Lustratio was anancient Greek andancient Roman purification ritual.[1][2] It included aprocession and in some circumstances thesacrifice of apig (sus), aram (ovis), and abull (taurus) (suovetaurilia).[3] The name is the source of English "lustration" (a purification).
TheLustratio was performed by apriest or magistrate who led a procession with at least onesacrificial animal around the area intended to be purified. Following this, the animals would be sacrificed to the godMars.[4] The animals which were sacrificed were usually either apig,ram, or abull.[5][6] One reason for alustratio was to rid newborn children of any harmful spirits that may have been acquired at birth prior to thedies lustricus. The ceremony took place at the age of nine days for baby boys and eight days for baby girls. In the ceremony, the procession traced a magical boundary around the child to be purified. At the end of the ceremony, if the child was male, he was presented with a small charm, usually of gold, called abulla and kept in a leather bag around the boy's neck. Thisbulla would be worn until the boy became a man and exchanged the child's purple-lined togatoga praetexta for the plaintoga virilis of an adult. Thelustratio ceremony culminated with thenaming of the child, the name being added to official Roman registers, andthe observation of a flight of birds in order to discern the child’s future.[citation needed]
Lustratio ceremonies were also used to purify cities, objects or buildings, and on some occasions to purify an area where a crime had been committed.[7]Lustratio ceremonies were also used to bless crops, farm animals, new colonies, and armies before going into battle or passing into review. In the latter case, troops were often ordered to the coastline, where half of the sacrifice would be thrown into the sea and the other half burnt on an altar.[8] Instructions on thelustratio performed for the Roman town ofIguvium illustrate that the ceremony consisted of a procession of priests and sacrificial victims around the town's citadel, stopping at the three gates to the citadel, where the sacrifices took place. The gates were considered as the weak points which required strengthening.[9]
One notable occasion was alustratio held to purifyAthens byEpimenides of Crete, after theCylonian massacre.[8] Another example of this ceremony involved was that of the army ofMacedon. It was performed by a dog being cut in half, and the army assembling between the location of the two halves, which were flung in opposite directions.[10] According toZosimus, the pagan historian of late antiquity, afterConstantine the Great had his sonCrispus and his own wifeFausta killed, he approached priests of the old religion, and finding that they were unwilling to offer himlustratio for these deeds, went over to the Christian religion after theirs offered himabsolution.[11]