Note 440 — ROMAN PEOPLE (continued 4)
Reading edition
Aen. i. 607 foll. Cp. Aen. iii. 429—
praestat Trinacrii metas lustrare Pachyni cessantem, longos et circumflectere cursus,
where the slow movement and circuitous course of a lustratio must have been in Virgil's mind. The movement round an object for lustral purposes is seen in Aen. vi. 229, "idem ter socios pura circumtulit unda," where Servius explains circumtulit by purgavit. As early as Livius Andronicus (second century B.C.) we find "classem lustratur" of fishes swimming round a fleet (Ribb. Trag. Fragmenta, p. 1).