an epithet given by the ancients to the water used in their ceremonies to sprinkle and purify the people. From them the Romanists have borrowed the holy-water used in their churches.

LUSTRAL Day, (Dies Lustricus), that whereon the lustrations were performed for a child, and its name given; which was usually the ninth day from the birth of a boy, and the eighth from that of a girl. Tho' others performed the ceremony on the last day of that week wherein the child was born, and others on the fifth day from its birth.

Over this feast-day the goddess Nundina was supposed to preside; the midwives, nurses, and domestics, handed the child backwards and forwards, around a fire burning on the altars of the gods, after which they sprinkled it with water; hence this feast had the name of amplidromia. The old women mixed saliva and dust with the water. The whole ended with a sumptuous entertainment. The parents received gifts from their friends on this occasion. If the child was a male, their door was decked with an olive garland; if a female, with wool, denoting the work about which women were to be employed.

No 189.