Comissatio
κῶμος
Comissatio (derived from κῶμος, according to Varr. de Ling. Lat. 7.89, but more exactly from κωμάζειν, comissari: Roby, Lat. Gr. § 189, 2.3), the name of a drinking entertainment, which took place after the CENA from which, however, it must be distinguished. Thus Demetrius says to his guests, after they had dined in his own house, Quin comissatum ad fratrem imus?
(Liv. 40.7, 5); and when Habinnas comes to Trimalchio's house after taking his cena elsewhere, it is said that Comissator intravit
(Petron. 65). It appears to have been the custom to partake of some food at the comissatio (Suet. Vitell. 13), but usually only as a kind of relish to the wine.
The comissatio was frequently prolonged to a late hour at night (Suet. Tit. 7); whence the verb comissari means to revel
(Hor. Carm. 4.1.11), and the substantive comissator a reveller
or debauchee.
Hence Cicero (Cic. Att. 1.16) calls the supporters of Catiline's conspiracy comissatores conjurationis. (Becker-Göll, Gallus, i. p. 203.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.