Extract

Ambarvalia, Roman private and public field *lustration in May. The name appears only in Festus Gloss. Lat. 112, SHAAurel. 20. 3; Strabo 5. 3. 2. Private rite: Cato, Agr. 141; Verg. Ecl. 5. 75, G. 1. 338 ff. with Serv. on 1. 341; Tib. 2. 1; P. Pöstgens, Tibulls Ambarvalgedicht (1940). The rustic calendars (menologia rustica) for May note: segetes lustrantur (‘crops are purified’). The public rites symbolically lustrated all fields and are sometimes connected with the pontifices (Strabo), sometimes with the arval brethren's May 29 worship of *Dea Dia (Festus): Wissowa, Religion und Kultus 562 and E. Norden, Aus altrömischen Priesterbüchern (1939), 161 ff.; contra: Latte, Römische Religionsgeschichte 65.. Other Italic communities had similar rites: J. Poultney, The Bronze Tablets of Iguvium (1954), 1 b 20–3.