2. _Litanies or Rogations_ _Litaniæ_ is the name given to solemn processions of clergy and people accompanied by prayer at which sacred pictures and emblems are carried. It was impossible to perform such devotions in the days before Constantine. But when Christianity became a recognised religion they were quickly adopted, and all the more so as the heathens had similar practices which they performed frequently and at stated times. Litanies were especially frequent in Rome. There, during Lent, the Pope was wont to set out with his assistants with great solemnity from his residence to celebrate Mass in the various churches of the city. Each day he went to a different church, where the halt or station was made. A survival of this remains in the word _Statio_, which appears so often in the missal. This custom was abandoned in course of time. Still some of these _litaniæ_ found their way into the regular worship of the Church, and have their place in the ecclesiastical year, _i.e._ the procession on the 25th April, St Mark’s day, called _litania major_, and those on the three days before the Ascension, called _litania minor_. The names are remarkable, for the _minor_ lasts three days and the _major_ only one, but it is explained by the history of their institution. The Christian processions are a continuation of the heathen processions which they have replaced. This is especially clear with regard to the _litania major_ which was performed on a stated day, the 25th April. It has nothing to do with St Mark, whose feast was only much later introduced in the Roman Church. The ancient Romans had their processions which took place both within and without the city, the latter corresponding to our rogation processions; the former were called _amburbalia_ from _urbs_, and the latter _ambarvalia_ from _arva_.[421] They served as supplications either for blessings from the gods on the fruits of the earth, and were observed yearly on stated days, or to avert calamities and were appointed as need required.[422] The better known of these processions of ancient Rome, the _ambarvalia_, took place on vii. a. Kal. Maias (25th April). The procession passed along the _Via Flaminia_, the present Corso, and went as far as the fifth milestone, _i.e._ as far as the Milvian Bridge, where, the entrails of a dog and of a sheep were offered to the god _Robigus_.[423] As the procession was primarily intended to ward off blight (_robigo_) from the crops the day was called “_Robigalia_” in the Calendar. When Rome became a great city, agriculture and its festivals fell unto the back ground, and both in the Calendar of the fourth century and in that of Polemius Silvius the _Robigalia_ is no longer mentioned on this day. There was another great procession in heathen Rome, the _Argea_, which took place on the 16th and 17th March, and Bishop Vigilius of Trent, speaks of a rural festival of the same character.[424]