Arval Brethren

[2] There is further proof of the high antiquity of the college in the verbal forms of the song with which, down to late times, a part of the ceremonies was accompanied, and which is still preserved.

On the three days of her May festival, they offered sacrifices and chanted secretly the Carmen Arvale inside the temple of the goddess, at her lucus.

[4] Their duties included ritual propitiations or thanksgivings such as the Ambarvalia, the sacrifices done at the borders of Rome at the fifth mile of the Via Campana or the Salaria (a place now on the hill Monte delle Piche at Magliana Vecchia on the right bank of the Tiber).

Before the sacrifice, the sacrificial victim was led three times around a grain field where a chorus of farmers and farm-servants danced and sang praises for Ceres and offered her libations of milk, honey and wine.

The importance of Arval Brethren apparently dwindled during the Roman Republic, but emperor Augustus revived their practices to enforce his own authority.

In his time the college consisted of a master (magister), a vice-master (promagister), a priest (flamen), and a praetor, with eight ordinary members, attended by various servants, and in particular by four chorus boys, sons of senators, having both parents alive.