LUSTRATION, in antiquity, sacrifices or cere-
monies by which the ancients purified their cities,
fields, armies, or people, deified by any crime or im-
purity. Some of these lustrations were public, others
private. There were three species or manners of per-
forming lustration, viz. by fire and sulphur, by water,
and by air; which last was done by fanning and agi-
tating the air round the thing to be purified. Some
of these lustrations were necessary, i. e. could not be
dispensed with; as lustrations of houses in time of a
plague, or upon the death of any person: others again
were done out of choice, and at pleasure. The public
lustrations at Rome were celebrated every fifth year;
in which they led a victim thrice round the place to
be purified, and in the mean time burnt a great quan-
tity of perfumes. Their country lustrations, which
they called ambarvalia, were celebrated before they
began to reap their corn: in those of the armies, which
they called armilustrina, some chosen soldiers, crowned
with laurel, led the victims, which were a cow, a sheep,
and a bull, thrice round the army ranged in battle-
array in the field of Mars, to which deity the victims
were afterwards sacrificed, after pouring out many
imprecations upon the enemies of the Romans. The
lustrations of their flocks were performed in this man-
ner: the shepherd sprinkled them with pure water,
and thrice surrounded his sheepfold with a composition
of favin, laurel, and brimstone set on fire; and after-
wards sacrificed to the goddess Pales an offering of
milk boiled, wine, a cake, and millet. As for private
houses, they were lustrated with water, a fumigation
of laurel, juniper, olive tree, favin, and such like; and
the victim commonly was a pig. Lustrations made for
particular persons were commonly called expiations, and
the victims piacula. There was also a kind of lustra-
tion used for infants, by which they were purified, girls
the third, and boys the ninth, day after their birth;
which ceremony was performed with pure water and
spittle. See the article AMBARVALIA.—In their lustra-
tratory sacrifices, the Athenians sacrificed two men, one
for the men of their city, and the other for the women.
Divers of these expiations were austere: some fasted;
others abstained from all sensual pleasures; and some,
as the priests of Cybele, castrated themselves. The
postures of the penitents were different according to
the different sacrifices. The priests changed their ha-
bits according to the ceremony to be performed; white,
purple, and black, were the most usual colours. They
cast into the river, or at least out of the city, the ani-
mals or other things that had served for a lustration or
sacrifice of atonement; and thought themselves threat-
ened with some great misfortune when by chance they
trod upon them. Part of these ceremonies were abo-
lished by the emperor Constantine and his successors:
the rest subsisted till the Gothic kings were masters of
Rome; under whom they expired, excepting what the
popes thought proper to adopt and bring into the
church.
For the lustration, or rather expiation, of the ancient
Jews, see EXPIATION.