to the Lar and his reform of the vici connect him directly to the founding of Compitalia, instituted to publicly and piously honour his divine parentage – assuming the Lar as his father – to extend his domestic rites into the broader community, to mark his maternal identification with the lower ranks of Roman society and to assert his regal sponsorship and guardianship of their rights. Some time before the Augustan Compitalia reforms of 7 BC, Dionysius of Halicarnassus reports Servius' fathering by a Lar and his founding of Compitalia as ancient Roman traditions. In Servius, Augustus found ready association with a popular benefactor and refounder of Rome, whose reluctance to adopt kingship distanced him from its taints. Augustus brought the Compitalia and its essentially plebeian festivals, customs and political factions under his patronage and if need be, his censorial powers. He did not, however, trace his lineage and his re-founding to Servius – who even with part-divine ancestry still had servile connections – but with Romulus, patrician founding hero, ancestor of the divine Julius Caesar, descendant of Venus and Mars. Plutarch admires the Servian reforms for their imposition of good order in government, the military and public morality, and Servius himself as the wisest, most fortunate and best of all Rome's kings. See also Servio Tullio, a 1686 libretto by Agostino Steffani References Bibliography Beard, M., Price, S., North, J., Religions of Rome: Volume 1, a History, illustrated, Cambridge University Press, 1998. Cornell, T., The beginnings of Rome: Italy and Rome from the Bronze Age to the Punic Wars (c. 1000 – 264 BC), Routledge, 1995. Grandazzi, Alexandre, The foundation of Rome: myth and history, Cornell University Press, 1997, Lendon, J.E., Soldiers & Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity, Yale University Press (2005), External links Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1870, under Patricii, Comitia The Roman Assemblies Roman Census Figures 535 BC deaths 6th-century BC Romans 6th-century BC monarchs Kings of Rome Etruscan kings Year of birth unknown Tullii 6th-century BC murdered monarchs Assassinated Roman politicians Ancient Roman slaves and freedmen Children of Vulcan (mythology)