COMPITALI. – The c., one of the three conceptive festivals celebrated at the close of the sowing cycle, fell between 17 December (Saturnalia) and 5 January, with a tendency to become fixed on the latter date, which is the one recorded in the Feriale of Philocalus and by Polemius Silvius. They took their name from the fact that they were held at the crossroads (compita), where the roads dividing the various farms in the countryside and the houses in the cities meet (Varro, De ling. lat., VI, 25).
The festivals, as is demonstrated by the paintings from the Roman colony of Delos, were celebrated with the sacrifice of a pig in honour of the Compital Lares, under the direction of special associations recruited from among the humble classes; but since they had provided an opening for the insinuations of political agitators, the Senate was compelled to suppress them in 64 B.C. Revived by Clodius and suppressed again by Caesar, they were reorganized by Augustus in 10 B.C., who himself supplemented them by introducing a new element, the genius Augusti. After the Augustan reorganization, the city festival was held twice a year in each of the 265 vici. For each vicus, a magister vici was elected, assisted by four ministers who oversaw the celebration of the festival. These too were elected from among the humiles, who aspired to preside over the festival, since on the occasion they had the right to wear the toga praetexta and to be preceded by lictors. In this way the worship of the genius of Augustus penetrated all levels of the Roman population, also because it reproduced the fundamental elements of domestic worship.