xii Kal. Sept. (Aug. 21). NP.
CONS[UALIA]. (PINC. MAFF. VALL. ETC.)
CONSO IN AVENTINO SACRIFICIUM. (VALL.)
There was a second festival of Consus on Dec. 15; but the note ‘Conso in Aventino’ there appears three days earlier, Dec. 12. The temple on the Aventine was a comparatively late foundation[[880]]; but as the cult of this old god became gradually obscured, it seems to have been confused with the most ancient centre of Consus-worship, the underground altar in the Circus maximus, ‘ad primas metas’[[881]]. It is with this latter that we must connect the two Consualia. What the altar was like we do not exactly know; it was only uncovered on the festival days. Dionysius calls it a τέμενος, Servius a ‘templum sub tecto’; and Tertullian, who explicitly says that it was ‘sub terra,’ asserts that there was engraved on it the following inscription: ‘Consus consilio, Mars duello, Lares coillo[[882]] potentes.’ Wissowa remarks that this statement ‘is not free from suspicion’; and we may take it as pretty certain that if it was really there it was not very ancient. The false etymology of Consus, and the connexion of Mars with war, both show the hand of some comparatively late interpreter of religion; and the form of the inscription, nominative and descriptive, is most suspiciously abnormal.
For the true etymology of Consus we are, strange to say, hardly in doubt; and it helps us to conjecture the real origin of this curious altar. Consus is connected with ‘condere’[[883]], and may be interpreted as the god of the stored-up harvest; the buried altar will thus be a reminiscence of the very ancient practice—sometimes of late suggested as worth reviving for hay—of storing the corn underground[[884]]. Or if this practice cannot be proved of ancient Italy, we may aptly remember that sacrifices to chthonic deities were sometimes buried; a practice which may in earliest times have given rise to the connexion of such gods with wealth—when agricultural produce rather than the precious metals was the common form of wealth[[885]]. Or again we may combine the two interpretations, and guess that the corn stored up underground was conceived as in some sense sacrificed to the chthonic deities.
If these views of the altar are correct, we might naturally infer that the Consualia in August was a harvest festival of some kind. Plutarch[[886]] asks why at the Consualia horses and asses have a holiday and are decked out with flowers; and such a custom would suit excellently with harvest-home. Unluckily in the only trace of this custom preserved in the calendars, it is attributed to the December festival, and is so mutilated as to be useless for detail[[887]].
FERIAE CONSO EQUI ET [MULI FLORIBUS CORONANTUR].
QUOD IN EIUS TU[TELA SUNT].
[ITA]QUE REX EQUO [VECTUS].
The amplifications here are Mommsen’s, the first two based on Plutarch’s statement. It is a difficulty, as regards the first, that the middle of December would be a bad time for flowers: perhaps this did not occur to the great scholar. I would suggest that either Verrius’ note is here accidentally misplaced, or that the lacunae must be filled up differently. In any case I do not think we need fear to refer Plutarch’s passage to the Consualia of August, and therefore to harvest rejoicings on that day.
The connexion of the Consus-cult with horses was so obvious as to give rise eventually to the identification of the god with Poseidon Hippios. It is certain that there were horse-races in the Circus maximus at one of the two Consualia, and as Dionysius[[888]] connects them with the day of the Rape of the Sabines, which Plutarch puts in August, we may be fairly sure that they took place at the August festival. Mules also raced—according to Festus[[889]], because they were said to be the most ancient beasts of burden. This looks like a harvest festival, and may carry us back to the most primitive agricultural society and explain the origin of the Circus maximus; for the only other horse-races known to us from the old calendar were those of Mars in the Campus Martius on Feb. 27 and March 13[[890]]. We may suppose that when the work of harvest was done, the farmers and labourers enjoyed themselves in this way and laid the foundation for a great Roman social institution[[891]].
Once more, it is not impossible that in the legendary connexion of the Rape of the Sabine women with the Consualia[[892]] we may see a reflection of the jollity and license which accompanies the completion of harvest among so many peoples. Romulus was said to have attracted the Sabines by the first celebration of the Consualia. Is it not possible that the meeting of neighbouring communities on a festive occasion of this kind may have been a favourable opportunity for capturing new wives[[893]]? The sexual license common on such occasions has been abundantly illustrated by Mr. Frazer in his Golden Bough[[894]].
Before leaving the Consualia we may just remark that Consus had no flamen of his own, in spite of his undoubted antiquity; doubtless because his altar was underground, and only opened once or perhaps twice a year. On August 21 his sacrifice was performed, says Tertullian[[895]], by the Flamen Quirinalis in the presence of the Vestals. This flamen seems to have had a special relation to the corn-crops, for it was he who also sacrificed a dog to Robigus on April 25[[896]], to avert the mildew from them; and thus we get one more confirmation from the cult of the view taken as to the agricultural origin of the Consualia.