The gate of the year

The Ambarvalia

Marble bust of the emperor Antoninus Pius (from 138 to 161 A.D.), wearing the costume of the Arval Brothers, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris.
The sodality of the Arval Brothers (Collegium Fratrum Arvalium) was a religious fraternity composed by twelve priests (number perhaps referring to the twelve months in a year), which had the duty to celebrate the Ambarvalia, a festival which was held about on the end of May, with the purpose of propitiating the crops in the fields. The three days of the feast began in Rome and included a banquet in the presence of the goddess Dia, with offerings of loaves of bread and dried and green ears of grain (signifying both the previous year’s crop and the crop that was ripening in the fields). The Arval Brothers wore a white cloth and a crown of ears of grain on their heads. The second day, the feast was transferred in the sacred grove of the goddess Dea Dia, outside of the city walls, along the Via Campana, on the boundary of the territory of the city (the ager romanus antiquus). The goddess Dia was an ancient divine partner of Iuppiter (who was also called Dius, “Luminous”), who represented the beneficent light of the sky which propitiated the germination and ripening of the crops (Scheid 2005, Fears-Scheid 2005).
The climax of the ceremony was a procession, with which the animals destined to be sacrificed, were brought around the boundaries of the cultivated fields, as to make a sacred circle around them, to assure fertility and plenty. The sacrifice comprised the immolation of a bull, a pig, and a sheep (suovetaurilia), and was addressed to Mars, who, as god of war, had also the function of protecting the fields against diseases and pestilences. According to tradition, the Arvals were identified with the twelve children of Acca Larentia, the foster-mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who reveals in her name the nature of a “Mother of the Lares”, that is a “mother” of the dead. The Arval Brothers, indeed, invoked the protection of the Lares, the divinized dead, for the fields and crops, asking thus to the ancestors, the original owners of the land, the permission to gather the products of the earth (Sabbatucci 1988, p. 179).

[Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%27Image_et_le_Pouvoir_-_Portrait_d%27Antonin_le_Pieux_02.jpg]




Seasonal Cycles

Back

The Ambarvalia Marble bust of the emperor Antoninus Pius (from 138 to 161 A.D.), wearing the costume of the Arval Brothers, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris. The sodality of the Arval Brothers (Collegium Fratrum Arvalium) was a religious fraternity composed by twelve priests (number perhaps referring to the twelve months in a year), which had the duty to celebrate the Ambarvalia, a festival which was held about on the end of May, with the purpose of propitiating the crops in the fields. The three days of the feast began in Rome and included a banquet in the presence of the goddess Dia, with offerings of loaves of bread and dried and green ears of grain (signifying both the previous year’s crop and the crop that was ripening in the fields). The Arval Brothers wore a white cloth and a crown of ears of grain on their heads. The second day, the feast was transferred in the sacred grove of the goddess Dea Dia, outside of the city walls, along the Via Campana, on the boundary of the territory of the city (the ager romanus antiquus). The goddess Dia was an ancient divine partner of Iuppiter (who was also called Dius, “Luminous”), who represented the beneficent light of the sky which propitiated the germination and ripening of the crops (Scheid 2005, Fears-Scheid 2005). The climax of the ceremony was a procession, with which the animals destined to be sacrificed, were brought around the boundaries of the cultivated fields, as to make a sacred circle around them, to assure fertility and plenty. The sacrifice comprised the immolation of a bull, a pig, and a sheep (suovetaurilia), and was addressed to Mars, who, as god of war, had also the function of protecting the fields against diseases and pestilences. According to tradition, the Arvals were identified with the twelve children of Acca Larentia, the foster-mother of the twins Romulus and Remus, who reveals in her name the nature of a “Mother of the Lares”, that is a “mother” of the dead. The Arval Brothers, indeed, invoked the protection of the Lares, the divinized dead, for the fields and crops, asking thus to the ancestors, the original owners of the land, the permission to gather the products of the earth (Sabbatucci 1988, p. 179). [Image: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:L%27Image_et_le_Pouvoir_-_Portrait_d%27Antonin_le_Pieux_02.jpg]