COMPITALIA. - The Compitalia, one of the three conceptive festivals celebrated at the close of the sowing cycle, fell between December 17 (Saturnalia) and January 5, with a tendency to settle on this last date, which is the one recorded by the Feriale Philocalianum and by Polemius Silvius. They took their name from the fact that they were held at the crossroads (compita), where the roads that divide the various farms in the countryside and the houses in the city meet (Varro, De ling. lat., VI, 25).

The festivals, as is proved by the paintings of the Roman colony of Delos, were held with the sacrifice of a pig in honor of the Lares compitales, supervised by special associations recruited from humble folk; but having offered a flank to the insinuations of politicians, the Senate in 64 B.C. was forced to suppress them. Revived by Clodius and again suppressed by Caesar, they were reorganized by Augustus in 10 B.C. and by him himself integrated with the introduction of 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 saw to the execution of the festival. These too were elected from among the humble, who aspired to preside over the festival, having for the occasion the right to wear the praetexta and to be preceded by lictors. In this way the cult of the genius of Augustus penetrated all strata of the Roman population, also because it reproduced the fundamental elements of domestic cult.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: G. Wissowa, s. v. in Pauly-Wissowa, IV, col. 792; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 2nd ed., Munich 1912, p. 167 ff.; M. Bulard, La religion domestique dont la colonie italienne de Délos, Paris 1926, pp. 388-447; E. Saglio, Compitalia, in C. Daremberg and E. Saglio, Dictionnaire, I, pp. 1429-30; N. Turchi, La religione di Roma antica, Bologna 1939, p. 106; A. Grenier, Les religions cirque et romaine (Muna, 3), Paris 1948, pp. 114, 130, 157.

Alberto Galietti

@incollection{ec4_compitali, author = {Galieti, Alberto}, title = {Compitali}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {IV}, pages = {100}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/compitali} }

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