CONSO. - An ancient Roman god: his two festivals, called Consualia, on 21 Aug. and 15 Dec., are marked in the oldest Roman calendar.
His cult was centred around an underground altar near the Circus Maximus, where, on his festival, ludi were held with mule and horse races. The circus spectacle organized by Romolo, during which, according to legend, the abduction of the Sabine women took place, is also said to have been dedicated to the god who, in the texts recalling the episode, is identified with Neptunus equester. The rex sacrorum on horseback also took part in the December festival. The same interval that separates the festival of Ops from that of C. in December—Ops being mythologically conceived as the Earth—separates the day of the Opiconsivia from his August festival. Therefore, whereas ancient scholars interpreted the god etymologically on the basis of the word consilium, modern scholars tend to see in him an agricultural divinity connected, in his name, with the verb coudere (in the sense of depositing grain in underground storehouses): the position of the August festival would correspond to this meaning. But since coudere also has other meanings—for example, to close a period—some explain the December festival in connection with the end of the year; finally, others, on the basis of the underground altar in the circus, consider him an infernal divinity.