Hail Mars!
Hail Nerio!
Hail Mars!
Hail Minerva!
Hail Mars!
May we ask for protection for our music and its protection from the harmful!
May we lustrate our musical weapons that keep us from the negative, pointless and defeat!
May we take stock of our assets to sing and dance our way into a commensurate future!
May we use these sacred vehicles wisely!
Salve Marte!
Salve Nerio!
Salve Marte!
Salve Minerva!
Salve Marte!

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For the Tubilustrium of March, the sacred tubae or trumpets were lustrated in the name of Mars or Mars and Nerio. In time, the goddess Minerva came to be associated with these feriae as well. The tuba was used to signal attack and retreat during infantry battles. It was also used in the cult of the dead. But because the month of March is connected with preparing for agricultural production and its protection from disease and disruption, the tuba probably served for deflecting the unseen inimical forces of the co-natural as well. At the heart of this festival is the notion of music as an augmenting and protective energy, and this day becomes a moment to honour the instruments that serve as the vehicle for the musical, to cleanse them and prepare them for future use. As the name of the festival conveys, the tubae are lustrated at this time. And as the festival itself culminates three nundinae or nine-day periods from the February Equirria, the deity Mars is to be understood as the god who both begins and ends this sacral period that spans the start of the new year and its critical first days.