Les Compitalia à Délos
Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: A rich corpus of paintings, inscriptions and votive monuments gives us information about the circumstances and the celebrations of the Compitalia in the 2nd and lst centuries BC. We first consider the paintings executed on the external walls of some twenty houses or shops and on the interior of three of them, which depict the gods and rites (sacrifices, ludi) of this ancient Roman feast. A fresh examination of these pictures and a comparison of with iconographic and literary evidence in Italy has enabled us to correct and complete the catalogue compiled by M. Bulard in 1926 and finished by Ph. Bruneau in 1970, while at die same time amending the théories advanced by each of diem. In particular it appears that Hercules and other divinities figured in the Pantheon of the Compitalia along with the Lares, that the altars and paintings were commissioned by the owners of the houses for private sacrifices and that the feast underwent a certain number of local influences in regard to the gods, rites, place of celebration and the origin of the faithful. Secondarily, the reexamination of the inscriptions and votive monuments in the Agora of the Competaliasts shows that the Compitalia were equally celebrated within the official framework of the community of the Italici : a sanctuary of the Lares consisting of an altar, a tholos sheltering the images of the Lares, and statues and altars of other divinities was entrusted to the college of the Competaliasts, who organised the sacrifice and also probably the ludi compitalicii.
Author: Claire Hasenohr
Language: English
Topic: Classical Antiquity Studies
Subfield: Anthropology
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W1992644776