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

LUSTRAL Day (Dies Lufricus), 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. Though 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 amphidromia. 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.