Tubilustrium

Tubilustrium et fratribus saliaribus et Attidi sacrum, ut ait Salzman:

Postea igitur a.d. x kal. apr., dum Tubilustrium agitur, pinus lemniscata cum effigie Attidis disposita est, velut Attis deus (sic), in templo (fortasse palatino) Matris Magnae morsque ejus lugebatur ululatibus atque magno maerore. In fastis medio saeculo p.Chr.n. primo incisis dies haec festa significabat saliorum, Martis sacerdotum, saltationes ancilia concutientium tubarumque eorum lustrationes ante anni horam ad militandum aptissimam. Quarto vero p.Chr.n. saeculo, et quidem, ut mihi videtur, prius, fratres canebant tubis circum templum Matris Magnae circumgredientes ancilia concutientes corybantico more, ut caelatum est in Matris Magnae tholo in sacra via.¹

Quum Tubilustrium agitur, memorandum est Curetum in intellectuali sub Matre progressu, quos Proclus, homo in graecorum theologia disertus, sic asserit instructos, ut intactarum² sit series vivificae deae subordinatarum monadum,³ quae expressuntur per Curetas, quippe qui, ut Naso ait,⁴ tutantur Jovem puellum in Creta absconditum. Sic vero ut Naso in illis versibus denotat, et Proclus in libro Theologiae sexto,⁵ qui sunt Curetes intellectualiter, in ordine liberatorum deorum nominantur Corybantes.

1. Michele R. Salzman. On Roman TIme (University of California Press, 1990), 166. “Then, on 23 March at the Tubilustrium, the tree, decked with purple ribbons and an effigy of Attis, was laid to rest-as the god Attis-in the temple of the Magna Mater (perhaps that on the Palatine Hill in Rome) and his death was mourned with loud cries and lamentations. In the calendars of the mid first century, this holiday connoted the day on which the Salii, the priests of Mars, performed with their shields and cleansed their trumpets in a ritual lustration prior to the military campaigning season. In the fourth century, however, and probably earlier, these priests flourished their trumpets and marched around the temple of Magna Mater, martially beating their shields-like the Corybantes represented on the Tholus of the Magna Mater on the Sacra Via in Rome.” ↩︎
2. Graece: ἄχραντος. Fuit mihi quondam versio latina hujus operis computatralis, sed videor id confusum cum Hesiodi opera omnia amisisse, nec nunc inveniri potest, quantum ego valeo requirere, in Bibliotheca Retiali, unde sumpseram. Hanc ob rem nescio, quo potissimum verbo utendum sit, ut latine vertatur. ↩︎
3. Proclus. Θεολογἰα κατὰ Πλάτωνα, vert. Thomas Taylor (The Prometheus Trust, 2020), 5.2. ↩︎
4. Publius Ovidius Naso. Fasti, rec. James G. Frazer (Loeb Classical Library, 1931), 4.206-210. ↩︎
5. Proclus. Θεολογία κατὰ Πλάτωνα, vert. Thomas Taylor (The Prometheus trust, 2020), 6.13. ↩︎