that he gained admittance through the slaves of the
familia, who had no part in the worship of the dwelling, but were
admitted to the Compitalia, or yearly festival of which the Lares of the
compita were the central object. Cato tells us that the vilicus, the
head of the familia of slaves, might not "facere rem divinam nisi
Compitalibus in compito aut in foco";[161] which I take to mean that he
might sacrifice for his fellow-slaves to the Lar at the compitum, or to
the Lar in the house, if the Lar were already transferred from the
compitum to the house. In the constant absence of the owner, the
paterfamilias of Rome's stirring days, the worship of the Lar at the
compitum or in the house came to be more and more distinctly the right
of the vilicus and his wife as representing the slaves, and thus too the
Lar came to be called by the epithet _familiaris_, which plainly
indicates that in his cult the slaves were included. And as it was the
old custom that the slaves should sit at the meals of the family on
benches below the free members (_subsellia_),[162] what more natural
than that they should claim to see there the Lar whom alone of the
deities of the farm they were permitted to worship, and that they should
bring the Lar or his double from the compitum to the house, in the
frequent absence of the master?[163]

The festival of the Lar was celebrated at the compitum, and known as
Compitalia or Laralia; it took place soon after the winter solstice, on
a day fixed by the paterfamilias, in concert, no doubt, with the other
heads of families in the pagus. Like most rejoicings at this time of
year, it was free and jovial in character, and the whole familia took
part in it, both bond and free. Each familia sacrificed on its own
altar, which was placed fifteen feet in front of the compitum, so that
the worshippers might be on their own land; but if, as we may suppose,
the whole pagus celebrated this rite on the same day, there was in this
festival, as in others to be mentioned directly, a social value, a means
of widening the outlook of the familia and associating it with the needs
of others in its religious duties. This is the _religio Larium_ of which
Cicero speaks in the second book of his _de Legibus_, which was "posita
in fundi villaeque conspectu," and handed down for the benefit both of
masters and men from remote antiquity.[164]

There were other festivals in which all the familiae of a pagus took
part. Of these we kno