Smith, William: A smaller dictionary of Greek and Roman antiquities (London, 1871)

CONGIUS.

CONSUL.

donations made to the soldiers were called
donativa, though they were sometimes also
termed congiaria. Man}' coins of the Roman
emperors were struck in commemoration of
such congiaria. Congiarium was, moreover,
occasionally used simply to designate a pre-
sent or a pension given by a person of high
lank, or a prince, to his friends.

Con^iarium. (Coin of Trajan.)

CONGIUS, a Roman liquid measure, which
contained six sextarii, or the eighth part of
the amphora (nearly six pints Eng.) It was
equal to the larger chous of the Greeks.

CONNTJBIXJM. [Mateimonium.]

CONOPETJM («:wi'co7reiov), a gnat or mus-
qmto-curtain, i. e. a covering made to be ex-
panded over beds and couches to keep away
gnats and other flying insects, so called from
siuvuixji, a gnat. Cunopeum is the origin of
the English word canopy.

CONQUISITORES, persons employed to go
about the country and impress soldiers, when
there was a difficulty in completing a levy.
Sometimes commissioners were appointed by
a decree of the senate for the purpose of
making a conquisitio.

CONSANGUINEI. [Cognati.]

CONSECRATIO. [Apotheosis.]

CONSILIUM. [Conventus.]

CONSUALIA, a festival, with games, cele-
brated by the Romans, according to Ovid and
others, in honour of Consus, the god of
secret deliberations, or, according to Livy, of
Neptunus Equestris. Some writers, how-
ever, say that Neptunus Equestris and Con-
sus were only different names for one and
the same deity. It was solemnised every
year in the circus, by the symbolical cere-
mony of uncovering an altar dedicated to the
god, which was buried in the earth. For
Romulus, who was considered as the founder
of the festival, was said to have discovered
an altar in the earth on that spot. The so-
lemnity took place on the 21st of August
with horse and chariot races, and libations
were poured into the flames which consumed

the sacrifices. During these festive games
horses and mules were not allowed to do any
work, and were adorned with garlands of
flowers. It was at their first celebration that,
according to the ancient legend, the Sabine
maidens were carried off.

CONSUL (iiTraTos), the title of the two
chief officers or magistrates of the Roman
republic. The word is probably composed of
con and sul, which contains the same root as
the verb salio, so that consules signifies
" those who come together," just as prassul
means " one who goes before," and exsul,
" one who goes out." The consulship is said
to have been' instituted upon the expulsion of
the kings in b.c. 509, when the kingly power
was transferred to two magistrates, whose
office lasted only for one year, that it might
not degenerate into tyranny by being vested
longer in the same persons ; and for the same
reason two were appointed instead of one
king, as neither could undertake anything
unless it was sanctioned and approved by his
colleague. Their original title was praetores,
or commanders of the armies, but this was
changed into that of consules in b.c. 449,
and the latter title remained in use until the
latest periods of the Roman empire.-—The
consuls were at first elected from the patri-
cians exclusively. Their office was suspended
in b.c. 451, and its functions were per-
formed by ten high commissioners (decem-
viri), appointed to frame a code of laws. On
the re-establishment of the consulship in b. c.
449, the tribunes proposed that one of the
consuls should be chosen from the plebeians,
but this was strenuously resisted by the pa-
tricians, and a compromise effected by sus-
pending the consular office, and creating in
its stead military tribunes (tribuni militum)
with consular power, who might be elected
indifferently both from the patricians and
plebeians. They were first appointed in b.c.
444. The plebeians, however, were not satis-
fied with this concession, and still endea-
voured to attain the higher dignity of the
consulship. At length, after a serious and
long-protracted struggle between the two
orders, it was enacted by the Licinian law,
in b.c. 367, that henceforth the consulship
should be divided between the patricians and
plebeians, and that one of the consuls should
always be a plebeian. Accordingly, in u. c.
366 L. Sextius was elected the first plebeian
consul. This law, however, was not always
observed, and it still frequently happened
that both consuls were patricians, until, in
later times, when the difference between the
two orders had entirely ceased, and the ple-
beians were on a footing of perfect equality
with the patricians, the consuls were elected