AMBARVALIA, or Ambarvale Sacrum(ambio and arvum ,to go round the field), an annual festival celebrated in ancient Rome on three days during the month of May. The private ambarvalia is to be distinguished from the sacrificium deae dioe celebrated by the twelve fratres arvales, though the two festivals were coincident in point of time and had a common object, namely, to obtain from the gods a favourable harvest. The sacrificium was offered up on behalf of the entire state; the ambarvalia was celebrated by each proprietor for himself. The victims were a sow, a sheep, and a bull, and were called by the combined name suovetaurilia. Previous to the sacrifice these were led round the fields, while the peasants sang hymns to Ceres. The form of prayer used (carmen ambarvale) is preserved in an inscription of the date of the Emperor Elagabalus (218 a.d.), which was discovered in 1777. The same inscription gives an interesting account of the entire ceremony. (See Marini’s Gli Atti e Monumenti de Fratelli Arvali, Rome, 1792.) The Christian festival that seems to have taken the place of the ambarvalia is the Rogation or Gang Week of the Roman Catholic Church, for which the perambulation of the parish boundaries was substituted at the Reformation.