered sacrifices at Festi and several other
places regarded as frontiers (
θυσίαν ἐπιτελοῦσιν
ἐνταῦθά τε καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις τόποις ὡς ὁρίοις αὐθημερὸν, ἣν
καλοῦσιν Ἀμβαροΰαν). We may suppose that the Lucus Deae
Diae was one of several ancient seats of the Ambarvalia, but that, in this
particular instance, the greater solemnity of the Fratres Arvales, one of
the most dignified priestly colleges, overshadowed the primitive simplicity
of the rustic festival.
The Ambarvalia furnish one of several instances--the Saturnalia at Christmas
being another--of heathen festivals taken up by the Church and adapted to
Christian uses. There is a close resemblance to these rites in the
ceremonies of the three Rogation Days which precede Ascension Day, occurring
nearly at the same time of year. “They were anciently called ‘Gang-days,’ because processions went out on
those days; hymns and canticles being sung, and prayers offered at
various halting-spots or stations for a blessing on the fruits of the
earth” (Lee,
Glossary, s.v. Rogation Days). The
English
[p. 1.100]custom, still observed in many places, of
beating the parish bounds at Whitsuntide, is another survival from the rites
we have been describing. (Marini,
Atti de' Fratelli Arvali,
p. 138; Henzen,
Acta Fr. Arv. p. 46 ff.; Jordan,
Topogr. 1.1, 289, 2.236; Preller,
Röm.
Myth. p. 371 f.; Marquardt, vi. p. 194
ff.）
[
W.W]
