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the festival of Consus – today, 12th December
Today (12th December) was the festival of Consus in the ancient Roman calendar. It was linked with the festivals of the Consualia or the Consuales Ludi (official games) on the 15th December and on the 18th August. Chariot races seem to have originated with the cult of Consus, and the Consuales Ludi were held in the great Circus Maximus in Rome. The two Consualia are also associated with two related festivals (the Opalia, for Ops, goddess of abundance) on the 19th December and the 25th August respectively, one marking the end of the harvest and the other the removal of grain from storage.
Consus was the god of grain, especially stored grain, and the granary. He was represented by a seed of grain. He was also associated with horses and, because of that, with Neptune/Poseidon. There was an altar to Consus in Rome which stood on the site of and pre-dated the Circus Maximus. When the Circus Maximus was built, the altar to Consus was included within it, towards the south-eastern, curved end, near the first meta (the far turning-post). Consus, therefore, was a god with a very early association with the Circus Maximus. He could even be seen as the founding god of the Circus Maximus and he was worshipped there as long as races were held there, even after his sacred functions were forgotten. There are two metae in a Roman circus, and they mark the two most dangerous points on the race-track and during any race. The old altar to Consus was later incorporated into the platform of the first meta itself of the Circus Maximus. This platform was built as a chamber with a small sub-chamber cut into the rock below which formed a symbolic underground granary. (In the Roman world, grain was stored underground.) The chamber functioned as an altar or ‘temple’ and there was an inscription to Consus on the outside. This ‘temple’ of Consus in the Circus Maximus was, apparently, only opened during races.
Other early deities represented at the Circus Maximus related to Consus and to grain: three agrarian goddesses for sowing, harvesting and the storage/ protection of the grain were represented by figures on columns within the central barrier (spina). The figures of dolphins in the circus were in honour of Neptune, who was linked with Consus. There was also a ‘temple’ to Consus at the Circus Maxentius in Rome, and a later temple to Consus on the Aventine Hill in Rome.
In August, grain was harvested and stored in granaries. On the 18th, the Consualia was a holiday for horses, mules and asses, when they were exempted from their labours, and they were decorated and paraded through the streets of towns and in the country. They could also be used in races on that day. The 12th December may have been the day when the grain was first checked and when the first grain was removed for trading and consumption, or it may have been a day for a symbolic ritual, the offering of the first grain or a celebration of the opening of the granaries, followed by the Consuales Ludi on the 15th. (The festival of Consus falls just before the winter solstice.) Underground granaries were also associated with the Underworld, the world of the dead, so there is a suggestion that the Consualia in December was an event to restore communication with the Underworld, as well. Horses were thought to move between the human world and the Underworld and they were associated with funerary ritual and the dead; horse races around a Roman circus had a symbolic element, of the stirring up and mixing of the two worlds. The Consuales Ludi included ridden horse races which were an even older element than chariot races. The oldest recorded games at the site of the Circus Maximus were identified as the Consuales Ludi first held by Romulus, one of the founders of Rome in Roman mythology.
The Circus Maximus was the largest and most important Roman circus in the empire. So chariot races, horse races and other games were held in the Circus Maximus during the Consuales Ludi, for the two festivals in August and December. We wonder if they were held in other circuses around the Roman empire, and even our own Roman circus at Colchester…
Read more about the Circus Maximus and other Roman circuses in Roman circuses – arenas for chariot racing, by John H Humphrey (1986).
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