La lustration des champs à l’époque augustéenne au regard des sources littéraires

Abstract

The lustration of fields in Augustan times according to literary sources. Significant discrepancies can be found between the information given in Augustan texts about the “lustration of fields”, and the precise description of the rite in Cato’s De Agricultura (§ 141), a century and a half earlier. The deities invoked, the nature of the sacrifices, and the number of participants do not tally. However, the only texts from the Augustan corpus concerning the lustration of fields are six excerpts from poems, which leads us to believe that the differences are more likely to result from the Augustan poets’ desire to adapt the rite to their own conception of agrarian religion, rather than from changes having occurred in the rite itself, or from a faulty knowledge of agrarian lustration rites.