This temple of Vediovis was vowed by the praetor L. Furius Purpureo in 200 B.C., and dedicated six years later[[1223]]. For this obscure deity see on May 21. The connexion between him and Aesculapius (if there were any) is unexplained. The latter was a much older inhabitant of the Tiber island (291 B.C.), and became in time the special deity of that spot[[1224]], which is called by Dionys. (5. 13) νῆσος εὐμεγέθης Ἀσκληπιοῦ ἱερά. Is it possible that an identification of Vediovis with Apollo[[1225]]—so often a god of pestilence—brought the former to the island seat of the healing deity? The connexion between Apollo and Aesculapius is well known.
Another invasion of the island took place almost at the same time. In 194 B.C. a temple of Faunus was dedicated there which had been vowed two years earlier[[1226]]; and it may be worth noting that Faunus also had power to avert pestilence and unfruitfulness, as is seen in the story of Numa and the Faunus-oracle. (Ovid, Fasti, 4. 641 foll.)
On Jan. 1, under the later Republic, i. e. after the year 153 B.C., in and after which the consuls began their year of office on this day, it was the custom to give New Year presents by way of good omen, called strenae[[1227]]; a word which survives in the French étrennes. It is likely enough that the custom was much older than 153 B.C.: the word was said to be derived from a Sabine goddess Strenia, whose sacellum at the head of the Via Sacra is mentioned by Varro (L. L. v. 47[[1228]]), and from whose grove certain sacred twigs were carried to the arx (in procession along the Sacred Way?) at the beginning of each year[[1229]]. But we are not told whether this latter rite always took place on Jan. 1, or was transferred to that day from some other in 153 B.C.
iii Non. Ian.-Non. Ian. (Jan. 3-5). C.
3 LUDI } LUDI }
4 LUDI }(PHILOC.) LUDI COMPITALES } (SILV.)
5 LUDI } (COMITALIS, MS.)
The Compitalia were not feriae stativae until late in the Empire, and then perhaps only so by tradition[[1230]]. They took place at some date between the Saturnalia (Dec. 17) and Jan. 5; and we may infer from Philocalus and Silvius as quoted above that the tendency was to put them late in that period. Not being a great state-festival, they could be put between Kalends and Nones.
The original meaning of compitum is explained by the Scholiast on Persius, 4. 28[[1231]] ‘Compita sunt loca in quadriviis, quasi turres, ubi sacrificia, finita agricultura, rustici celebrabant.... Compita sunt non solum in urbe loca, sed etiam viae publicae ac diverticulae aliquorum confinium, ubi aediculae consecrantur patentes. In his fracta iuga ab agricolis ponuntur, velut emeriti et elaborati operis indicium[[1232]].’ From this we gather that where country cross-roads met, or where in the parcelling out of agricultural allotments one semita crossed another[[1233]], some kind of altar was erected and the spot held sacred. This is quite in keeping with the usage of other peoples: the ‘holiness’ of cross-roads is a well-known fact in folk-lore[[1234]]. It may be doubted, however, whether the Scholiast is right in his explanation of the ‘fracta iuga,’ which may rather have been used as a spell of some kind, than as ‘emeriti operis indicium.’ Thus Crooke[[1235]] mentions an Indian practice of fixing up a harrow perpendicularly where four roads met, apparently with the object of appeasing the rain-god.
In the city of Rome the compita were the meeting-places of vici (streets with houses), where sacella were erected to the Lares compitales[[1236]]—two in each case. For the inhabitants of the vici which thus crossed each other, the compitum was the religious centre; and thus arose a quasi-religious organization, which, as including the lowest of the population and even slaves[[1237]], became of much importance in the revolutionary period in connexion with the machinery of electioneering. The ‘collegia compitalicia’ were abolished by the Senate in B.C. 64, and reconstituted in B.C. 58 by a bill of Clodius de collegiis. Caesar again prohibited them, and the ludi compitalicii with them; but the latter were once more revived by Augustus and made part of his general reorganization of the city and its worship[[1238]].
The Compitalia, which the Romans ascribed to Servius Tullius or Tarquinius Superbus[[1239]], was probably first organized as part of the religious system of the united city in the Etruscan period, though it doubtless had its origin in the rustic ideas and practice of which we get a glimpse in the passage quoted from the Scholiast on Persius. Two features of it seem to fit in conveniently with this conjecture: (1) that already mentioned, that even the slaves had a part in it, as well as the plebs; (2) the fact that the magistri vicorum, who were responsible for the festival, wore the toga praetexta on the day of its celebration[[1240]]—which looks like a Tarquinian innovation in an anti-aristocratic sense.