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🌳 Roman Arbor Day.
The ritual of the Lacuria was head on two days in Rome at the Vial Salaria and the Tiber, where an ancient sacred grove of trees existed. The name "Lacus" means , "grove of trees", and the rituals were intended to appease all the tree-dwelling spirits. The money from this ceremony was said to have come from the revenue made by public groves (I guess "public" didn't mean "free").
Around this time, people slashed and burned vegitation in order to clear land and fields. This included destroying trees, so these ritual existed to appease those tree-dwelling spirits that might seek revenge. There were also rites to be done before cutting down or burning an individual tree, so the Lacuria was not the only time tree-spirits were addressed.
According to Cato, when a grove was thinned, a pig was sacrificed to whatever god the grove had been dedicated to.
📕 Bernstein, Frances, _Classical Living: Reconnecting with the Rituals of Ancient Rome_. HarperCollins, 2000.
Cato, _De Agricultura_, 139 LCL
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✍️ Last Updated: 2021-07-27