Amburbium

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Amburbium
head ritually covered
Observed byRoman Republic, Roman Empire
TypeClassical Roman religion
CelebrationsSinging of hymns (carmina)
ObservancesProcession around the city; sacrifice of a pig, sheep, and bull
DateFebruary (?)
Frequencyannual
Related toAmbarvalia and lustration

The Amburbium ("City Circuit", from ambire, "to go around" + urb-, "city"; plural amburbia) was an ancient Roman festival for purifying the city; that is, a lustration (lustratio urbis). It took the form of a procession, perhaps along the old Servian Wall, though the length of 10 kilometers would seem impractical to circumambulate. If it was a distinct festival held annually, the most likely month is February, but no date is recorded and the ritual may have been performed as a "crisis rite" when needed.[1]

The Amburbium can be hard to distinguish from the

Servius, for the Ambarvalia a hostia with the capacity to produce felicitas ("fecundity, blessedness") is led around in a ritual circuit three times; the ceremony, he says, is called an amburbium when it is the city that is circumambulated.[6] The encircling (circuire) is identical with the purification (lustrare).[7]

Amburbium does not appear on any of the

Sibylline books, a collection of prophetic utterances from the gods (fata deorum), resulting in a lustration of the city by means of the Amburbium and Ambarvalia.[10]

The ritual has been compared to the lustral sacrifices described in the

ancient Roman religion in which a sacred topography is marked out through a procession.[12]

Description by Lucan

The Neronian poet

prodigia) were reported. Religious specialists were called in, among them an Etruscan prophet (vates) named Arruns who orders up a sequence of ritual procedures, beginning with the destruction of all "freaks of nature"[14] (monstra). The "unspeakable fetuses of a sterile womb" (sterilique nefandos / ex utero fetus) are to be burnt using the wood of "unlucky" trees (religiously infelix). Arruns then sets in motion an amburbium, described in densely religious terms
:

He bids the city to be circumambulated (urbem ambiri) by the fearful citizens, and the

brought from Troy. Then came those who conserve the gods' utterances (fata deorum, that is, the priestly college of the quindecimviri) and the arcane chants (carmina) and who call back Cybele after she has been bathed in the little Almo; and the learned augur who observes birds in flight on the left; and the septemvir who presents festal banquets, and the sodality of the Titii, and the Salian priest bearing the sacred shield gladly on his shoulder, and the flamen towering in his conical hat
with the well-born point.

Lucan follows the procession with the sacrifice of a bull, whose entrails reveal dire omens, and a prophetic speech by Nigidius Figulus based on his astronomical observations. It is unclear whether this Amburbium was a crisis rite actually held in 49 BC, or "a figment of his poetic imagination".[15]

See also

References

  1. ^ Jörg Rüpke, "Public and Publicity: Long-Term Changes in Religious Festivals during the Roman Republic," in Greek and Roman Festivals: Content, Meaning, and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 308–309.
  2. ^ Daniel P. Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists," Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt II.16.3 (1986), pp. 1949–1951.
  3. ^ Vopiscus, Life of Aurelian 20.3 (lustrata urbs cantata carmina amburbium celebratum ambarvalia promiss), as cited by Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists," p. 1949.
  4. H.H. Scullard
    , Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic (Cornell University Press, 1981), p. 82.
  5. ^ According to Paul the Deacon; Rüpke, "Public and Publicity," p. 308.
  6. ^ Servius, notes to Georgics 1.345 and Eclogues 5.75, as cited by Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists," p. 1948.
  7. ^ Servius, note to Eclogue 3.77; Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists," p. 1948.
  8. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 82, citing Macrobius, Saturnalia 1.13.3.
  9. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 82; Jörg Rüpke, Religion in Republican Rome: Rationalization and Change (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012), p. 38.
  10. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 83; R.L. Rike, Apex Omnium: Religion in the Res Gestae of Ammianus (University of California Press, 1987), p. 123.
  11. ^ Harmon, "Religion in the Latin Elegists," p. 1949.
  12. ^ Hubert Cancik, "Rome as Sacred Landscape: Varro and the End of Republican Religion in Rome," in Visible Religion: Annual for Religious Iconography. Approaches to Iconology (Brill, 1985–86), vol. 4–5, pp. 255–256.
  13. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, pp. 82–83. The following description is that of Scullard.
  14. ^ As translated by Susan H. Braund, Lucan: Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 18.
  15. ^ Scullard, Festivals and Ceremonies of the Roman Republic, p. 83.
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