Commagēne. See: [Comagena].
Commodus Lucius Aurelius Antoninus, son of Marcus Antoninus, succeeded his father in the Roman empire. He was naturally cruel, and fond of indulging his licentious propensities; and regardless of the instructions of philosophers, and of the decencies of nature, he corrupted his own sisters, and kept 300 women, and as many boys, for his illicit pleasures. Desirous to be called Hercules, like that hero he adorned his shoulders with a lion’s skin, and armed his hands with a knotted club. He showed himself naked in public, and fought with the gladiators, and boasted of his dexterity in killing the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. He required divine honours from the senate, and they were granted. He was wont to put such an immense quantity of gold dust in his hair, that when he appeared bare-headed in the sunshine, his head glittered as if surrounded with sunbeams. Martia, one of his concubines, whose death he had prepared, poisoned him; but as the poison did not quickly operate, he was strangled by a wrestler. He died in the 31st year of his age, and the 13th of his reign, A.D. 192. It has been observed, that he never trusted himself to a barber, but always burnt his beard, in imitation of the tyrant Dionysius. Herodian.
Commoris, a village of Cilicia. Cicero, Letters to his Friends, bk. 15, ltr. 4.
Comon, a general of Messenia. Pausanias, bk. 4, ch. 26.
Compĭtālia, festivals celebrated by the Romans the 12th of January and the 6th of March, in the cross ways, in honour of the household gods called Lares. Tarquin the Proud, or, according to some, Servius Tullius, instituted them on account of an oracle which ordered him to offer heads to the Lares. He sacrificed to them human victims; but Junius Brutus, after the expulsion of the Tarquins, thought it sufficient to offer them only poppy heads, and men of straw. The slaves were generally the ministers, and during the celebration they enjoyed their freedom. Varro, de Lingua Latina, bk. 5, ch. 3.—Ovid, Fasti, bk. 5, li. 140.—Dionysius of Halicarnassus, bk. 4.
Compsa, now Consa, a town of the Hirpini in Italy, at the east of Vesuvius.
Compustus, a river of Thrace, falling into the lake Bistonis. Herodotus, bk. 7, ch. 109.
Compusa, a town of Bithynia.
Comum, now Como, a town at the north of Insubria, at the bottom of the lake Como, in the modern duchy of Milan. It was afterwards called Novo Comum by Julius Cæsar, who transplanted a colony there, though it resumed its ancient name. It was the birthplace of the younger Pliny. Pliny, bk. 3, ch. 18.—Livy, bk. 34, chs. 36 & 37.—Suetonius, Julius, ch. 28.—Pliny the Younger, bk. 1, ltr. 3.—Cicero, Letters to his Friends, bk. 13, ltr. 35.
Comus, the god of revelry, feasting, and nocturnal entertainments. During his festivals, men and women exchanged each other’s dress. He was represented as a young and drunken man, with a garland of flowers on his head, and a torch in his hand, which seemed falling. He is more generally seen sleeping upon his legs, and turning himself when the heat of the falling torch scorched his side. Philostratus, bk. 2, Imagines.—Plutarch, Quæstiones romanæ.