Ambarvalia

Ambarvalia

(Lat. ambiendis arvis, "going around the fields"), a ceremony performed among the ancient Romans with a view of procuring from the gods a plentiful harvest. A sacrifice was offered to Ceres, but before doing so the victims, consisting of a sow, a sheep, and a bull, were led amid a vast concourse of peasants around the cornfields in procession. The ceremony was sometimes private and managed by the master of a family, and sometimes public and performed by priests, who were called fratres arvales, or field brothers. This festival was held twice in the year-the first time either in January or April, the second time in July. (See Suovetaurilia).