Arvalez brothers

The Romans traced the cause of the brotherhood of the Arvales brothers to Romulus: the twelve sons of his nurse Akka Larentia would have been the first Arvales, and in the event of the death of one of them, Romulus would take his place. This legend testifies to the antiquity of this college, which also manifests itself in the archaism of the ceremonies performed by the arvales. They were priests of the mysterious goddess Dea dia and were responsible for the protection of cultivated fields ( arva). Their ritual, archaic and complex, is known to us from the fragments of their Acts found (these Acts of the Arval brothers, corresponding to the first three centuries of our era, from 14 to 238, only partially reproduce the Old ritual). Twelve arvales were recruited by co-optation during the Republican era, then appointed by the emperor and elected in May master's degree ... Every year in the month of May, in order to bring fertility to the fields, arvales in wreaths of ears tied with white headbands, celebrated Dea dia with a three-day festival; the second day, in the sacred forest ( locus ) Dea dia, not far from Rome, on via Kampana, they performed fertility rites: the sacrifice of fat sows and a fat lamb, a sacred song (this Carmen with a very archaic text, it is a kind of spell, interspersed with the repetition of each phrase), a three-time ritual dance ( dancing ) and horse and chariot races, undoubtedly designed to awaken telluric powers. These rites were surrounded by a number of religious taboos: the prohibition to introduce iron objects into Luke , archaic pottery ( olla ) used for consecration. In addition to Dea dia, arvales summoned a number of deities (Janus, Jupiter, Mars "wild", Juno, Flora, Mother Lares) and during the purification Luke, were addressed to entities, breaking, in accordance with the Roman religious tradition, their movements: Adolenda , Coincident , Commolenda , Deferund (corresponding to the actions of burning, trimming, trimming and removing wood). Decayed at the end of the republic, this community almost disappeared, but Augustus restored it during his principality and was himself the brother of Arval. She remained active until III - ^th century and includes in its rituals prayers for the salvation of the emperor and his family.