The Fratres Arvales, or Arval Brothers or Brethren, in the Roman world were the priests who supervised the worship of the goddess Dia, the “luminous” goddess who protected the final maturation of cereals (fruges) with her beneficial light. The goddess Dia was later also identified with the Ceres.
The Arval priests were 12 high-ranking senators who performed public sacrifices to ensure a good crop cultivation (arva – fields).
According to tradition, the priestly College of the Arvals was founded by Romulus, and its 12 members were chosen from the aristocracy. The number 12 refers to the 12 sons of the shepherd Faustulus and Acca, the goddess Lupa (the She-wolf) and mother of the Lares, who had raised the twin founders of Rome. According to the tradition when the twelfth son of Acca died, Romulus himself took the place of his nurse’s son, establishing the confraternity. Romulus is also said to have chosen the wreath of corn bound with white fillets as the identifying element for the brothers, who worn them on their heads during the ceremonies (as seen in the photos).
The acta fratrum Arvalium, are the records of the rites the Arval brethren performed, drafted on codices (wax tablets) and kept in archives for their exclusive use, and then inscribed in copy on the walls of the Temple of the goddess Dia. Some fragments of these records have been found, starting from the 16th century, in the sacred grove where the brothers gathered to perform their sacrifices, today located at Magliana Vecchia.
These documents are also crucial for understanding the functioning of other religious colleges in the ancient Roman world, as they are the only surviving evidence to this day; no other ancient texts document the locations, dates, and specific worship rites in such detail.
We know from these documents that the priesthood, which had fallen into oblivion over the centuries, was refounded in the 1st century BC by Augustus, who implemented a policy of renewing archaic cults alongside an intense activity of restoring ancient houses of worship. From that moment on, the emperor also became an Arval, and the number of fratres increased. The acta Arvalium mention 33 Arval emperors.
It was possible to became a member of the Arval College either by free election (cooptatio) or, as often happened, by decision of the emperor (ex litteris imperatoris). The offices were elected annually during the ceremonies in May and became executive from the following December 17th, lasting for one year. The college was supervised by the magister, assisted in the ceremonies by a flamen. The magister could be replaced by a delegated brother, the promagister.
The brothers had as assistants noble boys whose parents were still alive, called patrimi and matrimi, and a freed slave, called a calator. An edituus guarded the Temple of the goddess Dia.
Among the duties of the Arvals was to supervise the field festivals called Ambarvalia, which involved establishing the boundaries of properties through a procession. By extension, in the same way, the perimeter of the city was reaffirmed through a public and religious ceremony.
On January 3rd, the Arvals gathered on the Capitoline Hill to dischaege the vows made in the past and make new ones for the coming year. They would then set the dates for the festival of the goddess Dia, which being movable, changed from year to year, falling between May 17th, 19th, and 20th or May 27th, 29th, and 30th. The first of the three festival days took place in the city, the second in the lucus deae Diae, the sacred grove at Magliana, and the third day back in the city.
In the sacred grove near Magliana Vecchia, the Arvals performed the so-called piacula, or expiatory sacrifices. To prevent the consequences of any errors in the ritual procedure and avoid invalidating the results or displeasing the gods, expiatory sacrifices were performed to preemptively extinguish any harmful effects. Another necessary expiatory sacrifice was that to purify iron tools when, on the second day of the May festival, the ceremony required the cleaning of the lucus and the pruning of the trees. Touching iron was strictly forbidden, as it broadly referred to war and weapons, symbolically intended to avoid contaminating the pure new seeds stored in the temple and used in ceremonies to propitiate future good harvests. For this purpose, the Arvals sacrificed two porcilia (our porchette, spilt roasted pork), which they would eat in their ritual banquet.
Further expiatory sacrifices were necessary when the acta were inscribed with iron tools on the marble surfaces of the goddess’s temple, if a tree fell due to wind, lightning, or old age, or if there were fires, lightning strikes, or collapses of the sacred buildings. In these cases, they sacrificed a sow, a sheep, and a bull (suovetaurilia), followed by the immolation of two cows in honor of the goddess Dia and two sheep for the other deities celebrated in the lucus, and then as many animals (verbaces) as there were deified members of the imperial family, whose worship was celebrated in another building present in the area and a stop on the Arval processions, the Caesareum.
The Arvals were also responsible for performing sacrifices for the imperial cult, such as celebrating the birthday of living emperors and members of their family, the deification of deceased emperors and empresses, and their return from distant expeditions.
Sacrifices were made to the Capitoline Triad, invoking the salus (well-being/health) of the emperor and the state (salus publica), but also in honor of Mars, Neptune, Hercules, Victoria, Vesta, the god Summanus (who governed nocturnal lightning), and the goddess Flora.
The decline of the priestly college began around the middle of the 3rd century AD, leading to the suppression of pagan cults at the end of the 4th century.
Reference Bibliography:
J. Scheid, Gli Arvali e il sito ad Deam Diam, in R. Friggeri, M. Magnani Clementi, C. Caruso, Terme di Diocleziano. Il chiostro piccolo della certosa di Santa Maria degli Angeli, Milano 2014
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