at the altar while the procession leading the animals, a pig and a bull, arrives. Animal
sacrifices like this had been performed in the same way for thousands of times. If a
single person is in charge the action will follow a clearly prescribed choreography
with well-defined roles. If a four-person collegiumis to share in that function, how-
ever, considerable difficulties arise. No single official would bear the definite respons-
ibility to the deity should they collectively consummate the sacrifice. According to
the juridical Roman understanding of religion one party to the “contract” would
not be clearly defined, this deficiency invalidating the contract. But if they performed
the symbolic sacrifice taking turns, using the same animal, this would be tantamount
to a multiple sacrifice of one animal, which, again, the sacrificial rules prohibit. Yet
it is not only the theoretical reflections presented above that preclude the explicit
meaning of that picture. Nobody would doubt the absurdity of such an interpreta-
tion were it transferred to the Vatican Lares altar at the Sala delle Muse (Ryberg
1955: 85 pl. 16 fig. 29a). Here there are two togation each lateral face, perform-
ing a libation capite velatowhile each pair is again accompanied by a flute-player. If
we followed the impression of these scenes they would prove that the college split
to perform the simple libation, two per altar offering fruit, wine, and incense. At the
same time this would imply for the vicus AescletiLares altar that only one member
of the college sufficed to sacrifice a bull. For the first time there emerges the con-
tradiction of pictorial and written tradition I mentioned at the beginning.
Consequently the vicus Aescletirepresentation of a sacrifice is not to be con-
sidered a comprehensive rendition of those rituals performed at the compitabut
must be read in the same symbolic sense as this altar’s side and back faces. The
lateral faces show the Lares on a plinth, the same kind as for statuettes used in the
compital cult. Each one’s attribute is a great laurel branch, which, of course, refers to
the laurel trees in front of the house of Augustus (Alföldi 1973). The list of honors
to the princepsis completed by the corona civicaon the back face. Several symbols
of a similar kind are combined in the front-face scene. Just as the toga praetextaof
the vicomagistridoes, the lictor marks the official status granted to those persons
for performing their duties, as discussed above. The servants (servi publici) assisting
the college during their religious performances place the compital cult on the same
level as other cultic activities of state interest and therefore denote its rank. The
animals refer to the objects of veneration, since the ascriptions of the pig to Lares
and of the bull to the Geniusare unambiguous. Likewise the seemingly common
sacrifice does not only represent “consensus (concordia) under the auspices of an im-
perial religion of loyalty” (Hölscher 1988: 319 cat. 217), but shows the vicomagistri
performing their foremost duty. The only link between reality and the scene as depicted
is the figures’ appearance at the most important action; every single one of them is
in theory allowed to perform by cultic prescriptions. In the self-same way the
sacrificial animals denote that sacrifice which might – ideally – be performed at the
compita, but do not exclude the possibility of regular libations without sacrificing
an animal.
This is also how the lateral faces of the Vatican Lares altar are to be interpreted.
Although the magistriare distributed on both faces, all of them are shown at the
same ritual act, their most important task during their one-year term of office and
Reliefs, Public and Private 167