Armilustrium
Armilustrium a Roman festival for the purification of arms. It was celebrated every year on the 14th before the kalends of November (Oct. 19; Mommsen, Inscr. Lat. Ant. p. 404), when the citizens assembled in arms and offered sacrifices, to the sound of the trumpet, in the place called Armilustrum or Armilustrium, on the Aventine near the Lauretum. The Armilustrium appears to mark the close of the campaigning season, when the arms were laid up for the winter; as the Quinquatrus marked the beginning of it. On both occasions the Ancilia were brought out. (Paul. Diac. p. 19, Mill.; Varro, de L. L. 5.153, 6.22; Liv. 27.37; Plut. Rom. 23; P. Vict. de Regionibus U. R.; Inscr. in Gruter, p. 250; Marquardt, 6.417, 419.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.