Origin
Roman legend held that the priestly college was originated by Romulus, who took the place of a dead son of his nurse Acca Laurentia, and formed the priesthood with the remaining eleven sons. They were also connected originally with the Sabine priesthood of Sodales Titii who were probably originally their counterpart among the Sabines.
The brethren dated back to the time of Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome, and persisted to the imperial period. Their task was the worship of Dea Dia, an old fertility goddess and probably an aspect of Ceres. On the three days of her May festival, they offered sacrifices and chanted secretly inside the temple of the goddess at her lucus the Carmen Arvale, the exact meaning of which was no longer understood in later times. The magister (master) of the college selected the exact three days of the celebration by an unknown method. The celebration began in Rome on the first day, was transferred to a sacred grove outside the city wall on the second day and ended back in the city on the third day.
Read more about this topic: Arval Brethren
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Art is good when it springs from necessity. This kind of origin is the guarantee of its value; there is no other.”
—Neal Cassady (1926–1968)