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CONCILIUM.
vice of slaves : he further adds that the compitalia were celebrated a few days after the Saturnalia with great splendour, and that the slaves on this occasion had full liberty given them to do what they pleased. We further learn from Macrobius (Saturn. i. 7) that the celebration of the compitalia was restored by Tarquinius Superbus, who sacrificed boys to Mania, the mother of the lares ; but this practice was changed after the expulsion of the Tarquins, and garlic and poppies offered in their stead.
The persons, who presided over the festival were the Magistri vici, who were on that occasion allowed to wear the praetexta (Ascon. ad Cic. in Pis. p. 7, ed. Orelli). Public games were added at some time during the republican period to this festival, but they were suppressed by command of the senate in b. c. 68 ; and it was one of the charges brought forward by Cicero against L. Piso that he allowed them to be celebrated in his consulship, b. c. 58 (Cic. in Pis. 4 ; Ascon. /. c.) But that the festival itself still continued to be observed, though the games were abolished, is evident from Cicero (ad Att. iii. 3). During the civil wars the festival fell into disuse, and was accordingly restored by the emperor Augustus. (Suet. Aug. 31 ; comp. Ov. Fast. v. 128—148.) As Augustus was now the pater patriae, the worship of the old lares was discontinued, and the lares of the emperor consequently became the lares of the state. Hence, the Scholiast on Horace (ad Sat. ii. 3. 281), tells us that Augustus set up lares or penates at places where two or more wavs met, and instituted for
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the purpose of attending to their worship an order of priests, who were taken from the Libertini, and were called Augustales. These Augustales are entirely different from the Augustales, who were appointed to attend to the worship of Augustus after his decease, as has been well shown by A. W. Zumpt in his essay on the subject. (De Augus-talibus, &c., Berol. 1846.) [ august ales.]
The compitalia belonged to the feriae concep-iir.ae, that is, festi-yals which were celebrated on days appointed annually by the magistrates or priests. The exact day on which this festival was celebrated, appears to have varied, though it was alwa}Ts in the winter. Dionysius relates (iv. 14), as we have already said, that it was celebrated a few days after the Saturnalia, and Cicero (in Pison. 4) that it fell on the Kalends of January ; but in one of his letters to Atticus (vii. 7) he speaks of it as falling on the fourth before the nones of January. The exact words, with which the festival was announced, are preserved by Macrobius (Saturn, i. 4) and Aulus Gellius (x. 24).
COMPLUVIUM. [domus.]
COMPROMISSUM. [judex ; recepta actio.]
COMUS (ku/jlos). [chorus ; comoedia.]
CONCHA (k^yx??), a Greek and Roman liquid measure, of which there were two sizes. The smalhr was half the cyatlms (=’0412 of a pint English) ; the larger, which was the same as the oji-ijlmphum^ was three times the former (=’1238 of a pint). (Hussey, pp. 207, 209 ; Wurm, p. 129.) – [P.S.]
CONCILIABULUM. [colonia, p. 318,a.]
CONCILIARII. [assessor.]
CONCILIUM generally has the same meaning as convcntus or conventio, but the technical import of concilium in the Roman constitution was an
CONCIO.
assembly of a portion of the people (Gell. xv. 27), as distinct from the general assemblies or comitia. (Fest. p. 50 ; Cic. De Leg. ii. 1, p. Red. in Sen. 5.) Accordingly, as the comitia tributa embraced only a portion of the Roman people, viz. the plebeians, these comitia are often designated by the term concilia plebis. (Liv. vii. 5, xxviii. 53, xxxix. 15.) Upon the same principle, it might be supposed that the comitia curiata might be called concilia, and Niebuhr (Hist, of Rome, i. p. 425) believes that the concilia populi which are mentioned now and then, actually were the comitia curiata ; but there is no evidence of those patrician assemblies, which in the early times certainly never looked upon themselves as a mere part of the nation, having ever been called by that name. In fact, all the passages in which concilia populi occur, clearly show that none other but the comitia tributa are meant. (Liv. i. 36, ii. 7, 60, iii. 13, 16, 64, 71, xxx. 24, xxxviii. 53, xxxix. 15, xliii. 16, Cic. in Vat. 7.) As concilium, however, has the meaning of an assembly in general, we cannot wonder that sometimes it is used in a loose way to designate the comitia of the centuries (Liv. ii. 28) or any concio. (Liv. ii. 7, 28, v. 43 ; Gell. xviii. 7 ; comp. Becker, Handb. der Rom. Altertli. vol. ii. part i. p. 359, note 6.93.)
We must here notice a peculiar sense in which concilium is used by Latin writers to denote the assemblies or meetings of confederate towns or nations, at which either their deputies alone or any of the citizens met who had time and in clination, and thus formed a representative as sembly. (Liv. i. 50.) Such an assembly or diet is commonly designated as commune concilium or rb Koivov^ e. g. Acliaeorum, Aetolorum, Boeotorum^ Macedoniae, and the like. (Liv. xxxvi. 31, xxxviii. 34, xlii. 43, xlv. 18 ; Gell. ii. 6.) Of the same kind were the diets of the Latins in the grove of Ferentina (Liv. i. 51, vi. 33, vii. 25, viii. 3), the meetings of the Etruscans near the temple of Voltumna (Liv. iv. 23, 25, 61, v. 17, vi. 2), of the Hernicans in the circus of Anagnia (ix. 42), of the Aequians and Samnites (iii. 2, iv. 25, x. 12). [L. S.J
CONCIO or CO’NTIO, a contraction for con-ventio, that is, a meeting, or a conventus. (Festus, p. 66, ed. M tiller.) In the technical sense, however, a concio was an assembly of the people at Rome convened by a magistrate for the purpose of making the people acquainted with measures which were to be brought before the next comitia, and of working upon them either to support or oppose the measure. But no question of any kind could be decided bv a concio, and this constitutes the differ-
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ence between conciones and comitia. (Gell. xiii. 14 ; Cic. p. Sext. 50, 53 ; Liv. xxxix. 15.) Still conciones were also convened for other purposes, e.g. of persuading the people to take part in a war (Dionys. vi. 28), or of bringing complaints against a party in the republic. (Dionys. ix. 25 ; Plut. C. Gracch. 3.) Meetings of this kind naturally were of very frequent occurrence at Rome. The earliest that is mentioned, is one held immediately after the death of Romulus by Julius Proculus in the Campus Martius (Liv. i. 16 ; Plut. Rom. 27) ; the first, after the expulsion of the kings, was held by Brutus. (Liv. ii. 2 ; Dionys. v. 10, &c.) Every magistrate had the right to convene conciones, but it was most frequently exercised by the consuls and tribunes, and the latter more especially ex-
