As we have seen, the farms and homesteads of the early Latins were grouped together in associations called _pagi_; and we can hardly doubt that these were subjected to the same process of _lustratio_ as the farms themselves. We have no explicit account of a circumambulation in this case, but we have in the later poets several charming allusions to a _lustratio pagi_, and it is of a rite of this kind that Virgil must have been thinking when he wrote the beautiful passage in the first Georgic beginning "In primis venerare deos";[449] and the lines terque novas circum felix eat hostia fruges, omnis quam chorus et socii comitentur ovantes, etc., clearly imply a procession with the object of keeping away harmful influences from the crops at a critical time. And when the city-state came into being we may be equally sure that its _ager_, so long at least as it was small enough to admit of such a processional ritual, was lustrated in the same way. In historical times this _ager_ had become too extensive, and there is no procession to be found among the duties of the Fratres Arvales as we know them when they were revived by Augustus; but we have not, of course, the whole of the "acta" of the Brethren, and even if we had, it would not be likely that we should find any trace of a practice which must have been dropped in course of time as the Roman territory increased. Let us go on to the beginnings of the city, where we shall find the same principle and practice applied in striking fashion.