or COMPETALITAE, feasts held among the ancients in honour of the lares. The word comes from the Latin compitum, a cross-way, because the feast was held in the meeting of several roads. The competalia are more ancient than the building of Rome. Dionysius Halicarnassus and Pliny, indeed, say that they were instituted by Servius Tullius; but this only signifies that they were then introduced into Rome. The feast being moveable, the day on which it was to be observed was proclaimed every year. It was ordinarily held on the fourth of the nones of February, or on the second of that month. Macrobius observes, that it was held not only in honour of the lares, but also of mania, madness. The priests who officiated were slaves and liberti, and the sacrifice was a sow. The competalia were re-established, after a long neglect, by Tarquin the Proud, on occasion of an answer of the oracle, that they should sacrifice heads for heads, that is, that for the health and prosperity of each family, children were to be sacrificed; but Brutus, after expelling the kings, in lieu of those barbarous victims substituted the heads of garlic and poppy; thus satisfying the oracle, which had enjoined capitae, heads. During the celebration of this festival, each family placed at the door of their house the statue of the goddess Mania, and also hung up at their doors figures of wool, representing men and women; accompanying them with supplications that the lares and mania would be contented with those figures, and spare the people of the house.