{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_18222/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_18222","id":"gutenberg_18222","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18222","summary":null,"tags":["Augustus, Emperor of Rome, 63 B.C.-14 A.D. -- Religion","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: History - Ancient","Category: History - Religious","Numa Pompilius, King of Rome, active 715 B.C.-673 B.C. -- Religion","Paganism","Rome -- Religion"],"text":"Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Taavi Kalju and\nthe Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE\nRELIGION OF NUMA\n\nAND OTHER ESSAYS ON\nTHE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME\n\nBY\nJESSE BENEDICT CARTER\n\n\n        London\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED\nNEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY\n        1906\n\n_All rights reserved_\n\n\n\n\nTO\n\nK.F.C.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nThis little book tries to tell the story of the religious life of the\nRomans from the time when their history begins for us until the close of\nthe reign of Augustus. Each of its five essays deals with a distinct\nperiod and is in a sense complete in itself; but the dramatic\ndevelopment inherent in the whole forbids their separation save as acts\nor chapters. In spite of modern interest in the study of religion, Roman\nreligion has been in general relegated to specialists in ancient history\nand classics. This is not surprising for Roman religion is not\nprepossessing in appearance, but though it is at first sight\nincomparably less attractive than Greek religion, it is, if properly\nunderstood, fully as interesting, nay, even more so. In Mr. W. Warde\nFowler's _Roman Festivals_ however the subject was presented in all its\nattractiveness, and if the present book shall serve as a simple\nintroduction to his larger work, its purpose will have been fulfilled.\n\nNo one can write of Roman religion without being almost inestimably\nindebted to Georg Wissowa whose _Religion und Cultus der Roemer_ is the\nbest systematic presentation of the subject. It was the author's\nprivilege to be Wissowa's pupil, and much that is in this book is\ndirectly owing to him, and even the ideas that are new, if there are any\ngood ones, are only the bread which he cast upon the waters returning to\nhim after many days.\n\nThe careful student of the history of the Romans cannot doubt the\npsychological reality of their religion, no matter what his personal\nmetaphysics may be. It is the author's hope that these essays may have a\nhuman interest because he has tried to emphasise this reality and to\npresent the Romans as men of like passions to ourselves, in spite of all\ndifferences of time and race.\n\nHearty thanks are due to Mr. W. Warde Fowler and to Mr. Albert W. Van\nBuren for their great kindness in reading the proofs; and the dedication\nof the book is at best a poor return for the help which my wife has\ngiven me.\n\n                           J.B.C.\nROME, _November, 1905_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                           PAGE\n\nTHE RELIGION OF NUMA                1\n\nTHE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS      27\n\nTHE COMING OF THE SIBYL            62\n\nTHE DECLINE OF FAITH              104\n\nTHE AUGUSTAN RENAISSANCE          146\n\n\n\n\nTHE RELIGION OF NUMA\n\n\nRome forms no exception to the general rule that nations, like\nindividuals, grow by contact with the outside world. In the middle of\nthe five centuries of her republic came the Punic wars and the intimate\nassociation with Greece which made the last half of her history as a\nrepublic so different from the first half; and in the kingdom, which\npreceded the republic, there was a similar coming of foreign influence,\nwhich made the later kingdom with its semi-historical names of the\nTarquins and Servius Tullius so different from the earlier kingdom with\nits altogether legendary Romulus, Numa, Tullus Hostilius and Ancus\nMartius. We have thus four distinct phases in the history of Roman\nsociety, and a corresponding phase of religion in each period; and if we\nadd to this that new social structure which came into being by the\nreforms of Augustus at the beginning of the empire, together with the\nreligious changes which accompanied it, we shall have the five periods\nwhich these five essays try to describe: the period before the\nTarquins, that is the \"Religion of Numa\"; the later kingdom, that is the\n\"Reorganisation of Servius\"; the first three centuries of the republic,\nthat is the \"Coming of the Sibyl\"; the closing centuries of the\nrepublic, that is the \"Decline of Faith\"; and finally the early empire\nand the \"Augustan Renaissance.\" Like all attempts to cut history into\nsections these divisions are more or less arbitrary, but their\nconvenience sufficiently justifies their creation. They must be thought\nof however not as representing independent blocks, arbitrarily arranged\nin a certain consecutive order, not as five successive religious\nconsciousnesses, but merely as marking the entrance of certain new ideas\ninto the continuous religious consciousness of the Roman people. The\nhistory of each of these periods is simply the record of the change\nwhich new social conditions produced in that great barometer of society,\nthe religious consciousness of the community. It is in the period of the\nold kingdom that our story begins.\n\nAt first sight it may seem a foolish thing to try to draw a picture of\nthe religious condition of a time about the political history of which\nwe know so little, and it is only right therefore that we should inquire\nwhat sources of knowledge we possess.\n\nThere was a time, not so very long ago, when under the banner of the\nnew-born science of \"Comparative Philology\" there gathered together a\ngroup of men who thought they held the key to prehistoric history, and\nthat words themselves would tell the story where ancient monuments and\nliterature were silent. It was a great and beautiful thought, and the\nscience which encouraged it has taken its place as a useful and\nreputable member of the community of sciences, but its pretensions to\nthe throne of the revealer of mysteries have been withdrawn by those who\nare its most ardent followers, and the \"Indo-Germanic religion\" which is\nbrought into being is a pleasant thought for an idle hour rather than a\nfoundation and starting-point for the study of ancient religion in\ngeneral. Altogether aside from the fact that although primitive religion\nand nationality are in the main identical, language and nationality are\nby no means so--we have the great practical difficulty in the case of\nGreece and Rome that in the earliest period of which we have knowledge\nthese two religions bear so little resemblance that we must either\nassert for the time of Indo-Germanic unity a religious development much\nmore primitive than that which comparative philology has sketched, or we\nmust suppose the presence of a strong decadent influence in Rome's case\nafter the separation, which is equally difficult. If we realise that in\na primitive religion the name of the god is usually the same as the name\nof the thing which he represents, the existence of a Greek god and a\nRoman god with names which correspond to the same Indo-Germanic word\nproves linguistically that the _thing_ existed and had a name before the\nseparation, but not at all that the thing was deified or that the name\nwas the name of a god at that time. We must therefore be content to\nbegin our study of religion much more humbly and at a much later period.\n\nIn fact we cannot go back appreciably before the dawn of political\nhistory, but there are certain considerations which enable us at least\nto understand the phenomena of the dawn itself, those survivals in\nculture which loom up in the twilight and the understanding of which\ngives us a fair start in our historical development. For this knowledge\nwe are indebted to the so-called \"anthropological\" method, which is\nbased on the assumption that mankind is essentially uniform, and that\nthis essential uniformity justifies us in drawing inferences about very\nancient thought from the very primitive thought of the barbarous and\nsavage peoples of our own day. At first sight the weakness of this\ncontention is more apparent than its strength, and it is easy to show\nthat the prehistoric primitive culture of a people destined to\ncivilisation is one thing, and the retarded primitive culture of modern\ntribes stunted in their growth is quite another thing, so that, as has\nso often been said, the two bear a relation to each other not unlike\nthat of a healthy young child to a full-grown idiot. And yet there is a\ndecided resemblance between the child and the idiot, and whether\nprehistoric or retarded, primitive culture shows everywhere strong\nlikeness, and the method is productive of good if we confine our\nreasoning backwards to those things in savage life which the two kinds\nof primitive culture, the prehistoric and the retarded, have in common.\nTo do this however we must have some knowledge of the prehistoric, and\nour modern retarded savage must be used merely to illumine certain\nthings which we see only in half-light; he must never be employed as a\nlay-figure in sketching in those features of prehistoric life of which\nwe are totally in ignorance. It is peculiarly useful to the student of\nRoman religion because he stands on the borderland and looking backwards\nsees just enough dark shapes looming up behind him to crave more light.\nFor in many phases of early Roman religion there are present\ncharacteristics which go back to old manners of thought, and these\nmanners of thought are not peculiar to the Romans but are found in many\nprimitive peoples of our own day. The greatest contribution which\nanthropology has made to the study of early Roman religion is \"animism.\"\n\nNot much more than a quarter of a century ago the word \"animism\" began\nto be used to describe that particular phase of the psychological\ncondition of primitive peoples by which they believe that a spirit\n(_anima_) resides in everything, material and immaterial. This spirit is\ngenerally closely associated with the thing itself, sometimes actually\nidentified with it. When it is thought of as distinct from the thing, it\nis supposed to have the form of the thing, to be in a word its \"double.\"\nThese doubles exercise an influence, often for evil, over the thing, and\nit is expedient and necessary therefore that they should be propitiated\nso that their evil influence may be removed and the thing itself may\nprosper. These doubles are not as yet gods, they are merely powers,\npotentialities, but in the course of time they develop into gods. The\nfirst step in this direction is the obtaining of a _name_, a name the\nknowledge of which gives a certain control over the power to him who\nknows it. Finally these powers equipped with a name begin to take on\npersonal characteristics, to be thought of as individuals, and finally\nrepresented under the form of men.\n\nIt cannot be shown that all the gods of Rome originated in this way, but\ncertainly many of them did, and it is not impossible that they all did;\nand this theory of their origin explains better than any other theory\ncertain habits of thought which the early Romans cherished in regard to\ntheir gods. At the time when our knowledge of Roman religion begins,\nRome is in possession of a great many gods, but very few of them are\nmuch more than names for powers. They are none of them personal enough\nto be connected together in myths. And this is the very simple reason\nwhy there was no such thing as a native Roman mythology, a blank in\nRome's early development which many modern writers have refused to\nadmit, taking upon themselves the unnecessary trouble of positing an\noriginal mythology later lost. The gods of early Rome were neither\nmarried nor given in marriage; they had no children or grandchildren and\nthere were no divine genealogies. Instead they were thought of\noccasionally as more or less individual powers, but usually as masses of\npotentialities, grouped together for convenience as the \"gods of the\ncountry,\" the \"gods of the storeroom,\" the \"gods of the dead,\" etc. Even\nwhen they were conceived of as somewhat individual, they were usually\nvery closely associated with the corresponding object, for example Vesta\nwas not so much the goddess of the hearth as the goddess \"Hearth\"\nitself, Janus not the god of doors so much as the god \"Door.\"\n\nBut by just as much as the human element was absent from the concept of\nthe deity, by just so much the element of formalism in the cult was\ngreater. This formalism must not be interpreted according to our modern\nideas; it was not a formalism which was the result and the successor of\na decadent spirituality; it was not a secondary product in an age of the\ndecline of faith; but it was itself the essence of religion in the\nperiod of the greatest religious purity. In the careful and\nconscientious fulfilment of the form consisted the whole duty of man\ntoward his gods. Such a state of affairs would have been intolerable in\nany nation whose instincts were less purely legal. So identical were the\nlaws concerning the gods and the laws concerning men that though in the\nearliest period of Roman jurisprudence the _ius divinum_ and the _ius\nhumanum_ are already separated, they are separated merely formally as\ntwo separate fields or provinces in which the spirit of the law and\noften even the letter of its enactment are the same. Such a formalism\nimplies a very firm belief in the existence of the gods. The dealings of\na man with the gods are quite as really reciprocal as his dealings with\nhis fellow citizens. But on the other hand though the existence of the\ngods is never doubted for a moment, the gods themselves are an unknown\nquantity; hence out of the formal relationship an intimacy never\ndeveloped, and while it is scarcely just to characterise the early cult\nas exclusively a religion of fear, certainly real affection is not\npresent until a much later day. The potentiality of the gods always\novershadowed their personality. But this was not all loss, for the\nabsence of personality prevented the growth of those gross myths which\nare usually found among primitive peoples, for the purer more inspiring\nmyths of gods are not the primitive product but result from the process\nof refining which accompanies a people's growth in culture. Thus the\ntheory of animism illumines the religious condition of that borderland\nof history in which Romulus and Numa Pompilius have their\ndwelling-place.\n\nAccording to that pleasant fiction of which the ancient world was so\nextremely fond--the belief that all institutions could be traced back to\ntheir establishment by some individual--the religion of Rome was\nsupposed to have been founded by her second king Numa, and it was the\ncustom to refer to all that was most antique in the cult as forming a\npart of the venerable \"religion of Numa.\" For us this can be merely a\nname, and even as a name misleading, for a part of the beliefs with\nwhich we are dealing go back for centuries before Romulus and the\ntraditional B.C. 753 as the foundation of Rome. But it is a convenient\nterm if we mean by it merely the old kingdom before foreign influences\nbegan to work. The Romans of a later time coined an excellent name not\nso much for the period as for the kind of religion which existed then,\ncontrasting the original deities of Rome with the new foreign gods,\ncalling the former the \"old indigenous gods\" (_Di Indigetes_) and the\nlatter the \"newly settled gods\" (_Di Novensides_). For our knowledge of\nthe religion of this period we are not dependent upon a mere theory, no\nmatter how good it may be in itself, but we have the best sort of\ncontemporary evidence in addition, and it is to the discovery of this\nevidence that the modern study of Roman religion virtually owes its\nexistence. The records of early political history were largely\ndestroyed in B.C. 390 when the Gauls sacked Rome, but the religious\nstatus, with the conservativeness characteristic of religion generally,\nsuffered very few changes during all these years, and left a record of\nitself in the annually recurring festivals of the Roman year, festivals\nwhich grew into an instinctive function of the life of the common\npeople. Many centuries later when the calendar was engraved on stone,\nthese revered old festivals were inscribed on these stone calendars in\npeculiarly large letters as distinguished from all the other items. Thus\nfrom the fragments of these stone calendars, which have been found, and\nwhich are themselves nineteen centuries old, we can read back another\neight or ten centuries further. By the aid of this \"calendar of Numa\" we\nare able to assert the presence of certain deities in the Rome of this\ntime, and the equally important absence of others. And from the\ncharacter of the deities present and of the festivals themselves a\ncorrect and more or less detailed picture of the religious condition of\nthe time may be drawn. This calendar and the list of _Indigetes_\nextracted from it form the foundation for all our study of the history\nof Roman religion.\n\nThe religious forms of a community are always so bound up with its\nsocial organisation that a satisfactory knowledge of the one is\npractically impossible without some knowledge of the other.\nUnfortunately there is no field in Roman history where theories are so\nabundant and facts so rare as in regard to the question of the early\nsocial organisation. But without coming into conflict with any of the\nrival theories we may make at least the following statements. In the\nmain the community was fairly uniform and homogeneous, there were no\ngreat social extremes and no conspicuous foreign element, so that each\nindividual, had he stopped to analyse his social position, would have\nfound himself in four distinct relationships: a relationship to himself\nas an individual; to his family; to the group of families which formed\nhis clan (_gens_); and finally to the state. We may go a step further on\nsafe ground and assert that the least important of these relations was\nthat to himself, and the most important that to his family. The unit of\nearly Roman social life was not the individual but the family, and in\nthe most primitive ideas of life after death it is the family which has\nimmortality, not the individual. The state is not a union of individuals\nbut of families. The very psychological idea of the individual seems to\nhave taken centuries to develop, and to have reached its real\nsignificance only under the empire. Of the four elements therefore we\nhave established the pre-eminence of the family and the importance of\nthe state as based on the family idea; the individual may be disregarded\nin this early period, and there is left only the clan, which however\noffers a difficult problem. The family and the state were destined to\nhold their own, merely exchanging places in the course of time, so that\nthe state came first and the family second; the individual was to grow\ninto ever increasing importance, but the clan is already dying when\nhistory begins. It is a pleasant theory and one that has a high degree\nof probability that there may have been a time when the clan was to the\nfamily what the state is when history begins, and that when the state\narose out of a union of various clans, the immediate allegiance of each\nfamily was gradually alienated from its clan and transferred to the\nstate, so that the clan gave up its life in order that the state, the\nchild of its own creation, might live. If this be so, we can see why the\nsocial importance of the clan ceases so early in Roman history.\n\nThe centre therefore of early religious life is the family, and the\nstate as a macrocosm of the family; and the father of each family is its\nchief priest, and the king as the father of the state is the chief\npriest of the state. As for the individual the only god which he has for\nworship is his \"double,\" called in the case of a man his _Genius_ and in\nthat of a woman her _Juno_, her individualisation of the goddess Juno,\nquite a distinct deity, peculiar to herself. But even here the family\ninstinct shows itself, and though later the Genius and the Juno\nrepresent all that is intellectual in the individual, they seem\noriginally to have symbolised the procreative power of the individual in\nrelation to the continuance of the family. The family and the state,\nhowever, side by side worshipped a number of deities.\n\nIn the primitive hut, the model of which has come down to us in so many\nlittle burial urns of early time (for example those that have recently\nbeen dug up in the wonderful cemetery under the Roman Forum), with its\none door and no window, there were several elements which needed\npropitiation; the door itself as the keeper away of evil, the hearth,\nand the niche for the storage of food. The door-god was the god-door\nJanus, the _ianua_ itself; the hearth was in the care of the womenfolk,\nthe wife and daughters, so it was a goddess, Vesta, whom they served;\nand the storage-niche, the _penus_, was in the keeping of the\n\"store-closet gods\" (_Di Penates_). The state itself was modelled after\nthe house. It had its Janus, its sacred door, down in the Forum, and the\nking himself, the father of the state, was his special priest; it had\nits hearth, where the sacred fire burned, and its own Vesta, tended by\nthe vestal virgins, the daughters of the state; and it had its\nstore-niche with its Penates. At a later date but still very early there\nwas added to the household worship the idea of the general protector of\nthe house, the Lar, which gave rise to the familiar expression \"Lares\nand Penates.\" The origin of this _Lar Familiaris_, as he is called, is\ninteresting, because it shows the intimate connection between the\nfarming life of the community and its religion. The Lares were\noriginally the group of gods who looked after the various farms; they\nwere in the plural because they were worshipped where the boundary lines\nof several farms met, but though several of them were worshipped\ntogether, each farm had its one individual Lar. But the care of the farm\nincluded also the protection of the house on the farm, so that the Lar\nof the farm became also the Lar of the house, first of course of houses\non farms, and then of every house everywhere even when no farm was\nconnected with it.\n\nAside from Vesta, the Genius, the Lar, and the Penates, possibly the\nmost important element in family worship was the cult of the dead\nancestors. This cult is, of course, common to almost all religions, and\nits presence in Roman religion is in so far not surprising, but the form\nin which it occurs there is curious and relatively rare. Just as the\nliving man has a \"double,\" the Genius, so the dead man also must have a\ndouble, but this double is originally not the Genius, who seems to have\nbeen thought of at first as ceasing with the individual. On the contrary\nas death is the great leveller and the remover of individuality, so the\ndouble of the dead was not thought of at first as an individual double\nbut merely as forming a part of an indefinite mass of spirits, the \"good\ngods\" (_Di Manes_) as they were called because they were feared as being\nanything but good. These _Di Manes_ had therefore no specific relation\nto the individual, and the individual really ceased at death; the only\nhuman relation which the _Di Manes_ seem to have preserved was a\nconnection with the living members of the family to which they had\noriginally belonged. It is therefore very misleading to assert that the\nRomans had from the beginning a belief in immortality, when we\ninstinctively think of the immortality of the individual. The thing that\nwas immortal was not the individual but the family. It is thoroughly in\nkeeping with the practical character of the Roman mind that they did not\nconcern themselves with the place in which these spirits of the dead\nwere supposed to reside, but merely with the door through which they\ncould and did return to earth. We have no accounts of the Lower World\nuntil Greece lent her mythology to Rome, and imagination never built\nanything like the Greek palace of Pluto. But while they did not waste\nenergy in furnishing the Lower World with the fittings of fancy, they\ndid keep a careful guard over the door of egress. This door they called\nthe _mundus_, and represented it crudely by a trench or shallow pit, at\nthe bottom of which there lay a stone. On certain days of the year this\nstone was removed, and then the spirits came back to earth again, where\nthey were received and entertained by the living members of their\nfamily. There were a number of these days in the year, three of them\nscattered through the year: August 24, October 5, November 8; and two\nsets of days: February 13-21 and May 9, 11, 13. The February\ncelebration, the so-called _Parentalia_, was calm and dignified and\nrepresented all that was least superstitious and fearful in the\ngenerally terrifying worship of the dead. The _Lemuria_ in May had\nexactly the opposite character and belongs to the category of the\n\"expulsion of evil spirits,\" of which Mr. Frazer in his _Golden Bough_\nhas given so many instances.\n\nIn this connection it is interesting to notice two facts which stand\nalmost as corollaries to these beliefs. One fact is the religious\nnecessity for the continuance of the family, in order that there might\nalways be a living representative of the family to perform the\nsacrifices to the ancestors. It was the duty of the head of the family\nnot only to perform these sacrifices himself as long as he lived but\nalso to provide a successor. The usual method was by marriage and the\nrearing of a family, but, in case there was no male child in the family,\nadoption was recurred to. Here it is peculiarly significant that the\nsanction of the chief priest was necessary, and he never gave his\nconsent in case the man to be adopted was the only representative of his\nfamily, so that his removal from that family into another would leave\nhis original family without a male representative. In cases of\ninheritance the first lien on the income was for the maintenance of the\ntraditional sacrifices unless some special arrangement had been made.\nThese exceptional inheritances, without the deduction for sacrifices,\nwere naturally desired above all others and the phrase \"an inheritance\nwithout sacrifices\" (_hereditas sine sacris_) became by degrees the\npopular expression for a godsend. The other fact of interest in this\nconnection is that, inasmuch as ancestors were worshipped only _en\nmasse_ and not as individuals, that process could not take place in\nRoman religion which is so familiar in many other religions, namely that\nthe great gods of the state should some of them have been originally\nancestors whose greatness during life had produced a corresponding\nemphasis in their worship after death, so that ultimately they were\npromoted from the ranks of the deified dead into the select Olympus of\nindividual gods. This has been a favourite theory of the making of a god\nfrom the time of Euhemerus down to Herbert Spencer. There are religions\nin which it is true for certain of the major gods, but there are no\ntraces of the process in Roman religion, and the reason is obvious in\nview of the peculiar character of ancestor worship in Rome.\n\nWe have now seen the principal elements which went to make up the family\nreligion and that part of the state religion which was an enlargement\nand an imitation of the family religion. But even in the most primitive\ntimes a Roman's life was not bounded by his own hut and the phenomenon\nof death. There was work to be done in life, a living to be gained, and\nhere, as everywhere, there were hosts of unseen powers who must be\npropitiated. His religion was not only coincident with every phase of\nprivate life, it was also closely related to the specific occupations\nand interests of the people, and just as the interests of the community,\nits means of livelihood, were agriculture and stock-raising, so the gods\nwere those of the crops and the herds. Some years ago the late Professor\nMommsen succeeded in extracting from the existing stone calendars a list\nof the religious festivals of the old Roman year, and also in proving\nthat this list of festivals was complete in its present condition at a\ntime before the city of Rome was surrounded by the wall which Servius\nTullius built, and that it therefore goes back to the old kingdom, the\ntime of what has been called the \"Religion of Numa.\" We cannot go\nthrough all the festivals in detail, but it is extremely interesting to\nnotice that almost every one of them is connected with the life of the\nfarmer and represents the action of propitiation towards some god or\ngroup of gods at every time in the Roman year which was at all critical\nfor agricultural interests.\n\nIt must not be forgotten also that this list is not absolutely complete,\nbecause it represents merely the official state festivals, and not even\nall of them but only those which fell upon the same day or days every\nyear, so that they could be engraved in the stone to form a perpetual\ncalendar. All state festivals, of which there were several, which were\nappointed in each particular year according to the backward or forward\nestate of the harvest, were omitted from the list, though they were\ncelebrated at some time in every year; and naturally the public\ncalendars contained no reference to the many private and semi-private\nceremonies of the year, with which the state had nothing official to do,\nfestivals of the family and the clan, and even local festivals of\nvarious districts of the city.\n\nIn this list of peaceful deities of the farm there is one god whose\ncharacter has been very much misunderstood because of the company which\nhe keeps; this is the god Mars. It has become the fashion of late to\nconsider him as a god of vegetation, and a great many ingenious\narguments have been brought forward to show his agricultural character.\nBut the more primitive a community is, the more intense is its struggle\nfor existence, and the more rife its rivalries with its neighbours.\nAlongside of the ploughshare there must always have been the sword or\nits equivalent, and along with Flora and Ceres there must always have\nbeen a god of strife and battle. That Mars was this god in early as well\nas later times is shown above all things by the fact that he was always\nworshipped outside the city, as a god who must be kept at a distance.\nNaturally his cult was associated with the dominant interest of life,\nthe crops, and he was worshipped in the beautiful ceremony of the\npurification of the fields, which Mr. Walter Pater has so exquisitely\ndescribed at the opening of _Marius the Epicurean_. But he was regarded\nas the protector of the fields and the warder off of evil influences\nrather than as a positive factor in the development of the crops. Then\ntoo in the early days of the Roman militia, before the regular army had\ncome into existence, the war season was only during the summer after the\nplanting and before the harvest, so that the two festivals which marked\nthe beginning and the end of that season were also readily associated\nwith the state of the crops at that time.\n\nBut the most interesting and curious thing about this old religion is\nnot so much what it does contain as what it does not. It is not so much\nwhat we find as what we miss, for more than half the gods whom we\ninstinctively associate with Rome were not there under this old regime.\nHere is a partial list of those whose names we do not find: Minerva,\nDiana, Venus, Fortuna, Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Apollo, Mercury, Dis,\nProserpina, Aesculapius, the Magna Mater. And yet their absence is not\nsurprising when we realise that almost all of the gods in this list\nrepresent phases of life with which Rome in this early period was\nabsolutely unacquainted. She had no appreciable trade or commerce, no\nmanufactures or particular handicrafts, and no political interests\nexcept the simple patriarchal government which sufficed for her present\nneeds. Her gods of water were the gods of rivers and springs; Neptune\nwas there, but he was not the ocean-god like the Greek Poseidon. Vulcan,\nthe god of fire, who was afterwards associated with the Greek Hephaistos\nand became the patron of metal-working, was at this time merely the god\nof destructive and not of constructive fire. Even the great god Juppiter\nwho was destined to become almost identical with the name and fame of\nRome was not yet a god of the state and politics, but merely the\nsky-god, especially the lightning god, Juppiter Feretrius, the\n\"striker,\" who had a little shrine on the Capitoline where later the\ngreat Capitoline temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus was to stand.\nAnother curious characteristic of this early age, which, I think, has\nnever been commented on, is the extraordinarily limited number of\ngoddesses. Vesta is the only one who seems to stand by herself without a\nmale parallel. Each of the others is merely the contrasted potentiality\nin a pair of which the male is much more famous, and the only ones in\nthese pairs who ever obtained a pronounced individuality did so because\ntheir cult was afterwards reinforced by being associated with some\nextra-Roman cult. The best illustration of this last is Juno. We may go\nfurther and say that it-seems highly probable that the worship of female\ndeities was in the main confined to the women of the community, while\nthe men worshipped the gods. This distinction extended even to the\npriesthoods where the wife of the priest of a god was the priestess of\nthe corresponding goddess. Such a state of affairs is doubly interesting\nin view of the pre-eminence of female deities in the early Greek world,\nwhich has been so strikingly shown by Miss Jane Harrison in her recent\nbook, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_.\n\nThe most vital question which can be put to almost any religion is that\nin regard to its expansive power and its adaptability to new conditions.\nSociety is bound to undergo changes, and a young social organism, if\nnormal, is continually growing new cells. New conditions are arising and\nnew interests are coming to the front. In addition, if the growth is to\nbe continuous, new material is being constantly absorbed, and the simple\nhomogeneous character of the old society is being entirely changed by\nthe influx of foreign elements. This is what occurred in ancient Rome,\nand it is because ancient Roman religion was not capable of organic\ndevelopment from within, that the curious things happened to it which\nour history has to record. It is these strange external accretions which\nlend the chief interest to the story, while at the same time they\nconceal the original form so fully as to render the writing of a history\nof Roman religion extremely difficult.\n\nYet it must not be supposed because Roman religion was unable to adapt\nitself to the new constitution of society with its contrasted classes,\nand to the new commercial and political interests which attracted the\nattention of the upper classes, that it was absolutely devoid within\nitself, within its own limitations, of a certain capability of\ndevelopment. For several centuries after outside influences began to\naffect Rome, her original religion kept on developing alongside of the\nnew forms. The manner in which it developed is thoroughly significant of\nthe original national character of the Romans.\n\nWe have seen that from the very beginning the nature of the gods as\npowers rather than personalities tended to emphasise the value and\nimportance of the name, which usually indicated the particular function\nor speciality of each deity and was very often the only thing known\nabout him. In the course of time as the original name of the deity began\nto be thought of entirely as a proper name without any meaning, rather\nthan as a common noun explaining the nature of the god to which it was\nattached, it became necessary to add to the original name some adjective\nwhich would adequately describe the god and do the work which the name\nby itself had originally done. And as the nature of the various deities\ngrew more complicated along with the increasing complications of daily\nlife, new adjectives were added, each one expressing some particular\nphase of the god's activity. Such an adjective was called a _cognomen_,\nand was often of very great importance because it began to be felt that\na god with one adjective, _i.e._ invoked for one purpose, was almost a\ndifferent god from the same god with a different adjective, _i.e._\ninvoked for another purpose. Thus a knowledge of these adjectives was\nalmost as necessary as a knowledge of the name of the god. The next step\nin the development was one which followed very easily. These important\nadjectives began to be thought of as having a value and an existence in\nthemselves, apart from the god to which they were attached. The\ngrammatical change which accompanied this psychological movement was the\ntransfer of the adjective into an abstract noun. Both adjectives and\nabstract nouns express quality, but the adjective is in a condition of\ndependence on a noun, while the abstract noun is independent and\nself-supporting. And thus, just as in certain of the lower organisms a\ngroup of cells breaks off and sets up an individual organism of its own,\nso in old Roman religion some phase of a god's activity, expressed in an\nadjective, broke off with the adjective from its original stock and set\nup for itself, turning its name from the dependent adjective form into\nthe independent abstract noun. Thus Juppiter, worshipped as a god of\ngood faith in the dealings of men with one another, the god by whom\noaths were sworn under the open sky, was designated as \"Juppiter,\nguarding-good-faith,\" Juppiter Fidius. There were however many other\nphases of Juppiter's work, and hence the adjective _fidius_ became very\nimportant as the means of distinguishing this activity from all the\nothers. Eventually it broke off from Juppiter and formed the abstract\nnoun _Fides_, the goddess of good faith, where the sex of the deity as a\ngoddess was entirely determined by the grammatical gender of abstract\nnouns as feminine.\n\nThis is all strange enough but there is one more step in the development\neven more curious yet. This abstract goddess _Fides_ did not stay long\nin the purely abstract sphere; she began very soon to be made concrete\nagain, as the Fides of this particular person or of that particular\ngroup and as this Fides or that, until she became almost as concrete as\nJuppiter himself had been, and hence we have a great many different\n_Fides_ in seeming contradiction to the old grammatical rule that\nabstract nouns had no plural. Now all this development in the field of\nreligion throws light upon the character of the Roman mind and its\ninstinctive methods of thought, and we see why it is that the Romans\nwere very great lawyers and very mediocre philosophers. Both law and\nphilosophy require the ability for abstract thought; in both cases the\nessential qualities of a thing must be separated from the thing itself.\nBut in the case of philosophic thought this abstraction, these\nqualities, do not immediately seek reincarnation. They continue as\nabstractions and do not immediately descend to earth again, whereas for\nlaw such a descent is absolutely necessary because jurisprudence is\ninterested not so much in the abstraction by itself, but rather in the\nabstract as presented in concrete cases. Hence a type of mind which\nfound it equally easy to make the concrete into the abstract and then to\nturn the abstract so made into a kind of concrete again, is _par\nexcellence_ the legal mind, and no better proof of the instinctive\ntendency to law-making on the part of the Romans can be found than in\nthe fact that the same habits of mind which make laws also governed the\ndevelopment of their religion.\n\nUnfortunately however it was not these abstract deities who could save\nold Roman religion. They were merely the logical outcome of the deities\nalready existing, merely new offspring of the old breed. They did not\nrepresent any new interests, but were merely the individualisation of\ncertain phases of the old deities, phases which had always been present\nand were now at most merely emphasised by being worshipped separately.\n\n\n\n\nTHE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS\n\n\nLike a lofty peak rising above the mists which cover the tops of the\nlower-lying mountains, the figure of Servius Tullius towers above the\nsemi-legendary Tarquins on either side of him. We feel that we have to\ndo with a veritable character in history, and we find ourselves\nwondering what sort of a man he was personally--a feeling that never\noccurs to us with Romulus and the older kings, and comes to us only\nfaintly with the elder Tarquin, while the younger Tarquin has all the\nmarks of a wooden man, who was put up only to be thrown down, whose\nwhole _raison d'etre_ is to explain the transition from the kingdom to\nthe republic on the theory of a revolution. Eliminate the revolution,\nsuppose the change to have been a gradual and a constitutional one, and\nyou may discard the proud Tarquin without losing anything but a\nlay-figure with its more or less gaudy trappings of later myths. But it\nis not so with Servius; his wall and his constitution are very real and\ndefy all attempts to turn their maker into a legend. Yet on the other\nhand we must be on our guard, for much of the definiteness which seems\nto attach to him is rather the definiteness of a certain stage in Rome's\ndevelopment, a certain well-bounded chronological and sociological\ntract. It is dangerous to try to limit too strictly Servius's personal\npart in this development; and far safer, though perhaps less\nfascinating, to use his name as a general term for the changes which\nRome underwent from the time when foreign influences began to tell upon\nher until the beginning of the republic. He forms a convenient title\ntherefore for certain phases of Rome's growth. And yet even this is not\nstrictly correct, for Servius stands not so much for the coming into\nexistence of certain facts, as for the recognition of the existence of\nthese facts. The facts themselves were of slow growth, covering probably\ncenturies, but the actions resulting from them, and the outward changes\nin society, came thick and fast and may well have taken place, all of\nthem, within the limits of one man's life. The foundation fact upon\nwhich all these changes were based is the influence of the outside world\non the Roman community. Until this time there had been little to\ndifferentiate Rome from any other of the hill-communities of Italy, of\nwhich there were scores in her immediate neighbourhood; nor was she the\nonly one to come into contact with the outside world. It was the effect\nwhich that influence had upon her as contrasted with her neighbours\nwhich made the difference. When we ask why this influence affected her\ndifferently we find no satisfactory answer, and are in the presence of a\nmystery--the world-old insoluble mystery of the superiority of one tribe\nor one individual over others apparently of the same class. Political\nhistory is wont to tell this chapter of Rome's story under the title of\nthe \"Rise of the Plebeians,\" but the presence of the Plebeians was only\nthe outward symbol of an inward change. This change was the breaking up\nof the monotonous one-class society of the primitive community with its\none--agricultural--interest, and the formation of a variegated\nmany-class society with manifold interests, such as trade, handicraft,\nand politics. It was the awakening of Rome into a world-life out of her\ncentury-long undisturbed bucolic slumber.\n\nThere were at this time two peoples in Italy, who by reason of their\nolder culture were able to be Rome's teachers. One lay to the north of\nher, the mysterious Etruscans, whose culture fortunately for Rome had\nonly a very moderate influence, because the Etruscan culture had already\nlost much of its virility, possibly also because it was distinctly felt\nto be foreign, and hence could effect no insidious entry, and probably\nbecause Rome was at this time too strong and young and clean to take\nanything but the best from Etruria. The other lay to the south, the\nGreek colonies of Magna Graecia, separated from Rome for the present by\nmany miles of forest and by hostile tribes. Around her in Latium were\nher own next of kin, the Latins, becoming rapidly inferior to her, but\nenabled to do her at least this service, that of absorbing the foreign\ninfluences which came, and in certain cases latinising them, and thus\ntransmitting them to Rome in a more or less assimilated condition.\n\nThe three great facts in the life of Rome during this period are the\ncoming of Greek merchants and Greek trade from the south, the coming of\nEtruscan artisans and handicraft from the north, and the beginnings of\nher political rivalry and gradual prominence in the league of Latin\ncities around her. Each one of these movements is reflected in the\nreligious changes of the period. In regard to the first two this is not\nsurprising, for the ancient traveller, like his mythical prototype\nAeneas, carried his gods with him. Thus there were worshipped in private\nin Rome the gods of all the peoples who settled within her walls, and\nthe presence of these gods was destined to make its influence felt. Your\nprimitive polytheist is very catholic in his religious tastes; for, when\none is already in possession of many gods, the addition of a few more is\na minor matter, especially when, as was now the case in Rome, these\ndeities are the patrons of occupations and interests hitherto entirely\nunknown to the Roman, and hence not provided for in his scheme of gods.\nIt was therefore in no spirit of disloyalty to the already existing\ngods, and with no desire to introduce rival deities, that the new cults\nbegan to spread until they became so important as to call for state\nrecognition.\n\nPossibly the most interesting cases are those of the two gods who came\nfrom the south, Hercules and Castor, interesting because they were the\nforerunners of that great multitude of Greek gods who later came in\nproudly by special invitation, and even more interesting yet because,\nthough they were Greek as Greek could be, they came into Rome, as it\nwere, incognito, and were so far from being known as Greek, that, when\nthe same gods came in afterwards more directly, these new-comers were\nfelt to be quite a different thing, and their worship was carried on in\nanother part of the city away from the old-established cults.\n\nIn the Greek world Herakles and Hermes were the especial patrons of\ntravellers, and as travelling was never done for pleasure but always for\nbusiness, they became the patrons of the travelling merchant. It was\nalso natural that they should go with the settlers away from the\nmother-city into the new colony. Thus it was that they came from the\nmother-land into the colonies of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy, and\nonce being established there made their way slowly but inevitably\nnorthwards. The story of Hermes, under the name of Mercury, belongs to a\nlater chapter, but that of Herakles = Hercules must be recounted here.\nIt is only within the last few years that the scholarly world has been\npersuaded that there was no such thing as an original Italic Hercules;\nat first sight it was very difficult to believe, because there seemed to\nbe so many apparently very old Italic legends centering in Hercules. But\nit has been shown, either that these legends never existed and rest\nsolely upon false interpretation of monuments, or that, though they did\nexist at an early date, they were introduced under Greek influence. It\nwas the trading merchant therefore who brought Herakles northward. And\nas the god went, his name was softened into Hercules, and with the\nassimilation of the name to the tongue of the Italic people, there went\nhand in hand an adaptation of his nature to their needs, so that by\ndegrees he became thoroughly italicised both in form and content. It is\nprobable that the cult came into Rome as well as into the other cities\nof Latium, but in Rome it was confined to a few individuals, and at\nfirst obtained no public recognition. On the contrary, for reasons that\nwe are at a loss to find, this Greek cult seems to have reached very\nlarge proportions in the little town of Tibur (Tivoli), fourteen miles\nnorth-east of Rome. There it dominated all other worship and lost so\nmuch of its foreign atmosphere that it became thoroughly latinised. In\nthe course of time the Roman state acknowledged this Tivoli cult of\nHercules and accepted a branch of it as its own. But the extraordinary\nthing about this acknowledgment is that the Romans felt it to be a Latin\nand not a foreign cult. They showed this intimate and friendly feeling\nby permitting an altar to Hercules to be erected within the city proper,\nin the Forum Boarium. But in order to understand the significance of\nthis act a word of digression is necessary.\n\nUnder the old Roman regime every act of life was performed under the\nsupervision of the gods, and this godly patronage was especially\nemphasised in acts which affected the life of the community. No act was\nof greater importance for the community than the choice of a home, the\nlocation of a settlement. Thus the founding of an ancient city was\naccompanied by sacred rites, chief among which was the ploughing of a\nfurrow around the space which was ultimately to be enclosed by the wall.\nThis furrow formed a symbolic wall on very much the same principle as\nthat on which the witch draws her circle. The furrow was called the\n_pomerium_ and was to the world of the gods what the city wall was to\nthe world of men. It did not however always coincide with the actual\ncity wall, and the space it embraced was sometimes less, sometimes more,\nthan that embraced by the city wall; and just as new walls covering\nlarger territory could be built for the city, so a new _pomerium_ line\ncould be drawn. As was becoming for a spiritual barrier there was\nnothing to mark it except the boundary stones through which the\nimaginary line passed. The wall, which Servius built and which continued\nto be the outer wall of Rome for a period of eight or nine hundred years\nuntil the third Christian century, was at the time of its building\ncoincident in the main with the line of the _pomerium_, with one very\nimportant exception: namely that all the region of the Aventine, which\nwas inside the limits of the political city and embraced by the Servian\nwall, lay outside the _pomerium_ line and was in other words outside the\nreligious city. It continued thus all through the republic and into the\nempire until the reign of Claudius. Originally the _pomerium_ line\nplayed an important part in the religious world and it continued to do\nso until the middle of the republic, during the Second Punic War, when\nits sanctity was destroyed and it lost its real religious significance,\nthough it remained as a formal institution. As a divine barrier it\nserved originally in the world of the gods very much the same purpose as\nthe material wall of stone did in the world of men. Before the problem\nof foreign gods had begun to exist for the Romans, in the good old days\nwhen they knew only the gods of their own religion, the _pomerium_\nserved to keep within the bounds of Rome all the beneficent kindly gods\nwhose presence was not needed outside in the fields, and it served fully\nas important a purpose in keeping outside of Rome the gods who were\nfeared rather than loved, for example the dread war-god Mars. When\nforeign gods began to be introduced into Rome they might, of course, be\nworshipped inside the _pomerium_ by private individuals, but when the\nstate acknowledged them it was more prudent that her worship should be\noutside the sacred wall. Thus it came to pass that the foreign gods, who\nwere taken into the cult of the Roman state, were given temples in the\nCampus Martius or over on the Aventine, and the two or three cases where\nthey were publicly worshipped inside the _pomerium_ form no real\nexception to this rule--such an exception would be, in fact, quite\nunthinkable in the strictly logical system of Roman worship--but these\ngods were allowed inside because they came to Rome from her kinsfolk,\nthe Latins, and were not felt to be foreign.\n\nHercules is one of the cases in this last category. Though originally,\nas we have seen, a Greek god, his long residence in Tibur (Tivoli) had\nmade him, as it were, a naturalised citizen of Latium, and hence Rome\nfelt it no impropriety to take him inside her _pomerium_. At first his\nworship seems to have been carried on by two clans, the Potitii and the\nPinarii, but later, during the republic, the state assumed control. But\nthough it was really the Greek Herakles who had come in as the latinised\nHercules, the god had paid a certain price for his admission, for he\ncame stripped of all the various attributes which he had had in Greece\nand retaining merely his function as patron of trade and travel. It was\nthis practical side of his nature alone which appealed to the Romans; it\nfound its expression in the offering of \"the tenth\" at the great altar\nin the Forum Boarium. This altar always remained in a certain sense the\ncentre of Hercules-worship in Rome. It was reinforced at an early date\nby no less than three temples of Hercules in the more or less immediate\nneighbourhood, all of which were characterised by the same relative\nsimplicity of ritual. Centuries later Herakles became known to the\nRomans through direct Greek channels, and it was recognised that this\nnew Herakles was akin to the old Hercules, so that he too was called\nHercules. There was nothing surprising in this to the Romans, because\nthey considered it a matter of course that there should be found a\nparallel among their own gods for each Greek deity. They never\nunderstood the true state of affairs; it is doubtful whether they could\nhave understood it: namely, that in almost all their other\nidentifications of Roman and Greek deities, they were really doing\nviolence to their own native gods by superimposing upon them the\nattributes of a deity with whom they had really nothing in common,\nwhereas, in identifying the new Herakles with their old Hercules, they\nwere doing a perfectly legitimate thing. For one who knows the true\nstate of affairs there is something pathetically amusing in the fact\nthat they really showed more delicacy in making their old (really\noriginally Greek) Hercules into the new Greek Herakles-Hercules, than\nthey did in throwing together Neptune and Poseidon, Mars and Ares, Diana\nand Artemis. As a matter of fact they always reverenced the old cult of\nthe great altar, and never allowed the more sensational phases of Greek\nworship to be practised there, and put off into another quarter the\ntemples which were built to Hercules under the various new attributes\nwhich the new Greek cult brought with it. These temples were placed, as\nwas proper, outside the _pomerium_, in the southern part of the Campus\nMartius.\n\nBut to return to the simple Hercules and the Servian regime, the Roman\nstate had now obtained a deity, of which, by the contagion of commerce,\nthey already felt a need, a god of great power from whom came success in\nthe practical undertakings of life. Hence he had a strong hold on the\nRomans whose practical side was undergoing a rapid development. The idea\nof trade was now represented in the religious world, it had received its\ndivine sanction.\n\nThe other god, who came up from Magna Graecia and whose formal\nacceptance into the state-cult formed one of the earliest incidents in\nthe breakdown of the old agricultural religion, was Castor, with his\ntwin-brother Pollux, although brother Pollux was always an insignificant\npartner, so much so that the temple which was subsequently built to them\nboth was referred to either as the temple of \"Castor\" alone or as the\ntemple of \"the Castors.\" At various points in the old Greek world we\nmeet with a pair of brothers, at first not designated by individual\nnames but merely named as a pair. Even these pair-names do not agree,\nbut they represent all of them the same idea. Later when individual\nnames are substituted for the general pair-name, these individual names\nalso differ. They are gods of protection, and on the sea-coast--and most\nof Greece is sea-coast--they are especially helpful as rescuers from the\ndangers of the sea, and they are also very early and almost everywhere\nconnected with horses. But in spite of their usefulness they are not\nvery prominent, and it is doubtful whether they would ever have become\nfamous, except for one of those little accidents which make the fortunes\nof gods as well as of men. It so happened that horses began to be used\nin warfare more than for the mere drawing of chariots; a primitive sort\nof cavalry came into being, produced by mounting heavy-armed\nfoot-soldiers on horseback. With this cavalry the \"Twin-Brothers\"\n(_Dios-kouroi_ = \"Sons of Zeus\"), especially Castor, became prominent.\nJust as the Greek merchants had taken Herakles with them when they set\nout to plant colonies in Southern Italy, so the heavy-mounted horsemen\ncarried their god Castor with them wherever they went. The Italic tribes\nin their turn were quick to seize upon this idea of cavalry, and with\nit as an essential part went its divine patron, Castor. Thus the\nCastor-cult moved steadily northward, carried, as it were, on horseback.\nAt last it reached Latium, and there the little town of Tusculum,\nafterwards so famous as the residence of Cicero, became in some\nunaccountable way an important cult-centre, and did for Castor what\nTibur had done for Hercules, _i.e._ latinised him, so that Rome received\nhim not as an alien but as one of her kin. There can be little doubt\nthat the Roman cult actually did come from Tusculum, and that in its\nintroduction into Rome, as in every other step on its march, it was\nconnected with the reorganisation of the cavalry. This would seem to\nimply that Tusculum was famous for its cavalry and that Rome took the\nidea of it from her--statements for which we have unfortunately no other\nconfirmation, though we have abundant proof of the cult at Tusculum and\nof Rome's close association with it.\n\nCastor was thus the patron of the \"horsemen\" (_equites_) and his great\nday was July 15, when the horsemen's parade took place. Possibly this\nhad been the date of the festival at Tusculum, a day especially\nappropriate because it was the Ides of the month, and the Ides were\nsacred to Juppiter, whose sons Castor and Pollux (_Dios-kouroi_) were\nsupposed to be. It is extremely interesting in the light of this\nknowledge of the true state of affairs to see how legend later\nexplained the coming of Castor and Pollux. It was an incident in the\nmythical war which was supposed to have taken place after the last\nTarquin had been driven out, and the republic had been started. The\nadversaries of Rome, allied with Tarquin, notably Octavius Mamilius of\nTusculum, fought against the Romans in the battle of Lake Regillus on\nJuly 15, B.C. 499. The Romans won, and the first news of victory was\nbrought to Rome by the miraculous appearance of Castor and Pollux who\nwere seen watering their horses in the Forum at the spring of Juturna. A\ntemple on this spot was then vowed and fifteen years later, B.C. 484, it\nwas completed and dedicated. Tusculum, July 15, and the dedication of\nthe temple in B.C. 484 are seemingly the only historical facts in this\nlegend; and long before B.C. 499 Castor was worshipped in Rome,\nespecially on July 15. The site of his original worship was without\ndoubt the same locality in the Forum where his temple was subsequently\nbuilt, for it is an almost invariable rule that the earliest temples are\nbuilt on the actual site of, or close to, the old altar or shrine which\npreceded the formal temple. Like Hercules therefore he was received\ninside the _pomerium_, and probably for a similar reason, because it was\nfelt that he was a god of Tusculum, and hence a god of Rome's kinsfolk.\nWe have an additional confirmation of this feeling in the way in which\nthe later direct cult of Castor was treated. This cult, connecting\nCastor with healing and the interpretation of dreams, and emphasising\nhis function as a rescuer from the dangers of the sea, would have been\nwithout meaning for the old Romans who worshipped him merely as a patron\nof horsemen and horsemanship. The new ideas seem to have had as their\ncentre a later temple in the Circus Flaminius and thus Hercules and\nCastor may again be paralleled, since they have, each of them, an old\ncult-centre inside the _pomerium_, Hercules in the Forum Boarium, Castor\nin the Forum, and a later cult-centre, for more advanced ideas, in each\ncase in the Circus Flaminius.\n\nAlthough it was Greek influence which ultimately caused the destruction\nof Roman religion, and although the cults of Hercules and of Castor are\nthe first definite effects of this influence, it cannot be said that the\ndestruction had in any sense begun, because in their slow journey\nnorthward, and in their long residence at Tibur and Tusculum\nrespectively, the two cults had lost all that was pernicious. The Roman\ninstinct, which felt them to be akin to itself, did not go amiss; they\nwere indeed akin to the new Rome with its new interest in trade and its\nincreased interest in warfare, for the trader and the warrior have gone\nside by side in all ages of the world's history, whether it be a\nprimitive instinct to grasp territory for commercial purposes or a more\ncivilised endeavour to obtain an open port.\n\nThe beginnings of Greek influence have thus been exhibited in the case\nof Hercules and of Castor, and it remains to inquire what Etruria did.\nThere is no race about which we know so much and yet so little as about\nthe Etruscans. They have always been and still are a riddle, and as our\nknowledge of them increases we seem further than ever from a solution,\nand what we gain in positive knowledge is more than counterbalanced by\nthe increased sense of our ignorance. Altogether aside from the problem\nof the origin of the Etruscans, and the race to which they belonged, is\nthe other problem of their disappearance. In a certain sense Etruria\nsteps out of history quite as mysteriously as she entered into it, nay\neven more mysteriously, for we are always willing to allow a certain\npercentage of mystery as the legitimate accompaniment of prehistoric\nhistory, but when in the light of more or less historic times a nation\nsteps off the stage of the world's history, and leaves practically no\nheritage behind her, we have a right to be amazed. Of all the peoples in\nItaly Rome ought in the order of events to have been her successor, and\nyet when we contrast the influence of Etruria on Rome with the influence\nof the Greek colonies of Southern Italy we see an amazing difference.\nThe influence of these Greek colonies on Rome prepared the way for the\ndirect influence of the Greek motherland, so that one passed over into\nthe other by imperceptible gradations, but the influence of Etruria on\nRome not only led to nothing but was in itself of a most superficial\nsort. Etruria must have had some literature, yet we search the history\nof Roman literature in vain for any traces of the influence of that\nliterature on Rome, with the one exception of books on divination and\nthe interpretation of lightning. We know too little of her manners and\ncustoms to be able to tell exactly how much they may have influenced\nRome, and yet it is worth noting that the things which Roman writers\nactually refer to Etruria, are all of them most superficial: a few of\nthe insignia of political office; a few of the trappings of one or two\nritualistic acts; a branch of divination, by the consultation of the\nentrails (_haruspicina_), which was of secondary importance compared to\naugury; and the most depraved form of Roman public sport, the\ngladiatorial games. The only fundamental institution of Rome which it is\nthe habit to ascribe to Etruria, the idea of the so-called _templum_ or\ndivision of the sky into regions as an axiom of augury, seems to have\nbeen quite as much a general Italic idea as a specifically Etruscan one.\nEven in art her influence was relatively slight, and though her\narchitects seem to have built the earliest formal temples for Rome, they\nwere soon succeeded in this work by the Greeks. We seek in vain for a\ncomplete and satisfactory explanation of this limitation of her\ninfluence, but certain thoughts suggest themselves, which, as far as\nthey go, are probably correct. All that we know of Etruria impresses us\nwith the fact that hers was an outward civilisation unaccompanied by an\ninward culture, that it was a formal rather than a spiritual growth, an\nartificial acquisition from without rather than a development from\nwithin outwards. It was strong but with its strength went brutality, it\nwas interested in art but for its sensual rather than its spiritual\naspects. Now the idealism of youth is present in nations just as in\nindividuals, though probably a nation is less conscious of it than an\nindividual. It is with the nation one of the effects of the instinct of\nself-preservation, and for a youthful nation to absorb the vices of an\nold decadent one would be self-destruction. Thus the youthful Rome\nrejected most of the Etruscan poison, and thus nature purified herself,\nand Etruria was buried in the pit of her own nastiness.\n\nThere was however one town which acted as an interpreter between Rome\nand Etruria, and was the original cult-centre for a very great goddess,\nspreading her cult in both directions, into Rome and into Etruria. The\ntown was Falerii and the goddess was Minerva, who in a certain sense\nentered Rome three times, once direct from Falerii to Rome, and once\nfrom Falerii to Rome by way of Etruria, and finally, when Falerii was\ncaptured by the Romans, again direct to Rome. In the earliest period\nthere are scarcely any traces of the worship of Minerva in Latium or\nSouthern Italy, and we are absolutely certain that she was not known in\nRome. In the country north of Rome, however, the situation is different\nThere she is found quite frequently, especially in Etruria under the\nname of MENERVA or MENRVA. Yet she cannot have been an Etruscan goddess,\nbecause the name itself is Italic and not Etruscan. She is therefore\nneither Roman, nor Etruscan, nor Latin, at least so far as we know Latin\nin Latium. If we can find a place however where a Latin people is under\nstrong Etruscan influence, we shall be near the solution. Such a place\nis Falerii, in the country of the Faliscans. To the ancients it appeared\nso thoroughly Etruscan that they go out of their way to explain that it\nwas not. As a matter of fact it was the only Latin town on the right\nbank of the Tiber, and because of its locality it was early brought into\nvital connection with the Etruscans, so vital that while it never lost\nall of its original Latin character, it lost enough of it to exercise a\nvery considerable direct influence over Etruria, and to be to a very\nlarge extent influenced by her in turn. We cannot of course positively\nprove that Minerva was originally worshipped only at Falerii, and that\nher cult spread entirely from this one point, but we have at least\nstrong negative evidence, and so far as the general history of ancient\nreligion is concerned there is nothing impossible in such a spread.\nReligious history shows many parallels to this; for example the classic\ncase of the god Eros of Thespiae, in Boeotia, who would have lived and\ndied merely a little insignificant local god, if it had not been for the\nBoeotian poet Hesiod who adopted Eros into his poetry and thus gave him\na start in life by which he ultimately succeeded in going all over the\nGreek world, and then passing into Rome as Cupid; and so into all later\ntimes.\n\nWe are accustomed to think of Minerva as the Latin name for Athena, the\ndaughter of Zeus, and unconsciously we clothe Minerva with all the glory\nof Athena and endow her with Athena's many-sidedness. In reality the\nlittle peasant goddess of Falerii had originally nothing in common with\nAthena except the fact that both of them were interested in handicraft\nand the handicraftsman, but Athena had a hundred other interests\nbesides, while this one thing seems to have filled the whole of\nMinerva's horizon. When Minerva went on her travels into Etruria, she\ncame among a people who eventually learned from the representations of\nGreek art a very considerable amount of Greek mythology, and who, when\nthey heard of Athena, saw her resemblance to Minerva and began thus to\nassociate the two. But even in this association Minerva was still\npre-eminently the goddess of the artisan and the labouring man, she was\nthe patroness of the works of man's hands rather than of the works of\nhis mind, and as such she was brought into Rome by Etruscan and\nFaliscan workmen. At first she was worshipped merely by these workmen in\ntheir own houses, but by degrees as the number of these workmen\nincreased and as a knowledge of their handicraft spread to native\nRomans, Minerva became so prominent that the state was compelled to\nacknowledge her, and to accept her among the gods of the state. But it\nwas a very different acknowledgment from that of Hercules or Castor;\nthese gods had been received inside the _pomerium_, but Minerva was\ngiven a temple outside, over on the Aventine. None the less her cult\nthrove, and her power was soon shown both religiously and socially. Her\ngreat festival was on the 19th of March, a day which had been originally\nsacred to Mars, but the presence of Minerva's celebrations on that day\nsoon caused the associations with Mars to be almost entirely forgotten.\nSocially her temple became the meeting-place of all the artisans of\nRome, it was at once their religious centre and their business\nheadquarters. There they met in their primitive guilds (_collegia_) and\narranged their affairs, and thus it continued to be as long as pagan\nRome lasted. The respect shown to these guilds of Minerva is nowhere\nmore clearly exhibited than in an incident which happened in the time of\nthe Second Punic War, several centuries after the introduction of the\ncult. Terrified by adverse portents the Roman Senate instructed the old\npoet Livius Andronicus to write a hymn in honour of Juno and to train a\nchorus of youths and maidens to sing it. The hymn was sung, and was such\na great success that the gratitude of the Senate took the form of\ngranting permission to the poets of the city to have a guild of their\nown, and a meeting-place along with the older guilds in the temple of\nMinerva on the Aventine. This was the Roman state's first expression of\nliterary appreciation; from her standpoint it was flattery indeed, for\nwere not poets by this decree made equal to butchers, bakers, and\ncloth-makers, and was not poetry acknowledged to be of some practical\nuse and adjudged a legitimate occupation?\n\nThe history of the cult of Minerva is much more complicated than that of\nHercules or Castor. Like them she was subjected to strong Greek\ninfluence, and, as we shall see later, not very long after her\nintroduction she was taken into the company of Juppiter and Juno, thus\nforming the famous Capitoline triad. Also temples were built to her\nindividually under various aspects of the worship of Athena with whom\nshe gradually became identified, but in the old Aventine temple the\noriginal idea of Minerva, the working man's friend, continued\npractically unchanged. Doubtless the society of Servius's day, who\nwitnessed the coming of Minerva, did not realise what this introduction\nmeant, and how absolutely necessary it was for Rome's future\ndevelopment that the artisan class should be among her people, and that\nthis class should be represented in the world of the gods. They little\nknew that in the temple on the Aventine was being brought to expression\nthe trade-union idea, which was to pass over into the mediaeval guild of\nboth workmen and masters, still under religious auspices, and to find a\nlatter-day parody in the modern labour-union, with its spirit of\nhostility to employers, and its indifference, at least as an\norganisation, to things religious.\n\nTrade and handicraft were thus added to the Roman world, of men on\nearth, and of the gods above the earth, and it remains for us to\nconsider the awakening of the political spirit and its corresponding\nreligious phenomenon; but before we do this, we must clear the way by\ncasting aside one ancient hypothesis connected with Servius's religious\nreforms, which is not correct, at least in the way in which the ancients\nmeant it.\n\nThe writing of the earlier period of Rome's history is sometimes\ncomplicated rather than helped by the statements of the generally\nwell-meaning but often misguided historians of later times. Their real\nknowledge of the facts was in many cases no greater than ours, while\nthey lacked what modern historians possess: a breadth of view and a\nknowledge of the phenomena of history in many periods and among many\nnations. The study of the social and religious movements under Servius\npresents us with an interesting illustration of this. It was customary\nnamely to ascribe to Servius Tullius the introduction of the cult of\nFortuna, and Plutarch takes occasion twice in his _Moralia_ to describe\nthe interest of Servius in this cult and to recount the extraordinary\nnumber of temples which he built to the great goddess of chance under\nher various attributes. The Romans of Plutarch's day thought of Fortuna\nin very much the way in which their poets, especially Horace, described\nher, as a great and powerful goddess of chance, the personification of\nthe element of apparent caprice which seems to be present in the running\nof the universe. It is very much our way of thinking of her, and of\ncourse both our own concept and the later Roman concept go back to\nGreece. But Greece had not always had this idea of the goddess of luck.\nThe older purer age of Greek thought was permeated with the idea of the\nabsolute immutable character of the divine will, a belief which\nprecluded the possibility of chance or caprice. The earliest Greek Tyche\n(Fortuna) was the daughter of Zeus who fulfilled his will; and that his\nwill through her was often a beneficent will is shown in the tendency to\nthink of her as a goddess of plenty. It was only the growth of\nscepticism, the failure of faith to bear up under the apparently\ncontradictory lessons of experience, which brought into being in the\nAlexandrian age Tyche, the goddess of chance, the winged capricious\ndeity poised on the ball. It was this habit of thought which eventually\ngave the Romans that idea of Fortuna which has became our idea because\nit is the prevalent one in Roman literature and life in the periods with\nwhich we are most familiar. Now if Fortuna be thought of in this latter\nway, it is a very easy matter to connect her with Servius Tullius, for\nthe legendary accounts of Servius's career picture him as a very child\nof \"fortune,\" raised from the lowest estate to the highest power, the\nlittle slave boy who became king. What goddess would he delight to\nhonour, if not the goddess of the happy chance which had made him what\nhe was?\n\nAll this is very pretty, but it is unfortunately quite impossible,\nbecause whatever the time may have been when Fortuna began to be\nworshipped in Rome, it is certain that the idea of chance did not enter\ninto the concept of her until long after Servius's day. Instead the\nearly Fortuna was a goddess of plenty and fertility, among mankind as a\nprotectress of women and of childbirth, among the crops and the herds as\na goddess of fertility and fecundity. Her full name was probably Fors\nFortuna, a name which survived in two old temples across the river from\nRome proper, in Trastevere, where she was worshipped in the country by\nthe farmers in behalf of the crops. Fortuna is thus merely the cult-name\nadded to the old goddess Fors to intensify her meaning, which finally\nbroke off from her and became independent, expressing the same idea of\na goddess of plenty. Later under Greek influence the concept of luck,\nespecially good-luck, slowly displaced the older idea. The possibility\nof such a transition from fertility to good-luck is shown us in the\nphrase \"_arbor felix_,\" which originally meant a fruitful tree and later\na tree of good omen. As regards Fortuna and Servius therefore there is\nno inherent reason why they should have been connected, and whenever it\nwas that Fortuna began to exist, be it before or after Servius, she came\ninto the world as a goddess of plenty and did not turn into a goddess of\nluck till centuries after her birth.\n\nIt must not be supposed that Rome in this sixth century before Christ\ncould take into herself all these traders and artisans, and become thus\ninterested also among her own citizens in these new employments, without\nreceiving a corresponding impulse toward a larger political life. Thus\nthere began that ever-increasing participation in the affairs of the\nLatin league, which was her first step toward acquiring a world\ndominion. It is probable that Rome had always belonged to this league,\nbut at first as a very insignificant member. Those were the days in\nwhich Alba Longa stood out as leader, a leadership which she afterwards\nlost, but of which the recollection was retained because the Alban Mount\nbehind Alba Longa remained the cult-centre, connected with the worship\nof the god of the league, the Juppiter of the Latins (Juppiter\nLatiaris), not only until B.C. 338 when the league ceased to exist, but\neven later when Rome kept up a sentimental celebration of the old\nfestival. In the course of time, for reasons which we do not know, Alba\nLonga's power declined and the mantle of her supremacy fell upon Aricia,\na little town still in existence not far from Albano. The coming of\nAricia to the presidency of the league started a religious movement\nwhich is one of the most extraordinary in the checkered history of Roman\nreligion. The ultimate result of this movement was the introduction of\nthe goddess Diana into the state-cult of Rome, where she was\nsubsequently identified with Apollo's sister Artemis. But this is a long\nstory, and to understand it we must go back some distance to make our\nbeginning.\n\nAmong the more savage tribes and in the wilder mountain regions of both\nGreece and Italy there was worshipped a goddess who had a different name\nin each country, Artemis in Greece, Diana in Italy, but who was in\nnature very much the same. This does not imply that it was the same\ngoddess originally or that the early Artemis of Greece had any influence\non the Diana of Italy. Their similarity was probably caused merely by\nthe similarity of the conditions from which they sprang, the similar\nneeds of the two peoples. She was a goddess of the woods, and of nature,\nand especially of wild animals, a patroness of the hunt and the\nhuntsman, but also a goddess of all small animals, of all helpless\nlittle ones, and a helper too of those that bore them, hence a goddess\nof birth, and in the sphere of mankind a goddess of women and of\nchildbirth. Later in Greece Artemis was absorbed into the sea-cult of\nApollo on the island of Delos, where she became Apollo's sister, like\nhim the child of Latona; but naturally Diana experienced no similar\nchange until in Rome, centuries later, she was artificially identified\nwith Artemis. In the earliest times there were two places in Italy where\nthe cult of Diana was especially prominent, both, as we should expect,\nin wooded mountainous regions: one on Mount Tifata (near Capua), the\nmodern St. Angelo in Formis; the other in Latium, in a grove near\nAricia. It is with this latter cult-centre that we have here to do. The\ngrove near Aricia became so famous that the goddess worshipped there was\nknown as \"Diana of the Grove\" (Diana Nemorensis), and the place where\nshe was worshipped was called the \"Grove\" (_nemus_), a name which is\nstill retained in the modern \"Nemi.\" She was a goddess of the woods, of\nthe animal kingdom, of birth, and so of women; and almost all the\ndedicatory inscriptions which have been found near her shrine were put\nup by women. She was worshipped above all by the people of Aricia, and\nshe seems to have been the patron deity of the town. When it fell to\nAricia's lot to become the head of the league, her goddess Diana\npromptly assumed an important position in the league, not because she\nhad by nature any political bearing whatsoever, but merely because she\nwas wedded to Aricia, and experienced all the vicissitudes of her\ncareer. Thus there came into the league, alongside of the old Juppiter\nLatiaris of the Alban Mount, the new Diana Nemorensis of Aricia, and\nsacrifices to her formed a part of the solemn ritual of the united towns\nof Latium. It does not take actually a great many years for a religious\ncustom to acquire sanctity, and before many generations had passed,\nDiana was felt to be quite as original and essential a part of the\nworship of the league as Juppiter himself. During these same centuries\nRome was growing in importance and influence in the league, until,\ninstead of being one of its insignificant towns, she was in a fair way\nto become its president. Here her diplomacy stepped in to help her. The\nleague was of course essentially a political institution, but in a\nprimitive society political institutions are still in tutelage to\nreligious ones, and the direct road to strong political influence lies\nthrough religious zeal. The way to leadership in the Latin league lay\nthrough excessive devotion to Juppiter and Diana. It is therefore no\naccidental coincidence that we find Rome in the period of Servius\nbuilding a temple to Juppiter Latiaris on the top of the Alban Mount,\nand introducing the worship of Diana into Rome, building her a temple on\nthe Aventine, hence outside the _pomerium_. Yet it was not the\nintroduction of her worship as an ordinary state-cult, for then she\nwould have been taken inside the _pomerium_ with far greater right than\nHercules and Castor were. It was, on the contrary, the building of a\nsanctuary of the league outside the _pomerium_, yet inside the civil\nwall; not the adoption of Diana as a Roman goddess, but the close\nassociation of the Diana of the Latin league with Rome. It was the\nattempt to put Rome religiously as well as politically into the position\nwhich Aricia held; and it was successful. Diana was still the\nleague-goddess; tradition has it that the league helped to build the\ntemple; and the dedication day of the temple, August 13, was the same as\nthat of the temple at Nemi. The Roman temple was outside the _pomerium_\ntherefore, not because she was a foreign goddess like Minerva, but\nbecause as a league-goddess she must be outside, not inside, the sacred\nwall of Rome.\n\nDiana had been introduced for a specific purpose as part of a diplomatic\ngame, not because Rome felt any real religious need of her; it is hardly\nto be expected therefore that her subsequent career in Rome would be of\nany great importance. Naturally when once the state had taken the\nresponsibility of the cult upon itself, that cult was assured as long as\npagan Rome lasted, for the state was always faithful, at least in the\nmechanical performance of a ritual act; but popular interest could not\nbe counted on, especially as many of the things which Diana stood for,\nfor example her relation to women, were ably represented by Juno. It is\nnot likely that Diana would ever have been of importance in the religion\nof subsequent time, had it not been for another accident which served to\nkeep alive the interest in Diana, just as the accident of Diana's\nconnection with the Latin league had aroused that interest in the\nbeginning. This was the coming of Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo\ncame first, probably during the time of Servius, but Artemis seems to\nhave come much later, not before B.C. 431. Her identification with Diana\nwas inevitable, and from that time onward Diana begins a new life with\nall the attributes and myths of Artemis, but this new Artemis-Diana was\nquite as different a goddess from the old Aventine Diana as the new\nAthena-Minerva was from the old Aventine Minerva.\n\nThe political interest of the Romans had been aroused, they had found\ntheir life-work, their career was opening before them, and it must not\nbe supposed that the reflex action of this new political spirit on the\nreligious world was confined to the building of two league temples, one\nto Juppiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, miles away from Rome, and one\nto Diana outside the _pomerium_ over in the woods of the Aventine. This\npolitical interest was no artificial acquisition, but the inevitable\nexpression of an instinct. It must therefore find its representation\ninside the city, in connexion with a deity who was already deep in the\nhearts of the people. This deity could be none other than the sky-father\nJuppiter, who had stood by them in the old days of their exclusively\nfarming life, sending them sunshine and rain in due season. Up on the\nCapitoline he was worshipped as _Feretrius_, \"the striker,\" in his most\nfearful attribute as the god of the lightning. To him the richest spoils\nof war (_spolia opima_) were due, and to him the conqueror gave thanks\non his return from battle. It was this Juppiter of the Capitoline who\nwas chosen to be the divine representative of Rome's political ambition;\nand her confidence in the future, and the omen of her inevitable success\nlay in the cult-names, the _cognomina_, with which this Juppiter was\nhenceforth and forever adorned, Juppiter Optimus Maximus. These\nadjectives are no mere idle ornament, no purely pleasant phraseology;\nthey express not merely the excellence of Rome's Juppiter but his\nabsolute superiority to all other Juppiters, including Juppiter\nLatiaris. And so while Rome with one hand was building a temple for the\nleague on the Alban Mount, merely as a member of the league, with the\nother hand she was building a temple in the heart of her city to a god\nwho was to bring into subjection to himself all other gods who dared to\nchallenge his supremacy, just as the city which paid him honour was to\novercome all other cities which refused to acknowledge her. From\nhenceforth Juppiter Optimus Maximus represents all that is most truly\nRoman in Rome. It was under his banner that her battles were fought, it\nwas to him in all time to come that returning generals gave thanks.\n\nTradition sets the completion of the Capitoline temple in the first year\nof the republic, but the idea and the actual beginning of the work\nbelong to the later kingdom and hence to our present period, and the\ncontemplation of it forms a fitting close to the development which we\nhave tried to sketch. And now that this part of our work is over it may\nbe well to ask ourselves what we have seen, for there have been so many\nbypaths which we have of necessity explored, that the main road we have\ntravelled may not be entirely distinct in our mind. In the period which\ncorresponds to the later kingdom, and roughly to the sixth century\nbefore Christ, and which we have called \"Servian\" for convenience, we\nhave watched a primitive pastoral community, isolated from the world's\nlife, turning into a small city-state with political interests, the\nbeginnings of trade and handicraft, and various rival social classes;\nand we have seen how along with the coming of these outside interests\nthere came various new cults connected with them, most of them implying\nentirely new deities, and only one or two of them new sides of old\ndeities. The body of old Roman religion had received its first blows;\nwhat Tacitus (_Hist._ i. 4) says of the downfall of the empire--\"Then\nwas that secret of the empire disclosed, that it was possible for a\nruler to be appointed elsewhere than at Rome\"--is true of Roman religion\nin this period when it was discovered that the state might take into\nitself deities from outside Rome. And yet while the principle itself was\nfatal, the practice of it, so far, had been without much harm. Rome's\ngrowth was inevitable, it was quite as inevitable that these new\ninterests should be represented in the world of the gods; her old gods\ndid not suffice, hence new ones were introduced. But the actual gods\nbrought in thus far were harmless; Hercules, Castor, Minerva, Diana\nnever did Rome any injury in themselves, never injured her national\n_morale_, never lowered the tone of earnest sobriety which had been\ncharacteristic of the old regime.\n\nSo far it was good, and well had it been for Rome if she could have shut\nthe gate of her Olympus now. What the old religion had not provided was\nnow present. Politics, trade, and art were now represented. With these\nshe was abundantly supplied for all her future career. But that was not\nto be, the gate was still open, and the destructive influence of Greece\nwas soon to send in a host of new deities, who were destined not only to\noverwhelm the old Roman gods--which in itself we might forgive--but to\nsap away the old Roman virtues, to the maintenance of which the\natmosphere of these old gods was essential. The forerunner of this\ninfluence was in himself innocent enough, it was Apollo, and it is to\nhis coming and the subsequent developments which set him in distinct\nopposition to Juppiter Optimus Maximus that we now turn.\n\n\n\n\nTHE COMING OF THE SIBYL\n\n\nThe Rome of the first consuls was a very different Rome from that of the\nearlier kings. Not only was the population larger but it was divided\nsocially into different classes. The simple patriarchal one-class\ncommunity had been transformed into the complex structure of a society\nwhich had in it virtually all those elements and interests, except the\nmore strictly intellectual ones, which go to make up what we call\nsociety in the modern sense. The world of the gods also had increased in\npopulation, and there too there was present a slight social distinction\nbetween the old gods (_Indigetes_) and the new-comers (_Novensides_),\nthough it is open to question how strongly this distinction was felt.\nThe new gods thus far were not incommensurable with the old ones. They\nformed a tolerably harmonious circle, and there was not felt to be any\nneed of new priesthoods; the old priests were sufficient to look after\nthem all. There were a few new names, and a few new temples or altars,\nbut everything was in the old spirit, and there was no rivalry between\nthe old and the new. None of the old gods was crowded into the\nbackground by the new-comers. This was on the face of it impossible as\nyet, because the new gods all represented new ideas which had not been\nprovided for under the old scheme. Even Diana, who afterwards usurped\nsomewhat the functions of Juno, stood at present pre-eminently for the\npolitical idea pure and simple, so far as Rome was concerned. This\nperiod of equipoise did not continue very long, but while it lasted it\nwas beyond doubt the best and strongest period in the whole history of\nRoman religion. There was no violent religious enthusiasm, but then\nthere was no corresponding depression offsetting it. It was the cold but\nconscientious formalism which was best adapted to the Roman character,\nbecause so long as it held sway the excesses of superstition were\navoided.\n\nBut this element of superstition was already on the way, it came in\nwithin a few years of the opening of the republic, and it exercised its\ninsidious influence ever more and more powerfully until it celebrated\nits wildest orgies in the time of the Second Punic War. It is in this\nperiod of the first three centuries of the republic, roughly from B.C.\n500 to B.C. 200, that this change was produced. Outwardly it resembled a\nsteady growth in religious feeling and enthusiasm, and it might well\nhave seemed so to contemporaries. It was a period of many new gods and\nmany new temples, but this in itself was no harm. It was the principle\nbehind it which did the damage. It was the essential contradiction to\nwhat true Roman religion and Roman character demanded; and the last half\nof the republic paid the price for what the first half had done, in a\ndecline of faith which has scarcely been exceeded in the world's\nhistory.\n\nIt has been customary for writers on the history of Roman morals to\nattribute these changes to the coming of Greek influence; and of course\nin the main this is correct, but these writers have in general neglected\nto analyse this Greek influence more closely, and to distinguish the\nvarious aspects of it in different periods, and to ask and answer the\nquestion why this influence should be so particularly harmful to the\nRomans. It is generally spoken of as the influence of Greek literature\nand philosophy, but for our present period this is entirely incorrect,\nfor we all know that Greek literature did not begin to influence Rome\nuntil the time of the Punic wars, and yet the Greek influence of which\nwe speak here began to exert its effects two hundred and fifty years\nbefore the Punic wars. The real cause of the unnatural stimulation of\nreligion during these three centuries is nothing more nor less than the\nbooks of the Sibylline oracles. It is therefore a very definite and\ninteresting problem which we have before us. It is to examine the\nworkings of these oracles and to explain why they had such an\nextraordinary effect on religion and society, that in three centuries\nthey could entirely change both the form and the content of Roman\nreligion, and under the guise of increasing its zeal, so sap its\nvitality that it required almost two hundred years of human experience\nand suffering before true religion was in some sense at least restored\nto its own place.\n\nLike the origin of almost all the great religious movements in the\nworld's history, the beginnings of the Sibylline books are shrouded in\nmystery. A later age, for whom history had no secrets, with a cheap\nwould-be omniscience told of the old woman who visited Tarquin and\noffered him nine books for a certain price, and when he refused to pay\nit, went away, burned three, and then returning offered him at the\noriginal price the six that were left; on his again refusing she went\naway, burned three more and finally offered at the same old price the\nthree that remained, which he accepted. Except as a sidelight on the\ncharacter of the early Greek trader the story is worthless. It is\ndoubtful even if the presence of the Sibylline books in Rome goes back\nbeyond the republic. The first dateable use of them was in the year B.C.\n496, and there is one little fact connected with them which makes it\nprobable that they did not come in until the republic had begun. This is\nthe circumstance that in view of the great secrecy of the books it is\nunthinkable that they should ever have been in Rome without especial\nguardians, and yet the earliest guardians that we know of were a newly\nmade priesthood consisting originally of two men, the so-called \"two men\nin charge of the sacrifices\" (_IIviri sacris faciundis_). Now the form\nof this title is peculiar; it is not a proper name like the titles of\nall the other priesthoods. Instead it is built on the plan of the titles\nof the special committees appointed by the Senate for administrative\npurposes; it bears every mark therefore of having arisen under the\nrepublic, rather than under the kingdom, at a time when the Senate had\nthe supreme control. So much may be said regarding the time when they\nwere introduced into Rome; as for the place from which they came, this\nwas without doubt the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, probably the\noldest and most important of them, Cumae, so famous for its Sibyl. This\nwas not the first association that Rome had had with Cumae, for in all\nprobability the worship of Apollo had spread from there into Rome toward\nthe close of the kingdom. Apollo and the books were connected at Cumae,\nfor it was Apollo who inspired the Sibyl, and the oracles were his\ncommands, but it is almost certain that Apollo came to Rome in advance\nof the oracles. He came there as a god of healing and was given a sacred\nplace outside the _pomerium_ in the Campus Martius, on the spot where\nlater (B.C. 431) a temple was built for him with his sister\nArtemis-Diana and their mother Latona. This was the only state temple\nthat Apollo ever had, until Augustus built the famous one on the\nPalatine. It was in the wake of Apollo that the Sibylline books came. As\nfor the books themselves, they were kept so secret that we cannot expect\nto know much about them, but in rare cases where the seriousness of the\nexigency warranted it, the Senate permitted the actual publication of\nthe oracle upon which its action was based, and of the oracles thus\npublished one or two have been preserved to us. They were of course\nwritten in Greek and were phrased in the ambiguous style which for\nobvious reasons was the most advantageous style for oracles. They\ncommanded the worship of certain specific deities, naturally all of them\nGreek, and the performance of certain more or less complicated ritual\nacts. When they were received in Rome, they were placed in the temple of\nJuppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline in the keeping of their\nguardians, the new priesthood of the \"two men in charge of the\nsacrifices.\" This committee of two was enlarged to ten in B.C. 367 when\nthe great compromise between the Patricians and the Plebeians was made,\nand the Plebeians were admitted into this one priesthood, with five\nrepresentatives. Subsequently Sulla made the number fifteen, which\ncontinued as the official number from that time on, so that the\npriesthood is ordinarily called the _Quindecemviri_, even when one of\nthe older periods is referred to. The real control of the books however\nlay in the hands of the Senate. When the Senate saw fit, the priests\nwere ordered to consult the books, but without this special command even\ntheir guardians dared not approach them. The priests reported to the\nSenate what they had found, and the Senate then decreed whatever actions\nthe oracles commanded. The carrying out of these actions was again in\nthe charge of the Sibylline priests, who performed the ceremonies\ndemanded and were for all time to come responsible for the maintenance\nof any new cults which might be introduced.\n\nWhen we see how carefully these oracles were guarded and how\ncircumspectly their use was hedged about by senatorial control, and when\nwe think how relatively little harm the use of oracles had wrought in\nGreece in all the centuries of her history, it may well seem as if the\nstatements made in the beginning of this chapter about the havoc caused\nby these oracles were grossly exaggerated. But the efforts of the Senate\nto safeguard these oracles only prove that the older and wiser men in\nthe community realised how dangerous they were, and the comparison with\nGreece leads to a consideration of certain essential differences between\nthe Greek and the Roman temperament which made that which was meat for\none into poison for the other.\n\nIn the older purer age of Greece the gods were never far away from men,\nthey lived almost side by side with them; there were to be sure many\ngods of whom they were afraid and from whom they desired to keep as far\naway as possible, but there were a great many other gods of whom they\nliked to think. In constructing the records of their history they did\nnot work backwards from the light of the present into an ever darkening\npast, but they began from the beginning in the full light of the gods\nfrom whom all things sprang, and mythology passed into history by\nimperceptible gradations. They knew more about the beginning when all\nthings were completely in the hands of the gods than they did about\ntheir immediate past. Art began very early to make them familiar with\nthe appearance of the gods, so that there was little that was mysterious\nabout their religion, so little that the element of mystery had later to\nbe almost artificially cultivated in the \"mysteries.\" They respected the\ngods rather than feared them, and they felt that the gods would do them\nno harm unless they themselves first sinned against them or their own\nfellow-men, and the oracles of Delphi were no more terrifying to them\nthan the coming of the word of God was to the prophets of Israel. They\nwere accustomed to these messages, which were almost every-day affairs.\nIt was all a part of that marvellous poise of nature which made the\nevery-day mortal Greek almost as calm as the unperturbed imperturbable\nfaces of their gods as their great sculptors saw them.\n\nIn Rome all was very different. The superstitious element in the Italian\ncharacter, which amazes us so much to-day when cultured twentieth\ncentury men and women in good society persecute their fellows because of\nthe evil eye, is a heritage of many thousand years. Sometimes it seems\nas if it were the Italian birthright, the blight of Etruria which came\ninto their nature in spite of themselves. It required centuries to\neducate the Roman into the concept of personal individual gods. He had\nbegun his theological career by terror of unknown powers all about him,\nand by regarding religion as the science of propitiating the right power\non the right occasion. One could not know these powers, one did not\ndesire to. Their gods were at once their masters and their servants, but\nnever their companions. The early Roman knew no such thing as an oracle,\nthe only messages from the gods were the expressions of their wrath, in\nthe sending of prodigies and portents. They did indeed consult the gods\nby watching the flight of birds or studying the entrails of the\nsacrifice, but it was merely to obtain a \"yes or no\" answer to a\ncategorical question as to whether a certain act was pleasing to the\ngods. Otherwise all about them lay mystery, and at the point where sight\nfailed, since neither imagination nor faith carried them any further,\nsuperstition stepped in, and the more they thought of the gods the more\nterrified they became. Now if you present to a people thus constituted a\ndivine book of infallible oracles, you increase their terror in greater\nmeasure than the book itself can assuage it, and with the use of the\nbook the simpler forms of their old belief will grow less and less\neffective in the face of this new \"witchcraft,\" which can work wonders.\nAnd no matter how you may hedge the use of the book about, it will be\nused more and more as the craving for magic is increasingly aroused.\n\nThe study of the outward and the inward effects of the Sibylline books\nis therefore the real history of religion in the first half of the\nrepublic. The outward effects are seen in the introduction of a series\nof Greek gods, who were in themselves in the main eminently respectable,\nand whose presence was in itself no offence to good morals, and if we\nstop there we fail to understand why the religious interest of the\nSecond Punic War should change so quickly to the scepticism of the\nfollowing century. The inward effects however, which, though they are\nhard to see, may yet be discovered between the lines of the chronicle,\nwill explain all the undermining of foundation, until we wonder not why\nthe structure collapsed so suddenly but how it managed to last so long.\n\nThe history of the activity of the books begins peaceably enough. In the\nyear B.C. 496 Rome was in a bad way; her crops had failed and the\nimportation of grain from Latium was rendered very difficult because of\nthe war with the Latins in which she was engaged. In her distress she\nturned to the Sibylline books, and on the occasion of this their first\nrecorded use, the oracles ordered the introduction into Rome of the cult\nof three Greek deities, Demeter, Dionysos, and Kore. It was a most\nappropriate and characteristic choice. In the first place the deities in\nquestion were worshipped at Cumae, the home of the books, whence Rome\ncould, and probably did, borrow the cult; and in the second place\nDemeter was the goddess of grain, and it was from Cumae that Rome was\nalready beginning to obtain her imported grain supply. Thus the coming\nof the Cumaean Demeter into the religious world of Rome is but the\nsacred parallel to the coming of Cumaean grain into the material world\nof Rome. The Greek goddess of grain came with the grain, just as Castor\nhad come with the Greek cavalry, with this essential distinction however\nthat Demeter came by the incantation of the books and the enactment of\nthe Senate, whereas Castor's coming was a slow and normal development.\n\nIt is important to notice closely exactly what happened when these\ndeities were introduced, partly because they form the first recorded\ninstance, and hence may well have acted as a model for subsequent\nrepetitions of the act, but also because we have a more definite\nknowledge of the phenomena in this case than in many others. In the\nfirst place it is clear that the deities were felt to be foreign: not\nonly was their temple built out the Aventine way, in the valley of the\nCircus Maximus, outside the _pomerium_, but--a much more significant\nfact--their Greek names were dropped, and they were given Roman names\ninstead, to make them seem less out of place. Then too these Roman names\nwere not new names, translations of their Greek titles, but were the\nnames of already existing Roman deities with whom they were easily\nidentified, so that we see at once that their coming was no real\nenrichment of the Roman Olympus; what they stood for was already\nrepresented there, and their coming was simply a reduplication, with the\nconsequent result that as these parvenus increased in prominence and\ninfluence, they robbed of all their vitality the sober old Roman deities\nto whom they had attached themselves. What were these original deities\nwho were thus doomed to death in B.C. 496? Demeter took the name of the\nold Roman goddess Ceres, a goddess of fertility, about whom we know just\nenough to assert that she belonged to the old religion of Numa and that\nshe was at heart quite a different person from Demeter. All the rest is\nlost, submerged under the new Demeter-Ceres with her temple built by\nGreek architects and her April games. It is this new Ceres who soon\ndevelops an extraordinary political importance because her temple is to\nthe Plebeians as a class what the temple of Minerva is to the unions of\norganised labour. It is there that they have their meeting-place, and\nthe temple itself is always their treasury as contrasted with the Saturn\ntemple, the treasury of the state as a whole. The very officers of the\nPlebeians, the famous Plebeian aediles, get their name from association\nwith this temple (_aedes_). This political side of her activity is the\nonly real advantage, except the grain itself, connected with her\nimportation; the two form at best a poor economic compensation for the\never increasing immoral effects of the public games of Ceres.\n\nBut though Ceres is the most important of the three deities economically\nand politically, we must not forget the other two, both of whom are\ninteresting, though one of them more for what she is not than for what\nshe is. Along with Demeter came Dionysos and Demeter's daughter Kore:\nthe three were associated in the solemn mysteries of Eleusis, but none\nof the beauty of these ideas went over into the Roman cult. Demeter was\nmerely the deified grain-traffic, and Dionysos was little else than the\ngod of wine, while poor Kore fell out without any particular content for\na curious reason that we shall see in a moment. The only old Roman deity\nwith whom Dionysos could be identified was the god Liber, who had had a\nrather interesting history, and who had done enough along the line of\nself-development to deserve a better fate than to be crushed to\ninsignificance under the prominence of his new namesake. Liber was at\nthis time a flourishing god of fertility and, since the introduction of\nthe grape into Italy, especially the patron of the fruit of the vine,\nbut he had made his own career, and there was a time when he had no\nindividuality of his own but was merely a cult-adjective of the great\ngod Juppiter, the giver of all fertility in every phase of life. Thus\nout of the original Juppiter-Liber there had grown the independent god\nLiber; and now this Liber lost his individuality by identification with\nDionysos. Finally comes Kore, Demeter's daughter. Here the Romans were\nhard put to it to find a goddess who represented any similar content,\nand after all this was no light task because Kore has little meaning\nunless she is taken also as Persephone, Pluto's bride--a process which\nrequired a mythological knowledge and appreciation in which the Romans\nof the early republic were totally lacking. But there was an old goddess\nLibera, a shadowy potentiality contrasted and paired with the masculine\nLiber, and they chose her and gave Kore her name. We have a curious\nproof of how little the Romans knew of Kore-Libera, and of how purely\nmechanical both the introduction of Kore and her identification with\nLibera were, in the fact that about two hundred and fifty years later,\nas we shall see, Persephone, the real Kore, was introduced into Rome as\nan altogether new deity, and existed there side by side with Libera for\nat least a century before people began to realise that Proserpina and\nLibera stood for the same Greek goddess.\n\nIt was necessary to go into these details in order that we might\nunderstand as much as possible of the process by which the gods of the\nSibylline books were assimilated into the body of Roman religion. We see\nhow in the main they were superfluous and therefore unnecessary and even\nundesirable because by their presence they robbed old Roman deities of\ntheir existence, and how those elements in them which were least in\naccord with the old Roman spirit were most apt to develop, and how in\ngeneral their adoption was a purely mechanical process, like any act in\nwitchcraft, where the form is all important because the meaning cannot\nbe understood, and how totally different therefore the estate of these\ngods was in Rome from what it had been in Greece, because in Rome they\nwere introduced, stripped of all their mythology, worshipped only for\ntheir practical bearings, and compelled therefore to work for their\nliving.\n\nThe importation of grain from Cumae meant more to Rome than the mere\nsatisfaction of her physical needs; it meant much more than the addition\nof three deities to her state-cult, for the grain thus imported was\ncarried from Cumae to Ostia by sea and so up the Tiber to Rome, and the\nwhole matter therefore marks one of the important steps in Rome's\ninterest in commerce generally but especially in ocean commerce. As yet\nshe did not do the actual carrying herself, but she began to be\ninterested in it, and the sea began to mean something to this inland\ntown. This increased interest in trade in general and this inceptive\ninterest in those who \"go down to the sea in ships\" have both of them\nleft their reflexion in the religious life of the time; two new deities\nare introduced, both of them almost certainly by means of the Sibylline\noracles, though some accidental blanks in our historical tradition have\ndeprived us of details.\n\nThe chronicle of the year B.C. 495 tells us that there was a dispute in\nthat year as to who should dedicate the temple of Mercury. This is\nMercury's first appearance in our sources. The circumstances of the\nvowing of the temple have been omitted through some oversight, but in\nspite of this the connexion of his introduction with the Sibylline books\nis beyond all reasonable doubt, for the simple reason that the guardians\nof the oracles always looked after his cult in all subsequent time.\nNotwithstanding the suddenness of his appearance and the silence of the\nchronicle, his story is quite clear and his past history easy to\nrestore, at least in outline.\n\nThe versatile Hermes, who as messenger of the gods plays a part in so\nmany Greek myths, became in the course of time among other things\nassociated with travelling, as god of roads, and also with trade,\npartly because trading necessitates travelling, and partly because\nHermes was also the protector of the market-place in which the trading\nwas done. Thus he was called \"Hermes Protector of the Merchant\"\n(_Empolaios_) and in this capacity went into the colonies of Greece,\nincluding those of Southern Italy. Thus Hermes travelled with the grain\nmerchant from Cumae and became known to the Romans. They however knew\nhim merely as the god of trade, and their name for him is nothing but\nthe translation into Latin of his Greek cult-title: _Empolaios_ =\n_Mercurius_. For a long time it was thought that there had existed a\nMercurius among the original gods of Rome, but the traces of this old\ngod are apparent rather than real and suggest one phase of that pastime\nof which the later Romans were so fond, that of writing history\nbackwards and putting an artificial halo of antiquity about the gods\nwhom they borrowed from Greece. Thus Mercury was received into the\nstate-cult at about the time when the grain trade began, and was, as it\nwere, the divine representative of the interest which the Roman state\ntook in the whole transaction. His temple was outside the _pomerium_ on\nthe Aventine side of the Circus Maximus. It was in this temple of the\nmerchant god that the primitive Chamber of Commerce (_collegium\nmercatorum_) had its beginning, an association, partly sacral, partly\ncommercial, whose members, the _mercuriales_, are frequently met with\nin literature and also in inscriptions, one of which has been found as\nfar away as the island of Delos. In the actual cult of the Romans\nMercury never regained the many-sidedness which he had lost in coming to\nthem merely as a god of trade. In this capacity he appears on the\nsextans of the old copper coinage, and under the empire he went into the\nprovinces as the companion of Mars, since the merchant went side by side\nwith the soldier. On the contrary when in the third century before\nChrist Greek literature came to Rome, this simple idea of Mercury was\nreinforced by many new Greek ideas and he entered into Roman poetry with\nall the attributes and functions of Hermes; but this had little or no\neffect on the cult and there were no great rivals to the old temple near\nthe Circus Maximus, no cult-centre with advanced Greek ideas, as we have\nseen spring up in the case of Hercules, Castor, Minerva, and Diana.\n\nWe have already seen how the rise of the grain trade brought four new\ndeities to Rome, but there is one more chapter to our story. The grain\nitself and the trade itself had now obtained their divine complements,\nbut the sea had not yet received its due; it too must have its parallel\namong the gods of Rome. And so it came to pass that again under the\ninfluence of the fateful books, though exactly when or how we cannot\nsay, the Greek Poseidon came into Rome. The sea had always meant much\nto the Greeks, and the joyful shout of Xenophon's troops \"The sea! the\nsea!\" finds an echo all through the centuries of Greek history before\nand after the Anabasis. But the multitude of islands and harbours in\nGreece is in marked contrast to the dearth of them in Italy, where even\nto-day there is no good port of call on the west coast between Naples\nand Civitavecchia--and the latter would be useless, were it not for\nTrajan's mole. In Italy accordingly the sea-god Poseidon was worshipped\nonly in the Greek colonies, where however he had two famous cults, one\nat Tarentum, later called Colonia Neptunia, and one at Paestum, whose\nold name was Poseidonia. The Romans had worshipped deities of water in\nabundance, as became an agricultural people, for water meant life, and\ndrought, death; but their deities were those of the sweet waters of\nsprings and rivers, they knew no god of the sea. But when the oracles\nbrought Poseidon to Rome he was identified with an old Roman water-god\nNeptune, whose cult henceforward included the sea. We do not know where\nthe shrine of the old sweet-water Neptune had been, but his old festival\nhad occurred on July 23. The new Poseidon-Neptune was given a temple\noutside the _pomerium_ in the Campus Martius, but the new was connected\nwith the old in so far at least that the dedication day of the new\ntemple was July 23, the day of the old Neptune festival.\n\nWith the introduction of Neptune, the sea-god, the state had\naccomplished, as it were, a sort of divine marine insurance; the\ntransport of the grain was now watched over by a Roman god; but it was\nnot to be expected that the cult of a sea-god would ever mean very much\nto the Romans. The maritime commerce of the Eternal City was very slow\nin developing, and it grew to its subsequent proportions, not because\nthe Romans of Italy engaged in it, but because those foreigners who took\nto the sea by nature later became Romans. Nor did naval warfare fall to\nher lot until the First Punic War, and even then her victories were\ngained by the tactics of land fighting transferred to the decks of two\nships, her own and the enemy's, fastened together by landing-bridges,\nand the glory of victory was due not to Neptune but to Mars. It was not\nuntil the civil wars at the close of the republic that real naval\nbattles occurred, and that Neptune received his share of glory for the\nvictory at Actium in B.C. 31, and later over Sextus Pompeius, in a\ntemple erected by Agrippa in the Campus Martius, behind the beautiful\ncolumns of which the Roman Stock-Exchange transacts its business to-day.\n\nIn the first decade of the republic therefore, as we have seen, a group\nof Greek gods was introduced by the Sibylline oracles, no one of whom\ncan be said to have been really needed, no one of whom except the\nsea-element in Neptune represented any new and vital principles not\nalready present in the religious world, if not of Numa, at least of\nServius. The best that can be said of these gods is that one or two of\nthem, notably Mercury and Neptune, exerted no positively detrimental\ninfluences on later generations. For the next two centuries our\nchronicles are silent, so far as the actual introduction of new deities\nby the aid of the books is concerned, and it is not until B.C. 293 that\nthe narrative of new gods begins again. But in other ways the oracles\nwere not idle during these two hundred years. We must rid ourselves of\nthe idea that it was necessary that their consultation should always\nresult in the importation of some new Greek deity. The oracles might\norder the carrying out of some new religious rite regarding the deities\nalready present, and these religious rites, especially the public\nprocessions so frequently performed, feed the ever-growing superstition\nof the populace. It is essential to a charm or incantation that it\nshould contain something strange or foreign, it is above all things help\nfrom without; and when the gods send prodigies and portents, when their\nstatues weep and sweat blood, when cattle speak, and meteors fall from\nthe sky, something strange and unusual must be done to counteract these\nthings. Among the foreign acts thus ordered the sacred procession occurs\nfrequently. It started from the temple of Apollo in the Campus Martius\nand passed into the city through the Porta Carmentalis, went across the\nForum and then outside the _pomerium_ again to the temple of Ceres, and\nthen to the temple of Juno Regina on the Aventine. It was therefore a\npower from without which came into their city to purify them and to\ncarry away out of the city again the impurities of which it had rid the\ncommunity.\n\nIt is also characteristic of such semi-magical things that they lose\ntheir effects after a few applications, and other things must be sought\nalways more complicated and more strange. Thus from the beginning of the\nrepublic down through the Second Punic War we have a series of\nextraordinary measures, growing more and more complicated until in the\nreligious frenzy of the years after Cannae even human sacrifices are\nperformed at the command of the books. In this the third century before\nChrist deities begin again to be introduced, and it is to this century\nthat we now turn.\n\nIt is probable that the Romans had always worshipped certain powers of\nhealing, but what their names were under the old regime we do not know,\nexcept that possibly they were connected with the gods of water. At the\nclose of the kingdom they received, as we have seen, Apollo the divine\nhealer, Apollo Medicus, and this was originally the only side of his\nactivity which he exercised at Rome. At various seasons of plague during\nthe early centuries of the republic they called on him for help, and on\none such occasion (B.C. 431) they built him a temple. But in the course\nof time men began to think lightly of the old family physician who had\nstood by the Romans during more than two centuries; his methods were too\nconservative, they were felt not to be thoroughly up to date. A new god\nof healing had appeared in Rome, the Greek god Asklepios, whom myth\ncalled Apollo's son, though originally he had had no connection with\nApollo. His great sanctuary was at Epidauros, and from there his cult\nspread over all the Greek world. At first he was known at Rome only in\nthe worship of private individuals, who had brought him up from the\nGreek colonies of Southern Italy, probably Tarentum or Metapontum; but\nhis cult was contagious, and the stories of his miraculous cures were\neagerly heard. It is no wonder then that in the presence of a great\npestilence in B.C. 293, when the Sibylline books were consulted, \"it was\nfound in the books,\" as Livy says, \"that Aesculapius must be brought to\nRome from Epidauros.\" The war with Pyrrhus however was on, and nothing\ncould be done that year except the setting apart of a solemn day of\nprayer and supplication to Aesculapius. It is interesting to observe how\nmuch the Romans have changed since the time exactly two centuries before\n(B.C. 493), when Ceres and her companions, the first gods introduced by\nthe books, received their temple. That was the acknowledgment of gods\nwell known at Rome, and even then they were immediately identified with\nalready existing Roman gods; now they actually send an expedition not\nonly outside of Rome but of Italy itself to bring in the cult of a god\nwhom they accept by his Greek name. In the following year (B.C. 292) the\nexpedition started for Epidauros to bring back the god, that is the\nsacred snake which was both his symbol and his visible presence. Such an\nimportation of a sacred snake from Epidauros is not unique in the case\nof Rome, but was the normal method of establishing a branch cult. Snakes\nwere kept at Epidauros for just this purpose, and many branches were\nthus established. It is an extremely interesting question as to the\npractical medical value of the methods of healing practised at Epidauros\nand its branches. For a long time those best fitted to express a\ntechnical opinion, modern physicians who examined the matter, found\nnothing good in them, and their opinion seems to receive confirmation\nfrom some of the inscriptions recently discovered at Epidauros, which\ntell the most extraordinary tales of miraculous cures. And yet many of\nthese tales are not intended as actual facts, but rather as pious\nlegends, proclaimed for the edification of the devout, in order that\ntheir faith might be quickened. Before we condemn the whole affair, we\nmust realise two facts; one is that some of the most able minds of\nGreece, men who were otherwise by no means remarkable for their\nreligious faith, believed implicitly in Epidauros and went there to be\ncured; and the other is that the miraculous action of the god was always\nsupplemented by medicines, in which there may well have been some real\nvalue.\n\nWe are told too much rather than too little about this embassy to\nEpidauros, for the atmosphere of this third century is different from\nthat of the early republic. Greek literature was beginning to influence\nRome, and those generations were being born who were to be the pioneers\nin Roman literature. Thus Roman mythology was commencing along Greek\nlines and with Greek models, and one of the points where legend grew\nthickest and fastest is in this coming of Aesculapius. The plain facts\nare evidently that the committee went to Epidauros, obtained the snake,\nbrought it back safely to Rome, and established the sanctuary on the\nisland in the Tiber, where a temple was built and dedicated January 1,\nB.C. 291. Probably this was the first use to which the island had ever\nbeen put, and from this time dates the first bridge connecting it with\nthe city; the other bridge, to the right bank, was much later. The\nRomans had always considered the island a disadvantage rather than an\nadvantage. Even in legend it was cursed, for it sprang from the wheat of\nthe Tarquins. They had always desired to be cut off from it, and had\nalways feared lest it might act as a means of approach for the enemy\nfrom the opposite bank. The few real facts of Aesculapius's coming grew\ninto a romantic account of how, to the great surprise and terror of the\nsailors, the snake went of its own accord into the Roman ship; and how\nit stayed aboard until they reached Antium, and then suddenly swam\nashore and coiled itself up in a sacred palm tree in the enclosure of\nthe temple of Apollo there; and how, when they were in despair of ever\ngetting it back again, it returned peaceably to them at the end of three\ndays, and all went well on the journey to Ostia and up the Tiber until\nthey were passing the island, when the snake went ashore to make its\npermanent home there.\n\nIt was a pretty fancy which at a later date formed the island into the\nlikeness of a boat by building a prow and stem of travertine at either\nend, the traces of which may still be seen; and it is a curious instance\nof the many survivals of ancient Rome in the modern city, that the\nHospital of S. Bartolommeo stands on the site of the old Aesculapius\nsanctuary, and so far as we can tell, twenty-two centuries of suffering\nhumanity have had the burden of their pain lightened there, in\nuninterrupted succession since that new year's day, above three hundred\nyears before Christ, when the hospital of Aesculapius of Epidauros was\nformally opened.\n\nThe coming of the god of healing in the opening years of the third\ncentury may well be regarded as an omen of the great suffering which\nthat century was to bring to Rome. It was a century of almost\nuninterrupted warfare: first the Samnite war; then the war with Pyrrhus\nand Rome's conquest of Southern Italy; then after a breathing spell of\nabout a decade the first war with Carthage, and Rome's bitter\napprenticeship in fighting at sea; then campaigns in Cisalpine Gaul; and\nfinally the war with Hannibal roughly filling the last two decades, the\nmost fearful contest in all Rome's history, with her most terrible enemy\nin her own land of Italy. It is little to be wondered at therefore that\nthis was in the main a century of religious depression, a time when the\nfear of the gods filled every man's heart and when every trifling\napparent irregularity in the course of nature was exaggerated into a\nportent declaring the wrath of the gods and needing some immediate and\nextraordinary propitiation. It is in just such a moment as this in the\nmiddle of the century (B.C. 249) that the next recorded instance of new\ngods occurs. The first war with Carthage was in progress, Rome had just\nsuffered a terrible defeat off the north-western point of Sicily, at\nDrepana, a defeat all the more hideous because it was supposed to have\nbeen caused by the impiety of the Consul Clodius, who, hearing that the\nsacred chickens would not eat, perpetrated his grim jest by saying \"let\nthem drink then instead,\" and drowning them all. But to cap it all the\nwall of Rome was struck by lightning. Then action was necessary and the\nbooks were consulted. They ordered that sacrifice should be made to Dis\nand Proserpina, a black steer to Dis, and a black cow to Proserpina,\nthree successive nights, out on the Campus Martius, at an altar which\nwas called the _Tarentum_, and that the ceremony should be repeated at\nthe end of a hundred years. Here the myth-makers of later times have\nbeen even more busily at work than they were in the case of Aesculapius.\nThe Aesculapius story was fitted out by them merely with a few\nmiraculous details, a few legendary ornaments, but the story of Dis and\nProserpina was so covered with their fabrications that it has only\nrecently been freed from them and seen in its true light, and certain\nphases were so absolutely perverted that there are still a number of\nvery difficult points. To get a clear understanding of the situation we\nmust begin quite a distance back.\n\nTaken as a whole, religious beliefs are among the most conservative\nthings in the world; the individual may grow as radical as you please,\nbut his effect on the general religious consciousness of his time is\nextremely slight. Occasionally the number of radical individuals grows\nlarger and certain classes of society are affected by their views, but\neven, in the periods of religious development which we are apt to think\nof as most iconoclastic, society taken in the large, and on the average\nof all classes, is not much more radical than in apparently normal\ntimes. And while religion as a whole is conservative, there is one\nsection of it more conservative than all the rest, a section from which\nchange is almost excluded, that is the beliefs concerning the dead. In\nour discussion of the religion of Numa we saw the very primitive\ncharacter of Roman beliefs in this field, the firm retention of the old\nanimistic idea of the dead, the tendency to class the dead together as a\nmass and to believe in a collective rather than an individual\nimmortality, and above all the abhorrence of the dead and the\ndisinclination to dwell on their condition and to paint imaginary\npictures of life beyond the grave. In view of these feelings it is not\nstrange that we have great difficulty in finding any old Roman gods of\nthe dead, aside from the dead who are themselves all gods. These dead as\ngods (_Di Manes_) and possibly Mother Earth (_Terra Mater_) are the only\nrulers in the Lower World. In Greece on the contrary death was almost as\nnatural as life, and though the conditions in early times were not\nunlike those in Rome, as Rohde in his _Psyche_ has so wonderfully\ndescribed them, the Greek soon grew beyond this, and the world of the\ndead became almost as well known to him as the world of the living.\nThere was a kingdom of the dead, and a king and queen ruled over them.\nThese rulers were called by different names in different parts of\nGreece, but the names which they had in certain parts of the\nPeloponnesus, Hades the king of the dead and Persephone his bride, were\ndestined to survive the rest. The cult of this royal pair travelled far\nand wide, but its most notable development occurred in Attica, where\nPersephone became Kore the daughter of Demeter, stolen by Hades to\nbecome his bride, while Hades himself under the sunny skies of Athens\nlost some of his terrors and became Pluto, the god of riches, especially\nthe rich blessings of the earth. But all this was very foreign to Rome,\nand while the Greeks were thinking these thoughts, the Romans were going\nquietly along, content with their simple _Di Manes_. No better proof of\nthis can be desired than the one accidentally given us in the\nintroduction of Demeter and her daughter Kore into Rome as Ceres and\nLibera in B.C. 493, and the absolute colourlessness and pointlessness of\nLibera, in a word the entire lack of connexion in the religious\nconsciousness of Rome between Libera and Persephone. But in B.C. 249,\nalmost two and a half centuries later, matters were on a different\nbasis; Rome had been learning a great deal that was foreign to her old\nbeliefs, and there was no longer anything impossible to her in the idea\nof individual rulers of the dead. Thus at the command of the books Pluto\nand Persephone were received into the state-cult, though the strangeness\nof the situation was acknowledged, at least in so far that they\ntranslated Pluto into the Latin Dis; Persephone to be sure was left\nalone, or more strictly speaking was accommodated to the Latin tongue by\nbeing changed to Proserpina. It is of course impossible that the Romans\nof B.C. 249 were entirely ignorant of Pluto and Persephone until the\nSibylline books bade them be brought in. Here again the traders from\nSouthern Italy had been their teachers; and the name _Tarentum_ of the\naltar where the sacrifice was to be made may possibly indicate the town\nof Tarentum as the source of the cult. The Romans knew Tarentum only too\nwell since the eventful war with Pyrrhus, which lay only a generation\nback in their history.\n\nAnd so the Romans adopted the Greek gods of the dead, and thus, at least\ntheoretically, put their dead ancestors into subjection to the Greeks\njust as they themselves, the descendants, were sitting at the feet of\nthe Greeks in this life. But though the enactment of the Senate gave\nthese gods Roman citizenship, and the priests of the Sibylline books\nwere in duty bound to perform the ritual of the cult, be it said to the\ncredit of the Romans, the gods themselves never took a very deep hold of\nthe religious life of the people in general. Their names, to be sure,\ncrept into a few of the old formulae and stood side by side with the\nolder deities, and Proserpina was made much of by the Roman poets; but\nthe real tests of devotion, dedicatory inscriptions, are almost entirely\nabsent. Strangely enough the only thing which seems to have caught\ntheir fancy was the weird ritual of the nightly sacrifice at the\nTarentum, and especially its repetition after one hundred years. This\nidea of the hundred years is Roman rather than Greek, and it is at least\nopen to question whether it may not have been added to the instructions\nin the oracle to give the whole matter an added Roman colour. Thus in\nB.C. 249 were instituted the Secular Games, which were repeated with\napproximate accuracy in B.C. 146, and would doubtless have been again\nbetween B.C. 49 and 46, had not the Civil War completely filled men's\nminds and made human sacrifices to the dead, in battle, an almost daily\noccurrence. Meantime the Roman annalists were working backwards in their\nown peculiar fashion, and building out into the past a series of\nfictitious celebrations preceding B.C. 249, one hundred years apart,\nback into the time of the kingdom. On the other hand we shall have\noccasion later to speak of the restoration of the games and their\nreorganisation by Augustus.\n\nUnder the test of adversity nations are very much like individuals, and\na national weakness, which is often entirely concealed in normal\nconditions, comes prominently and disastrously to the surface in the\nhour when strength is most needed. The war with Hannibal was just such a\ncrisis in Rome's history, and under its influence Rome's dependence upon\nthe Sibylline books was more pronounced than ever. The seeds of\nsuperstition sown during the earlier centuries burst now into full\nblossom, destined to produce the fruit, the gathering of which was to be\nthe bitter task of the closing centuries of the republic. The story of\nthe Second Punic War, regarded merely from the military standpoint,\nreads for Rome almost like a nightmare, with its long succession of\napparently easy victories turning one by one into defeats; but when we\nadd to this that other chronicle, of which Livy is equally fond, the\nlong lists of portents and prodigies sent by the angered gods, and when\nwe realise that to the masses of the people the wrath of the gods was\nmore terrible and just as real as the hostility of Hannibal, then we\nhave not the heart to reproach them for their religious frenzy. Seen by\nthemselves, the jumping of a cow out of a second-story window, or the\nimages of the gods shedding tears, do not seem very serious matters, but\nendow us with three hundred years of hereditary dread of these things,\ngive us the instinctive interpretation of them as the turning away from\nus of the powers upon which we rely for help, nay their positive\nopposition to us and our hopes--and our condition in the presence of\nthese phenomena would be very different.\n\nThus almost every year between B.C. 218 and 201 had its share of\nreligious ceremonial, and the Sibylline books, which had hitherto been,\nin theory at least, merely an alternative method of religious procedure\npermitted to exist alongside of the older and more conservative forms,\nbecame now the order of the day. Like a Homeric picture in which the\nquarrels of the gods in Olympus run parallel to the battles of Greeks\nand Trojans on the plains of Troy, so every victory which Rome won over\nHannibal on the field of battle was bought at the price of a victory of\nGreek gods over Roman gods in the field of religion; and further,\nalthough Rome succeeded in keeping Hannibal outside of her own walls,\nher gods did not succeed in defending the _pomerium_ against the Greek\ngods, and it is during this Second Punic War that this, the greatest\nsafeguard of old Roman religion and customs, was broken down, and the\nnew gods gained entire possession of the city, placing their temples on\nthe spots hitherto held most sacred. From now on all distinction ceases,\nand it is scarcely possible to speak of a Roman in contrast to a\nGraeco-Roman cult. It is important however to observe that this\nbreakdown occurred because of excess of religious zeal rather than\nthrough neglect and indifference, and though we may indeed notice a\ngradual deterioration of the deities introduced by the books, all the\nway down from the busy working gods like Ceres and Mercury and Neptune\nto the more miraculous Aesculapius, and the cult of Dis or Proserpina\nwith its possibilities of weird fantastic worship, there have been\nhowever as yet only scanty traces of the orgiastic element. But this was\nthe next step, and it was not long in coming. The rapid campaigns of the\nearlier years of the war with Hannibal had passed, Cannae (B.C. 216) had\nbeen somewhat retrieved by Metaurus (B.C. 207), where the reinforcements\nfor Hannibal, led by Hasdrubal, had been cut to pieces, but the result\nwas not what had been hoped for, and Hannibal had not left Italy, but\nentrenched in the mountains of the south he seemed to be preparing to\npass the rest of his life there. It was in this the year B.C. 205 that\nthe help of the books was again sought, if peradventure they might show\nthe way to drive Hannibal out of the country. The reply came that, when\na foreign-born enemy should wage war upon the land, he could be\nconquered and driven from Italy, if the Great Mother of the gods should\nbe brought to Rome from Phrygia. The rest of the story is so quaintly\nand withal so truthfully told by Livy (Bk. xxix.) that it will not be\namiss to quote his words:--\"The oracle discovered by the Decemviri\naffected the Senate the more on this account because the ambassadors who\nhad brought the gifts [vowed at the battle of Metaurus] to Delphi\nreported that when they were sacrificing to the Pythian Apollo the omens\nwere all favourable, and that the oracle had given response that a\ngreater victory was at hand for the Roman people than that one from\nwhose spoils they were then bringing gifts. And as a finishing touch to\nthis same hope they dwelt upon the prophetic opinion of Publius Scipio\nregarding the end of the war, because he had asked for Africa as his\nprovince. And so in order that they might the more quickly obtain that\nvictory which promised itself to them by the omens and oracles of fate,\nthey began to consider what means there was of bringing the goddess to\nRome. As yet the Roman people had no states in alliance with them in\nAsia Minor; however they remembered that formerly Aesculapius had been\nbrought from Greece for the sake of the health of the people, though\nthey had no alliance with Greece. They realised too that a friendship\nhad been begun with King Attalus [of Pergamon] ... and that Attalus\nwould do what he could in behalf of the Roman people; and so they\ndecided to send ambassadors to him, ... and they allotted them five\nships-of-war in order that they might approach in a fitting manner the\ncountries which they desired to interest in their favour. Now when the\nambassadors were on their way to Asia they disembarked at Delphi, and\napproaching the oracle asked what prospect it offered them and the Roman\npeople of accomplishing the things which they had been sent to do. It is\nsaid that the reply was that through King Attalus they would obtain what\nthey sought, but that when they brought the goddess to Rome they should\nsee to it that the best man in Rome should be at hand to receive her.\nThen they came to Pergamon to the king [Attalus], and he received them\ngraciously and led them to Pessinus in Phrygia, and he gave over to them\nthe sacred stone which, the natives said, was the Mother of the gods,\nand bade them carry it to Rome. And Marcus Valerius Falto was sent ahead\nby the ambassadors and he announced that the goddess was coming, and\nthat the best man in the state must be sought out to receive her with\ndue ceremony.\" In the next year (B.C. 204) after recounting new\nprodigies Livy continues:--\"Then too the matter of the Idaean Mother\nmust be attended to, for aside from the fact that Marcus Valerius, one\nof the ambassadors who had been sent ahead, had announced that she would\nsoon be in Italy, there was also a fresh message that she was already at\nTarracina. The Senate had to decide a very important matter, namely who\nwas the best man in the state, for every man in the state preferred a\nvictory in such a contest as this to any commands or offices which the\nvote of the Senate or the people might give him. They decided that of\nall the good men in the state the best was Publius Scipio.... He then\nwith all the matrons was ordered to go to Ostia to meet the goddess and\nto receive her from the ship, to carry her to land and to give her over\nto the women to carry. After the ship came to the mouth of the Tiber,\nScipio, going out in a small boat, as he had been commanded, received\nthe goddess from the priests and carried her to land. And the noblest\nwomen of the land ... received her ... and they carried the goddess in\ntheir arms, taking turn about while all Rome poured out to meet her, and\nincense-burners were placed before the doors where she was carried by,\nand incense was burned in her honour. And thus praying that she might\nenter willingly and propitiously into the city, they carried her into\nthe temple of Victory, which is on the Palatine, on the day before the\nNones of April [April 4]. And this was a festal day and the people in\ngreat numbers gave gifts to the goddess, and a banquet for the gods was\nheld, and games were performed which were called _Megalesia_.\" This\nextraordinary picture is probably in the main historically correct. The\nmost striking part of it, the enthusiasm of the Roman populace, is\ncertainly not overdrawn. Thus was introduced into Rome the last deity\never summoned by means of the books, the one whose cult was destined to\noutlast that of all the others, and to do more harm and produce more\ndemoralisation than all the other cults together. To understand why this\nwas so, we must go back for a moment.\n\nThe influence of Greece on Rome was progressive, and we are able to\nindicate at least three distinct periods and phases of it, so far as\nreligion is concerned: first, the informal coming of a few Greek gods\nwho adapted themselves more or less completely to the old Roman\ncharacter; such are Hercules and Castor and even Apollo, though Apollo\nwas indirectly responsible for the second period, because he was the\ncause of the coming of the Sibylline books. The influence of these books\nproduced the second period, with its characteristics of ever-growing\nsuperstition, and greater pomp in cult acts, but though the sobriety of\nthe old days had changed into a restless activity, the new gods who came\nin and the new cult acts introduced were still of such a character that\nRomans could take part in the worship without shame. But just as the\nstaid Apollo had produced the books, so now as their last bequest the\nbooks brought in the Great Mother, and the third period had begun, the\nperiod of orgiastic Oriental worship, which prevailed, at least among\ncertain classes, until the establishment of Christianity. We may well\nask who this Great Mother was, and why this one Greek cult should be so\ndifferent from all the rest.\n\nAt different points in Asia Minor and in Crete a goddess was worshipped,\noriginally without proper name, as the great source of all fertility,\nthe mother of all things, even of the gods. Mount Dindymos in Phrygia\nwas one of the chief centres of the cult, and there the Great Mother was\nknown also as Cybele. From these various centres the cult spread over\nall the Greek world, but wherever it went, it always gave evidence of\nits birthplace by certain strange Oriental elements both in its myths\nand in its rites. Its devotees were a noisy orgiastic band, who filled\nthe streets with their dances, and the air with their singing and the\nclashing of their symbols, to the accompaniment of the rattling of coin\nin the money box--for the collection of money from the bystanders was\nalways a part of the performance.\n\nThis then was what the \"best man in the state\" and the grave Roman\nmatrons went forth from Rome to receive--a sacred stone representing the\ngoddess, and a band of noisy emasculated priests; and this was what they\nopened their gates to, and took up into their holy of holies, the\nPalatine hill, the birthplace of Rome. The Greeks had again come bearing\ngifts, and like the Trojans who broke down their walls and took the\nwooden horse up into their citadel, Romans, the reputed descendents of\nthese Trojans, were carrying up to their most sacred hill another gift\nof Greece which was to capture their city. They put the image in the\ntemple of Victoria on the Palatine until such time as its own temple was\nready to receive it, and the goddess of Victory seemed to respond to its\npresence, for did not Hannibal leave Italy the very next year? And who\nwould be so impious as to suggest that to Scipio and not Cybele belonged\nthe glory, and that a strong Roman army in Africa affected Hannibal\nmore than a sacred stone on the Palatine?\n\nIt may well be doubted whether anything but such a great exigency would\never have induced Rome to accept such an utterly foreign cult; and when\nthe nightmare of the war was past, the Senate awoke to the realisation\nthat a very serious act had been committed. To their credit be it said\nthat they did what they could to minimise the evil. The goddess had\nbrought her own priests with her, the cult was in their hands, and there\nthe law decreed it must stay, and no Roman citizen could become a\npriest. That this law was really enforced is shown by several cases\nwhere punishment, even transportation across the sea, was meted out to\ntransgressors. Then too the worship must be in the main confined to the\nprecincts of the temple on the Palatine, and only on certain days of the\nyear were the priests allowed to perform in the streets of the city. It\nis significant of the strength of Roman law that these enactments held\ngood for three and a half centuries, and were not changed until the\nreign of Antoninus Pius.\n\nIn the introduction of the Great Mother the Sibylline books performed\ntheir last and most notable achievement. Hereafter they introduced no\nnew deities, and were consulted only occasionally, chiefly for political\npurposes, for example in B.C. 87 against the followers of Sulla, and in\nB.C. 56 in connexion with a scheme of purely political import. Their\nwork was done, and we have seen in what it consisted. For three hundred\nyears they had been encouraging the growth of superstition. From their\nvantage ground of the temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus, the essence of\nall that was most patriotically Roman in Rome, they had been giving\nforth these infallible oracles which seemed so much superior to the\nsimple \"yes and no\" answers with which the old Romans had been content\nin their dealings with the gods. In times of peril by pestilence and by\nbattle they had given advice, and the pestilence had ceased and the\nbattle had turned to victory. It seemed indeed that the Sibyl deserved\nthe gratitude of Rome. Time alone could teach them what the books had\nreally given them. It was only in the coming generations that it became\nevident that the abuse of faith, the substitution of incantation for\ndevotion, was destructive of true religion. It is the effect of this\nsubstitution on the various classes of society under the new and trying\nsocial conditions of the last two centuries of the republic that forms\nthe theme of our next chapter.\n\n\n\n\nTHE DECLINE OF FAITH\n\n\nIt is the fashion of our day to think no evil of Greece. In art we are\nexperiencing another Renaissance, not like that of the fourteenth and\nfifteenth centuries in a revival of ancient Rome, but in a movement\nleading behind Rome to the classic and even the pre-classic models of\nGreece. In itself it is a healthful tendency, a needed corrective to the\nsensational search for novelty which characterised the closing years of\nthe nineteenth century. But in our admiration for the Greek spirit we\nought not to forget that after Alexander that spirit lost much of its\nbeauty, and aged very rapidly. We may indeed regret the fact that Rome,\nlike certain persons of our acquaintance, seemed at times to possess a\nstrong faculty for assimilating the worst of her surroundings, while\noccasionally curiously unresponsive to the better things; and yet we\nought in justice to strive to realise the fact that not only is the\nGreek spirit at its best an unteachable thing, but that at the\nhistorical moment when Rome came under that influence the Greek world\nwas very old and weary. It was Rome's misfortune and not her fault that\nwhen she was old enough to go to school, Alexandrianism with its\npedantic detail was the order of the day in mythology, and the timorous\npost-Socratic schools were the teachers of philosophy. Naturally if Rome\nhad been another Greece she would have worked back from these later\nforms to the truer, purer spirit, but Rome was not Greece, and no\nthoughtful man ever pretended that she was. In the third century before\nChrist Greece began actively to influence Rome; before that time\nHellenic influence had been confined largely to the effects on religion\nproduced by the Sibylline books, and to the effects on society caused by\nthe presence of Greek traders. But now Greek thought as embodied in the\nliterature began to affect Roman thought, and to bring into being a\nliterature based on Greek models. Three centuries of Sibylline oracles\nhad produced for Rome the pathological religious condition of the Second\nPunic War, when she did not think twice before breaking down the\nreligious barrier which had hitherto separated the national from the\nadopted elements in her religion, and at the same time unhesitatingly\nreached out to Asia Minor for an Oriental cult, masquerading in Greek\ncolours, and placed on the Palatine the Great Mother of Pessinus. From\nthis time on two influences were steadily at work which shaped the\nhistory of Roman religion in the two remaining centuries till the close\nof the republic: one, mythology, directly affecting the forms of the\ncult and the beliefs concerning the individual gods; the other,\nphilosophy, attacking the whole foundation of religious belief in\ngeneral.\n\nGreece gave her gods to Rome when she herself was weary of them, she\ngave her the tired gods, exhausted by centuries of handling, long ago\ndragged down from Olympus, and weary with serving as lay-figures for\npoets and artists, and being for ever rigged out in new mythological\ngarments, or jaded with the laboratory experiments of philosophers who\ntried to interpret them in every conceivable fashion or else to do away\nwith them entirely. It is no wonder that it did not take the Romans more\nthan a century to come to the end of these gods, to find that the only\none among them who could satisfy their religious desires was the least\nGreek of them all, the Magna Mater, and having found this to go forth to\ntake to themselves more like unto her, in a word, to crave the\nsensational cults of the Orient. And the philosophy which Greece gave\nRome was no better than the mythology. It is not strange that human\nthought experienced a reaction after a century which contained both\nPlato and Aristotle, but it is a pity that Rome should have learned her\nphilosophy from a period of doubt and scepticism, an age in which the\nlesser masters, who had known the greater ones, had gone, leaving\nnothing but pupils' pupils.\n\nThe history of religion in Rome during the last two centuries of the\nrepublic is the story of the action and reaction of these two\ntendencies--the one toward the novel and sensational in worship, which\nwe may call superstition, the other the philosophy of doubt, which we\nmay call scepticism--in the presence of the established religion of the\nstate. This much the two centuries have in common, but here their\nresemblance ends. In the first of these centuries (B.C. 200-100) the\nstate religion was able to hold her own, at least in outward appearance,\nand to wage war against both tendencies. In the other century (B.C. 100\nto Augustus) politics gained control of the state religion and so robbed\nher of her strength that she was crushed between the opposing forces of\nsuperstition and scepticism. It is to the story of the earlier of these\ntwo centuries, the second before Christ, that we now turn.\n\nWith the close of the Second Punic War there began for Rome a period of\nvery great material prosperity. This prosperity was, to be sure, not\nexactly distributed, and it is not without its resemblance to some of\nour modern instances of commercial prosperity, in that it was not so\nmuch a general bettering of economic conditions as the very rapid\nincrease of the wealth of a relatively small number, an increase gained\nat the expense of positive detriment to a large element in the\npopulation. Thus it was that a century of which the first seventy years\nprovide an almost unparalleled spectacle of the increase of national\nterritory, accompanied, according to the ancient methods of taxation, by\na vast increase in national wealth, should close with the tragedies of\nTiberius and Gaius Gracchus and the legacy of class hatred which\nproduced the civil wars. This growth in wealth and territory was not\nwithout its effects on the outward appearance of the state religion. The\nterritory was gained by a series of minor wars in the course of which\nmany temples were vowed; and the spoils of the war provided the means\nfor the fulfilment of the vows. Thus to the outward observer it might\nwell have seemed that the religion of the state was enjoying a time of\ngreat prosperity. Between the close of the Punic War (B.C. 201) and the\nyear of Tiberius Gracchus (B.C. 133) we have accurate knowledge of the\ndedication of no less than nineteen state temples, and there were\nundoubtedly many others of which we have no record. Another apparently\ngood sign is the fact that the Sibylline books are silent, so far as the\nintroduction of new deities is concerned. Yet these surface indications\nare deceptive. As for the Sibylline books, now that the _pomerium_ line\nhad been broken down, and the temples of Greek gods might be placed\nanywhere in the city, it was a very simple matter for the state to bring\nin any Greek god that it pleased, and likening him to a more or less\nsimilar Roman god and calling him by the Roman name, to put up a temple\nto him anywhere. It was also true that, as Roman theology was now based\non the principle that every Roman god had his Greek parallel and _vice\nversa_, there were no gods left, whose names would have occurred at all\nin the Sibylline books, who could not be brought in now without them.\nAnd as for the vowing of new temples, this represented at best merely\nthe habit formed during more devout days; religion was moving by the\nmomentum acquired during the Second Punic War, and the gods to whom\nthese temples were erected were really Greek gods under Roman names. In\na word, not only was the state religion becoming more and more of a form\nday by day, but the form was that of Greece and not of Rome. It is\nextremely interesting to trace this movement in detail, to look behind\nthe outward appearance and see the remarkable changes that were really\ntaking place.\n\nIf we look at the temples which were built in the years following the\nSecond Punic War, we shall have no difficulty in finding examples of the\nintroduction of Greek gods under Roman names. During the war itself in\nthe year B.C. 207 a Roman general had vowed a temple to Juventas on the\noccasion of a battle near Siena. Juventas was an old Roman goddess, one\nof those abstract deities which had been produced by the breaking off\nand becoming independent of a cult-title. She was intimately associated\nwith Juppiter, and had a special shrine in the Capitoline temple.\nJuventas was the divine representative of the putting away of childish\nthings and the assumption of the responsibilities and privileges of\nyoung manhood. This act was symbolised by the Romans in the beautiful\nceremony of putting on the toga of manhood (_toga virilis_), when the\nlad was led by his father to the Capitoline temple to make sacrifices to\nJuppiter, and at the same time a contribution was made to the treasury\nof Juventas. But this was not the goddess in whose honour the temple\nvowed at Siena was built at the Circus Maximus and dedicated B.C. 191.\nThis Juventas was nothing more or less than the Greek Hebe, the female\ncounterpart of Ganymedes, as cupbearer to the gods. Similarly in B.C.\n179 a temple was dedicated to Diana at the Circus Flaminius, but this\nwas not the old goddess of Aricia, whose cult Rome had adopted for the\nsake of increasing her influence in the Latin league. It was the Greek\nArtemis, who at her first coming into Rome had been associated with\nApollo in the temple built in B.C. 431, and was now given a temple of\nher own. Perhaps the strangest of all is the temple which was erected to\nMars in the Campus Martius in B.C. 138. It might well be supposed that\nthe Romans would keep holy the reputed father of their race, the god to\nwhom, under Juppiter, their success was due. On the contrary in B.C.\n217, when they were carrying out a Greek ceremony of offering a banquet\nto a set of gods, arranged in pairs, they showed no hesitation in\ngrouping together Mars and Venus to represent the Greek pair Ares and\nAphrodite, thus doing violence to Mars by bringing him into a\nrelationship with Venus which was entirely foreign to old Roman thought,\nand identifying him with Ares, with whom he had nothing to do. Now in\nB.C. 138 a temple is built to Ares under the name of Mars, close beside\nthe venerable old altar of Mars, one of the oldest and most sacred of\nRoman shrines.\n\nBut this passion for identifying Greek gods with Roman ones did not\nconfine itself to finding a parallel for the greater gods of Greece; and\nless known deities were introduced into Rome in the same way. The old\nRoman god, Faunus, in whose honour the ancient festival of the\n_Lupercalia_ was yearly celebrated, had as his associate a goddess,\nFauna, who was better known as the \"good goddess\" (Bona Dea). Eventually\nthis new title Bona Dea crowded out the old title Fauna, so that it was\nalmost entirely forgotten. Bona Dea was a goddess of women, and the most\ncharacteristic feature of her worship was the exclusion of men from\ntaking part in it. Now there was a Greek goddess, called Damia, also a\ngoddess of women, from whose cult also men were excluded, and her cult\nspread from Greece to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, especially\nTarentum, and so eventually to Rome. But by the time she arrived in Rome\nthe connexion of Fauna and Bona Dea had been entirely forgotten. Damia\nwas surely a Bona Dea, yes she was _the_ Bona Dea, for was not the proof\nat hand in the fact that men were excluded from both cults? So a temple\nwas built for her, probably shortly after the Second Punic War, and from\nthe time no one ever thought of poor Fauna again, except scholars and\npoets, who amused themselves, as was their wont, by putting her in\nvarious genealogical relationships to Faunus, as sister, wife, or\ndaughter, while Damia lived and prospered under the stolen title of the\nBona Dea.\n\nWe see from this on what a small resemblance such identifications were\nbased, in this case merely on the presence of a similar minor injunction\nin the laws of each cult. But we have here at least a genuine cult which\nhad arrived and was asking for admission, and in so far we are better\noff than in most instances, where nothing substantial was gained by the\nidentification. Two forces were now at work assisting in this fusion of\nGreek and Roman gods, namely art and literature. The capture of Syracuse\nmarked an epoch in Rome's artistic career; for several centuries she had\nemployed Greek architects and had also become acquainted with the\nartistic types of certain Greek gods, but now all at once a wealth of\nGreek sculpture was disclosed to her, and she could not rest content\nuntil all her gods were represented in the fashion of man. The adoption\nof the Greek type, in those cases where an identification had already\nbeen effected, was not difficult and was in the main successful, though\nthere followed almost inevitably an enrichment of the Greek element in\nthe Roman god because of the presence of some attribute in the statue,\nwhich brought its own myth with it. But there were certain Roman gods\nfor whom Greek parallels could not be found, and in these cases a\ncompromise, usually rather an awkward one, had to be effected, as for\nexample when the Roman gods of the storeroom, the _Di Penates_, were\nrepresented by statues of the Greek Castor and Pollux. In such cases\nconfusion was sure to follow, and subsequent antiquarians would be\ntempted to write treatises proving the original connexion of Castor or\nPollux with the Penates, as gods of protection in general, etc.\nLiterature too in its own way was fully as misleading, and Roman\nscholars became fascinated with the labyrinths of Alexandrian mythology,\nand straightway began to build Roman myths as rapidly as possible,\nestablishing lists of old Latin kings and all sorts of genealogies, and\nweaving as many Greek mythological figures as possible into the legends\nof the foundation of Italic towns.\n\nIt was the ceremonial of the cult however which most often offered the\nbest means of identification, as we have seen above in the case of Bona\nDea-Damia, where the exclusion of men from the rites was the main point\nof similarity. In a similar way the old Roman god of the harvest,\nConsus, was identified with the Greek ocean-god Poseidon because\nhorse-races were a characteristic feature of the festivals of each; and\nthe old Roman goddess of women and of childbirth was given as her Greek\nparallel the Greek goddess Leukothea, the helper of those in peril at\nsea, because in both cases slaves were forbidden to take part in the\ncult.\n\nBut the effect of the capture of Rome by these Greek gods and Greek\nceremonials was not confined to the mere addition of new ideas, and the\ntransformation of certain old Roman deities. This would have been\ncomparatively harmless, but there was inevitably another result: the\nconsequent neglect of all Roman deities for whom no Greek parallels were\nforthcoming, and the forgetting of all the original Roman ideas which\nwere crowded into the background by the novel and more brilliant Greek\nideas. Even the festivals of the old Roman year were treated in the same\ncavalier manner. The interest of the people continued only with those\nceremonies which frightened them or pleased them. There were certain\nfestivals, for example the _Lupercalia_, the old ceremony of\npurification on February 15, for which a reverence was still felt; and\nothers like the _Parilia_, the birthday of Rome, on April 21, or the\nAnna Perenna festival on March 15, which involved open-air celebrations\nand picnics. These and others like them were always kept up, while many\nothers were totally neglected. Naturally for the present the forms were\ncontinued by the state; the festivals were celebrated at least by the\npriests; and every temple received sacrifice on its birthday. The wheels\nof the state religion were still running, but the power behind them had\nstopped, and it was only momentum which kept them in motion.\n\nIt is only when we realise these things that we can understand how it\nwas possible that the most learned scholars at the close of the republic\nwere so desperately ignorant concerning old Roman religion. In regard to\nmany of the old Roman gods they know absolutely nothing, and try to\ndisguise their ignorance behind a show of learning based on etymological\nsleight-of-hand; in regard to the rest their information is so tangled\nwith Greek ideas that it is often almost impossible to unravel the mass\nand separate the old from the new. This unravelling has been the tedious\noccupation of the last half century in the study of Roman religion; and\nso patiently and successfully has it been accomplished that, although we\nwould give almost anything for a few books of Varro's _Divine\nAntiquities_, it is tolerably certain that the possession of these books\nwould not change in the least the fundamental concepts underlying the\nmodern reconstruction of ancient Roman religion; though it is equally\ncertain that these books would emphasise just so much more strongly,\nwhat we already realise, that this modern reconstruction is in distinct\ncontradiction to many of Varro's favourite theories. It is an\naccomplishment of which History may well be modestly proud, that modern\nscholars have been able to eliminate, to a large degree, the personal\nequation and the myopic effects of his own time from the statements of\nthe greatest scholar of Roman antiquity, and thus though handicapped by\nthe possession of merely a small percentage of the facts which Varro\nknew, to arrive at a concept of the whole matter infinitely more correct\nthan that which his books contained.\n\nDuring this second century before Christ, therefore, the state religion\nwas apparently unchanged so far as the outward form was concerned. The\nterminology and the ceremonies were much the same as before, but the\ncontent was quite different: Greek gods and Greek ideas had displaced\nRoman gods and Roman ideas, and the official representatives of\nreligion, the state priests, were carrying the whole burden of worship\non their own shoulders, because popular interest had been in the main\ndeflected and was working along other lines. These lines of rival\ninterest were superstition and scepticism, phenomena which at first\nsight appear as distinct opposites, but which are on the contrary very\nclosely akin, so that they usually occur together not only in the same\nage, but frequently even in the same individual. They are purely\nrelative terms, and the essence of superstition consists in its surplus\nelement, just as the essence of scepticism lies in its deficiency. No\nreligion judged from the standpoint of the worshipper can properly be\ncalled a superstition, but if once we can establish the essential things\nin a religion, then any large addition to those essential things savours\nof superstition. Speaking with historical sympathy we have no right\ntherefore to designate early Roman religion as a superstition--it may of\ncourse be relatively so in comparison with other religious forms--but\nonce we have established the essential elements in that early religion,\nwe may consider the introduction of new and entirely different elements\nas superstition. The old religion of Rome consisted in the exact and\nscrupulous fulfilment of a large number of minute ceremonials. The\nresult of this careful fulfilment of ritual was that the powers around\nman did him no harm but rather good, and that was the end of the whole\nmatter. Religion did not command or even permit special inquiries into\nthese powers; it was not only not man's duty to try to know the gods, it\nwas his positive duty to try not to. Through the influence of Greece\nthere had now come into Rome an altogether new idea, nourished largely\nby the Sibylline books, and represented most fully in the Magna Mater,\nthe idea of the perpetual service of a god, a consecration to him, to\nthe exclusion of all other things, and a life given over to the\norgiastic performance of cult acts, which produced a state of ecstasy\nand consequently a communion with the deity. Along with this there went\na belief in the possibility, by means of certain books and certain men,\nof obtaining from the gods a knowledge of the future. It is these\nsurplus beliefs, quite contrary to the spirit of old Roman religion,\nwhich may justly be called superstition.\n\nThe Sibylline books had aroused these feelings, a knowledge of the\noracle at Delphi had increased them, the rites of Aesculapius had\ncarried them farther, but it was not until the Magna Mater came that\nthey seem to have burst forth in any large degree. But aside from the\nrapid growth of the Magna Mater cult itself we have in this second\ncentury two instances of this tendency. The first was connected with the\ngod Dionysos-Liber, innocent enough at his first reception in B.C. 493,\nin the company of Demeter-Ceres and Kore-Libera. To be sure the state\nhad introduced him merely as the god of wine, but the mystery element in\nDionysos took firm hold on private worship, and the Bacchanalian clubs\nor societies began to spread over Italy. In the course of about three\ncenturies they had become a formidable menace to the morals and even the\nphysical security of the inhabitants of Rome. Their meetings instead of\noccurring three times a year took place five times a month, and finally\nin B.C. 186 the famous Bacchanalian trial took place, of which Livy (Bk.\nxxxix.) gives such a graphic account, and to which a copy of the\ninscription of the decree of the Senate, preserved to our day, gives\nsuch eloquent testimony, providing as it does severe penalties for\nsubsequent offenders, and recognising on the other hand large liberty of\nconscience.\n\nThe same love of mystery and longing for knowledge which produced the\nBacchanalian clubs accorded a warm reception to astrology and made men\nlisten with eagerness to those who could tell their fortunes or guide\ntheir lives by means of the stars. We do not know when the bearers of\nthis knowledge first arrived in Rome, but Cato, in his _Farm Almanac_,\nour earliest piece of prose literature, in giving rules for the\nbehaviour of the farm bailiff especially enjoins the intending landowner\nthat his bailiff should not be given to the consultation of Chaldaean\nastrologers. Within half a century the problem of the Chaldaeans grew so\nserious that state interference was necessary, and in B.C. 139 the\npraetor Cn. Cornelius Hispalus issued an edict ordering the Chaldaeans\nto leave Rome and Italy within ten days.\n\nThe same age which produced this growth of superstition brought also the\nantidote for it in the shape of a sceptical philosophy, but the only\ntrouble was that this philosophy not only cured superstition but in\ndoing so killed the genuine religious spirit underlying it. It cast out,\nto be sure, the seven devils of superstition, but when men returned to\nthemselves again, they found their whole spiritual house swept and\ngarnished. With the death of the direct pupils of Aristotle, the Greek\nmind had thought out all the problems of philosophy of which man at that\ntime was able to conceive. The following generations of philosophers\ndevoted themselves either to the elaboration of detail or to a renewed\nexamination of the foundations of belief, with the result that their\nsmaller minds came to smaller conclusions, and the end of their\ninvestigations was one increased scepticism. The schools of the day\nshowed many slight variations and bore many different names, but they\nall agreed in being more or less pervaded by a sceptical spirit, and by\naccenting ethics as against metaphysics, though they defined ethics very\ndifferently according to their starting point.\n\nOne of the earliest philosophical influences which reached Rome was\nhowever that of a pre-Socratic school, the school of Pythagoras. This\nwas natural enough in itself, as the headquarters of the school was in\nSouthern Italy, but it is curious and significant that the first\npronounced instance of its influence occurred shortly after the Second\nPunic War, and in connexion with a clever fraud which was perpetrated\nwith a view to influencing religion. In the year B.C. 181 a certain man\nreported that when he was ploughing his field, which lay on the other\nside of the Tiber, at the foot of the Janiculum, the plough had laid\nbare two stone sarcophagi, stoutly sealed with lead, and bearing\ninscriptions in Greek and Latin according to which they purported to\ncontain, one of them the body of King Numa, the other, his writings.\nWhen they were opened the one which ought to have contained the body was\nempty, in the other lay two rolls, each roll consisting of seven books;\nthe one set of seven was written in Latin and treated of pontifical law,\nthe other consisted of philosophical writings. They were examined, found\nto be heretical and subversive to true religion, and were accordingly\nburned in the Comitium. The connexion of Numa and Pythagoras,\nhistorically impossible but believed in at this time, makes it\npractically certain that this was a clever attempt to introduce the\nphilosophy of Pythagoras into Rome under the holy sanction of the name\nof Numa. Fortunately the zeal of the city praetor frustrated the scheme.\nBut the doctrines of philosophy, which thus failed to enter by the door\nof religion, found the door of literature wide open for them. As the\nirony of fate would have it, Cato, the stalwart enemy of Greek\ninfluence, had brought back from Sardinia with him the poet Ennius, and\nat about the time when the false books of Numa were burning in the\nComitium Ennius was giving to the world a Latin translation of the\n_Sacred History_ of the Greek Euhemerus. This Euhemerus, a Sicilian who\nhad lived about a century before this time, earned his title to fame by\nwriting a novel of adventure and travel, in which he described a trip\nwhich he had taken in the Red Sea along the coast of Arabia to the\nwonderful island of Panchaia, where he found a column with an\ninscription on it telling the life history of Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus,\nwho were thus shown to have been historical characters afterwards\nelevated into deities. It was this theological element in his book which\nmade him famous. This theory of the historical origin of the gods is\neven to-day called Euhemerism, and has exerted a baleful influence over\nwriters on mythology from its author's day down to our own. These then\nwere the doctrines which Ennius presented to the Romans in their own\ntongue, and it is pathetic to realise that his _Sacred History_ formed\nthe first formal treatise on theology which Rome ever possessed. Born\nunder such an evil star, it is small wonder that her theological\nspeculations never reached great metaphysical heights.\n\nIn these days it seemed to the Senate that the question of philosophy\nwas beginning to be so serious that it might be considered as a public\ndanger, and that it was therefore their duty to try to cope with it.\nThey chose, of course, the typical Roman method of dealing with such\nmatters, and the philosophers were expelled from Rome. At first in B.C.\n173 it was only the Epicureans who were sent out, but in B.C. 161 the\nedict was broadened to include philosophers in general. However six\nyears later, in B.C. 155, there came to Rome an embassy of philosophers\nwhose mission was avowedly political and not philosophical, and who thus\ncould not be excluded, while at the same time they took occasion to\npreach their philosophical doctrines. It was fortunate for Rome that\nStoicism, the best among all these philosophies, appealed to her most\nstrongly and became thus the national philosophy of Rome. Stoicism was\nin many respects quite as sceptical as the others, but it had at least\nthis great advantage that it laid a strong emphasis on ethics, and was\nin so far capable of becoming a guide of life. It might be well enough\nfor Greeks, whose aggressive work in the world had been done, to settle\ndown to an idle old age with a theory of life which practically excluded\nthe possibility of strong decisive action, but Rome was still young, and\nmost of her work was still before her. She might think herself very old\nand pretend to take peculiar delight in many of the more decadent forms\nof Greek thought, but in reality her leaders instinctively turned to\nStoicism, as affording a compromise between the mere thoughtless\nactivity of youth, which acts for the love of acting, and the jaded\nphilosophy of the vanity of all effort. About the middle of the century\n(_circa_ B.C. 150) there existed in Rome a centre of culture and\nintellectual influence, a little group of men peculiarly interesting,\nbecause they form practically the first instance of an intellectual\ncoterie in the history of Rome. Their leader was the younger Scipio, who\nhad as his associates his friend Laelius, the poet Lucilius, whose\nbrilliant writings, submerged by the more brilliant satires of Horace,\nform one of the most deplorable losses in Roman literature, and the\nStoic philosopher Panaitios of Rhodes. Terence had also belonged to the\ncircle, but he was now dead. Stoicism was the avowed philosophy of these\nmen, and their influence, especially that of Panaitios and Lucilius, did\nmuch to popularise their chosen philosophical creed.\n\nWhile Stoicism claimed superiority to religion and showed the\nimpossibility of attaching any value to religious knowledge, it\nrecognised the necessity of religion for the common people on grounds of\nexpediency, and effected a reconciliation between this denial of\nreligion on the one hand, and the recognition of it on the other, by\nasserting that the religion of the state was justified not only by\nexpediency but much more by the fact that it was after all only the\npresentation of the truths of Stoicism in a form which was intelligible\nto the lower classes. Had this group of Scipio and his associates made\nan effort to emphasise these particular doctrines of Stoicism in\nrelation to religion, the downfall of the state religion, which occurred\nin the following century, might have been hindered. But for reasons,\nwhich we shall see in a moment, this downfall could not have been\nprevented, and it is doubtful whether the influence of any philosophical\nsystem, even when supported by such prominent men, could have\nperceptibly postponed the catastrophe. Meantime the only visible\ncontribution of Stoicism to the problem of religion was the growth under\nher influence of the idea of a \"double truth,\" one truth for the\nintellectual classes and one for the common people, reaching its climax\nin the phrase \"It is expedient for the state to be deceived in matters\nof religion\" (_expedit igitur falli in religione civitatem_). This was\nthe attitude toward religion of the most intellectual men in the\ncommunity at the beginning of what was in many ways the most terrible\nperiod in Rome's history.\n\nThe last century before Christ (more exactly B.C. 133-B.C. 27) is the\nstory of how Rome became an empire because she was no longer able to be\na republic; it is the history of the growth of one-man power because\nmany-men power had become impossible. This growth was caused not only,\nnor at first even chiefly, by the grasping character of Rome's\nstatesmen, but by the increase of the rabble and the consequent\nunmanageable character of her population, except under the firm hand of\na single master. And the reason why it took one hundred years of civil\nwar to change the republic into the empire was not because the spirit of\nthe republic was so slow in dying that its death struggles filled a\ncentury, but merely because the republic died too easily and the way to\none-man power was so simple that there were too many candidates for the\nposition, and hence the civil wars between them. These civil wars were\nbound to continue until the bitter lessons of experience had taught men\nnot only how to gain the supreme control, which was relatively easy, but\nhow to keep it and exclude rivals, which was much more difficult. The\nambitious leaders of this century did not have to create a throne; that\nwas ready to their hand. Their task was only to put defences around it.\nEven these defences of it were not directly against the people, for the\npeople had no desire to overthrow the throne, but merely against the\nrival candidates. Step by step from Tiberius Gracchus to Gaius Gracchus,\nand on to Marius, to Sulla, to Pompey, to Julius Caesar, possession\nbecame more and more permanent; until from being a mere momentary\nposition, it became nine points of the law, and Octavian made the tenure\nperfect by adding an almost religious reverence to his person in the\ntitle _Augustus_.\n\nIn the main the foreign wars of the second century before Christ gave\nplace to the Civil War at home, but there was one exception to this, the\nwar with Mithradates, king of Pontus, which on various occasions during\nthe early part of the century took large bodies of Romans to the Orient.\nAnd as though to supplement this knowledge of the East, in the closing\nhalf of the century the field of the civil struggle was enlarged so that\nit too included the East and South-East. We have already seen so many\ninstances of the effects of political events on the course of Roman\nreligion that it is a matter of no surprise to us to see that both of\nthese struggles, the Civil War and the Oriental wars, left their marks\non religion. It would be much more surprising if they had not done so.\nIn the struggle of the rivals at home every possible weapon was\nemployed, and it was soon discovered that the priests and the\nparaphernalia of religion were excellent means of political power and\ninfluence. The religion of the state therefore became enslaved to\npolitics. On the other hand the campaigns in the East made the soldiers,\nand eventually on their return the whole populace, acquainted with\nvarious Oriental deities, which helped to satisfy their craving for the\nsensational and the superstitious. Thus while the state religion in its\ndebauched condition was losing influence, the orgiastic element in\nworship was gaining power through these newly acquired Oriental cults.\nThe story of the religion of the last century of the republic is\naccordingly the history of the control of state religion by politics and\nits consequent destruction, and the growth of superstition because of\nthe coming of new Oriental worships; and we may add to these two topics\na third: the pathetic attempts of philosophy to breathe new life into\nthe dead religion of the state.\n\nWhen it comes to the question of the human characters whose names are\nwrit large on this page of religious history, the Dictator Lucius\nCornelius Sulla towers above all others. To his political insight is\nlargely owing the harnessing of the state religion to the chariot of the\npolitician, now and hereafter; and it was he who was the foremost leader\nof Roman armies to the Orient, and the man who, because of his\npeculiarly superstitious character, encouraged the worship of the\nstrange deities which were found there. In both these directions he was\nably seconded by Pompey, half a generation later. On the other hand the\nfutile efforts of philosophy to improve the situation were inspired\nduring the earlier period by the chief priest Scaevola, a contemporary\nof Sulla, and during Pompey's and Caesar's time by Varro, the greatest\nscholar that Rome ever produced.\n\nLet us follow first the fortunes of the religion of the state at the\nhands of the politicians. The upper and influential classes of Roman\nsociety were now thoroughly imbued with Stoic philosophy and accordingly\nwith the doctrine of the \"double truth\" in the field of religion--the\nreal philosophical truth which was their own peculiar property and\nwhich showed them clearly that all the forms of religion were vain, and\nits doctrines at best a clumsy statement in roundabout parables of a\ntruth which they saw face to face; and that lower \"truth\" intended for\nthe masses and dictated by the pressure of necessity, the concrete state\nreligion in all its details, which must be preserved among the lower\nclasses in the interest of the state and of society. The state religion\nwas thus a matter of expediency and of usefulness. But once this idea of\nits usefulness was put into the foreground, it was natural that the\nquestion should immediately be asked: Was this state religion as useful\nafter all as it might be? Could it not be put to greater uses? If\nreligion existed in general for its political effects, why should it not\nbe used by the individual, like any other political apparatus, for his\nown individual advancement? The man to whom this idea seems to have come\nfirst in all its fullness was Sulla, and he proceeded immediately to act\nupon it. The control of religion could, of course, be obtained best\nthrough the priesthoods, and those priesthoods were naturally most worth\ngaining which possessed the greatest right of interference in affairs of\nstate. These priesthoods were: first the Augurs, with their traditional\nright to break up assemblies and to declare legislative action null and\nvoid; then the Pontiffs, with their general control of all vexed\nquestions concerning the intersection of divine and human law; and\nlastly the XVviri, or the keepers of the Sibylline books, in charge also\nof the cults to which the oracles had given birth. Accordingly he\nincreased the numbers of these three priesthoods, raising each to\nfifteen; and inasmuch as the old right of the colleges of the priests to\nfill vacancies in their own bodies themselves had been taken away from\nthem in B.C. 103, and such vacancies were now filled by popular vote, it\nwas an easy thing for him to fill the new positions with his own men.\n\nThe result of accentuating the political importance of these three\ncolleges was that the whole body of the state religion became actuated\nwith a political spirit, and the whole structure was remodelled along\nthe lines of this new valuation. The immediate effect of this was that\nthe priests themselves became entirely absorbed in politics. To be sure\nSulla was not responsible for all of this, because the tendency had been\nin this direction ever since the time of the Punic wars. In the good old\ndays of Roman religion the office of priest had been in the main its own\nreward, and though the priests formed by no means a separate class, and\nthe individual priest had many secular interests and occasionally some\npolitical ones, he was not supposed to hold political office. In the\ntime of the Punic wars, however, the tide began to turn. The earliest\nrecorded instance of a priest holding a high political office is in the\nyear B.C. 242 when the Flamen Martialis or special priest of Mars was\nchosen Consul; but when the gentleman in question started to go to the\nwar, he was forbidden by the Pontifex Maximus. In B.C. 200 the Flamen\nDialis, or special priest of Juppiter, was allowed to be made aedile,\nbut his brother had to be especially authorised to take the oath of\noffice in his stead, since the priest of Juppiter, the god of oaths, was\nhimself not allowed to take an oath. In the course of the next century\nsuch cases became more common, and where the thing was not allowed, the\npriesthood became unpopular, and was sometimes left entirely vacant.\nThis last thing happened, for instance, in the case of the Flaminium\nDiale, a position which was unfilled from B.C. 87 till B.C. 11. But the\nevil effects of politics were not confined to the emptying of certain\npriesthoods, which after all were of no very great importance, except as\ntheir presence tended to sustain the _morale_ of the old religious\nritual. Its effects were much more disastrous in the very important\npriesthoods which had now become essentially political offices. The\nexclusively political interests of the incumbents, combined with the\nfact that each man was elected by general vote of the people and without\nany special fitness for the position, as had been the case in the old\ndays, tended to break down all the traditions of the college, and thus\nto destroy much of the knowledge which was being handed down largely by\noral tradition. There arose therefore an ignorance of the ritual of the\ncult which was great just in proportion as the knowledge originally\npresent had been accurate and intricate. But even this was not all; the\narranging of the yearly calendar, with its complicated intercalation of\ndays to bring into harmony the solar and the lunar years, was still in\nthe hands of the priests, and here the results of their growing\nignorance were most appalling. The calendar became terribly disordered;\nand this again had its reaction on religion, for the calendar month\noccasionally fell so out of gear with the natural seasons that it was\nimpossible to celebrate some of the old Roman festivals, which had a\ndistinct bearing on certain seasons of the year.\n\nThus the greatest enemies of the religion of the state were those of its\nown household, the priests, who turned the reverent formalism of the old\ndays into a mockery, and made their priesthood merely a means of\npolitical influence.\n\nNow that the old Roman gods had been changed into new-fangled Greek\ngods, and the old Roman priesthoods into modern political clubs, it is\nlittle wonder that the religion of the fathers ceased to satisfy their\ndescendants. But while history shows that specific religious creeds have\noften proved mortal and subject to change and decay, the same history\nmakes clear that the religious instinct is a constant factor in\nhumanity; and we must not suppose for a moment that the religious need\nof the Roman community had ceased to exist, simply because the religion\nof the state had ceased to satisfy it. From the day when the Sibyl gave\nher first oracles to Rome on down to the time of Sulla, the desire for\nthe sensational and the extraordinary in religion had been steadily\ngrowing. It had its birth in the idea that there was such a thing as a\ndirect communion with the deity, and that the oracles were an immediate\ncommand from him. It was nourished by the sense of foreignness in the\nGreek ceremonies gradually introduced into the cult. It fed on the more\nsensational aspects of certain of the gods brought in: on the\nenthusiastic rites of Bacchus, on the miracle-working of Aesculapius, on\nthe Stygian mystery of Dis and Proserpina. But its fulfilment was to\ncome from the East, that inexhaustible fountain of religious energy. In\nthe Magna Mater it recognised its own. This was the first undiluted\nOrientalism which came to Rome. But the state itself had received it,\nand had managed in some unaccountable way to put upon this outlandish\nEastern cult the stamp of Rome's nationality, that stamp which no nation\never successfully and permanently resisted; and thus the reception of\nthe cult on the part of the state was not only a disgraceful thing,\ntending to degrade true religion and spread the contagion of\nOrientalism, but it also made those whose appetite had been aroused\neager for other deities, whose cult would have the great additional\ncharm of being unlicensed by the state, and hence savouring of\nunlawfulness.\n\nSuch a cult, long half-consciously desired, was at length found, when in\nB.C. 92 the Roman soldiery commanded by Sulla penetrated into the valley\nof Comana in Cappadocia. There was a whole community, a miniature state,\ndevoted to the service of a goddess not unlike the Great Mother of\nPessinus, but whose cult was more ecstatic, more orgiastic, than that of\nthe Magna Mater, at least as Rome knew her. The king was the chief\npriest, and the citizens were priests and priestesses. The war with\nMithradates brought the Roman army there again and also to another\nComana in Pontus, where there was a branch of the Cappadocian cult. It\nwas not the ignorant soldiery alone who were impressed by what they saw;\ntheir leader, Sulla, was fully as much affected, and on his return to\nItaly when the great crisis in his career, his march on Rome and his\nstorming of the Eternal City, lay before him, it was the goddess of\nComana who appeared to him in a dream and gave him courage. Thus her\ncult entered Rome, and the capture of the city by Sulla has its parallel\nin the capture of the hearts of the people by his companion, the goddess\nof Comana. The original name of this goddess seems to have been Ma, but\nthe Greeks, who also knew her, had likened her to Enyo, their goddess\nof strife and warfare; hence in these days of facile identification the\nRomans' course was clear, and she became straightway Bellona, called by\nthe name of their old goddess of war. Of all the chapters of the history\nof such identifications none is more curious than this. The old Bellona\nhad borne to Mars the same relation that Fides, the goddess of good\nfaith, had borne to Juppiter. She was the result of the separate\ndeification of one of the qualities of Mars, the breaking off of an\nadjective and the turning of it into a noun; but from now on, though the\nold goddess still existed and had her own temple and her own worship,\nthe name was also applied to this strange Oriental goddess who came in\nthe train of the debauched Roman army on its return from the East. But\nthough men might call this new-comer by the name of a sacred old\nnational goddess and worship her in private as they pleased, the\nreligion of the state, even in its sunken condition, refused to admit\nher among its deities, and the priests, the _Fanatici_, with their wild\ndances, to the music of cymbals and trumpets, slashing themselves with\ntheir double axes until their arms streamed with blood, were not, at\nleast as yet, the official representatives of the state, the companions\nof the reverend old Salii with their dignified \"three-step.\" Even the\nsanctuaries of the private cult must be kept outside the city, and the\nviolation of this law in B.C. 48 resulted in the raiding and\ndestruction of one of these private chapels. Her cult does not seem to\nhave become a state affair until the beginning of the third century\nA.D., when Caracalla, who had extended Roman citizenship to all the\ninhabitants of the provinces, gave a similar citizenship to all the\nforeign deities resident in Rome. It is a curious coincidence that this\naction of Caracalla's occurred just about the same year A.D. in which\nthe breakdown of the _pomerium_ for state cults had occurred B.C. For\nthe present, however, that is to say in the first century B.C., the\nstate retained her dignity, though the resultant unorthodox character of\nthe cult increased its power and influence, and made it more subversive\nto morals than the Magna Mater was.\n\nAn even more interesting instance, both of the popularity of sensational\nforeign cults and of the struggle of the state religion against them, is\nfound in the case of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The spread of Isis\nworship into the Greek, and consequently also into the Roman world,\nbegan relatively early. In the third century Isis and her companion\nSerapis were well established on the island of Delos; and in the second\ncentury we find traces of their worship in Campania, especially at\nPompeii and Puteoli. This last-named place, the seaport Puteoli, the\nmodern Pozzuoli, outside of Naples, was probably the door through which\nIsis and her train came into Italy. Puteoli was the chief port for\nOriental ships, including Egypt, and it also had commercial relations\nwith Delos. At this later date it supplied Rome with gods in somewhat\nthe same way that Cumae, in the same neighbourhood, had done centuries\nbefore. So far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, an apparently\ntrustworthy tradition traces the private cult back to the time of Sulla;\nand it certainly cannot have been introduced much later than this time,\nbecause in B.C. 58 it had became so prominent and so offensive to the\nauthorities of the state that they destroyed an altar of Isis on the\nCapitoline. Apparently Isis was no exception to the general law of\ngrowth by persecution, because in the course of the next decade the\nstate found it necessary to interfere no less than three times, _i.e._\nin B.C. 53, 50, and 48. Finally the policy of suppression proved so\nineffectual that it was decided to try the opposite extreme, and to see\nwhat could be done by state acknowledgment and state control, and so the\nTriumvirs, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, in B.C. 43 decreed the\nbuilding of a state temple for Isis. But although they had decreed the\nerection of a temple, they were too much engaged in their own affairs to\nbuild it immediately, and until the temple was built Isis could not\nproperly be considered among the state gods. As events turned out this\ntemple was never built, for in the course of the next few years the\ntrouble with Antony and Cleopatra began, and thus the gods of Egypt\nbecame the gods of Rome's enemies, and so far as the state was concerned\nan acknowledgment of these gods was impossible. Instead Augustus forbade\neven private chapels inside the _pomerium_. The subsequent history of\nIsis does not directly concern us; suffice it to say that after various\nvicissitudes she was admitted to the state cult by Caracalla along with\nall the other foreign deities.\n\nBut it was not only Asia Minor and Egypt which gave their cults to Rome;\nthe deities of Syria came too. Prominent among them was Atargatis, whose\ncult seems to have touched the Italian mainland first at Puteoli. In\nB.C. 54 the army of Crassus on its Eastern expedition, which was\ndestined to come to such a tragic end in the terrible defeat at Carrhae,\nvisited and plundered the sanctuary of the goddess in Syria. Thus she\nbecame known at Rome, where she was called simply the \"Syrian goddess\"\n(_dea Syria_) and was worshipped in a way very similar to the Magna\nMater and Bellona.\n\nLastly when Pompey swept the Mediterranean clean of Cilician pirates,\nthe sailors became acquainted with a Persian deity, Mithras, whose cult\nin Rome began during our period and subsequently crowded all the other\norgiastic cults into insignificance.\n\nWe have now seen how the politicians were turning the state religion\ninto a tool for the accomplishment of their own selfish ends, and how\nthe masses of the people were seeking satisfaction for their religious\nneeds in sensational foreign worships, introduced from Asia Minor,\nEgypt, Syria, and Persia. We must now see whether any efforts were being\nmade by any members of the community in behalf of the old religion, and\nwhether there were still in existence any traces of the pure old Roman\nworship.\n\nThe latter-day philosophies of Greece had dealt a severe blow at Roman\nreligion by convincing the intellectual classes in the community that in\nthe nature of things there could be no such knowledge as that upon which\nreligion was based, and hence that religion was an idle thing unworthy\nof a true man's interest. Yet all the philosophy in the world could not\ntake away from a Roman his sense of duty to the state. Now the state in\nits experience had found religion so necessary that she had built up a\nformal system of it and made it a part of herself. As it was the duty of\nthe citizen to support the state in every part of her activity, it was\nclearly his duty to support the state religion. Hence there arose that\ncrass contradiction, which existed in Rome to a large degree as long as\nthese particular systems of philosophy prevailed, between the duty which\na man, as a thinking man, owed to himself, and the duty which he, as a\ngood citizen, owed to the state. We have seen how during the second\ncentury before Christ no attempt was made to reconcile these two views\nand how they existed side by side in such a man, for example, as Ennius,\nwho wrote certain treatises embodying the most extraordinary sceptical\ndoctrines, and certain patriotic poems in which the whole apparatus of\nthe Roman gods is prominently exhibited and most reverently treated. We\nhave also seen how this \"double truth\" could not but have disastrous\nresults on the state religion in spite of all efforts to the contrary.\nThe first effort which was made to improve the situation was not so much\nan attempt at reconciliation as a frank statement of the difficulties of\nthe case. The problem had advanced considerably toward solution when\nonce it had been clearly stated. The man who had the courage to make the\nstatement was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, a famous lawyer as well as the\nhead of the college of Pontiffs (Pontifex Maximus). He was a\ncontemporary of Sulla, and was admirably fitted for his task because he\nnot only represented religion in his position as Pontifex Maximus, but\ncould speak also in behalf of the state both theoretically as a lawyer,\nand practically because he had filled almost all the important political\noffices (consul, B.C. 95). The treatise in which he made his statements\nhas been lost to us, but we may obtain a fair idea of what he said from\na quotation by the Christian writer Augustine in his wonderful book _The\nCity of God_ (iv. 27). For Scaevola the double truth of Ennius has grown\ninto a triple truth, and there are no less than three distinct\nreligions: the religion of poets, of philosophers, and of statesmen. The\nreligion of the poets, by which he means the mythological treatment of\nthe gods, he condemns as worthless because it tells a great many things\nabout the gods which are not true and which are entirely unworthy of\nthem. The religion of philosophers he does not consider suitable to the\nstate, because it contains many things which are superfluous, and some\nwhich are injurious. The superfluous things may be allowed to pass, but\nthe injurious things, by which he evidently means the doctrines of\nEuhemeros, are a very serious matter, not because they are untrue but\nbecause the knowledge of them is inexpedient for the masses. The\nreligion of the statesman can have no part in these things, even if they\nare true; and a man as a citizen of the state must believe in many\nthings, or profess belief in them, which the same man, as an individual\nand a philosopher, knows are false. Scaevola's honest well-intentioned\neffort to support the religion of the state was naturally a failure. The\nvery \"masses\" in whose behalf Scaevola was calling on his\nfellow-citizens to undergo these casuistical gymnastics soon cared more\nfor Bellona and Isis than for all the gods of Numa together. But we\ncannot help admiring Scaevola for his patriotism, though we may not envy\nhim his ethics. The state religion could never be supported on the\narguments of expediency; every one granted its expediency, and still it\nfell; its worst enemies, the politicians, granted it most of all, and\nthey were the only ones who put the doctrine to any practical use. It\nwas precisely this discovery of its expediency and its great practical\nvalue which caused its downfall. From the practical standpoint the\nproblem was settled once and for all, but as a matter of theory it\nremained for the next generation, in the person of Varro, to provide a\nmore satisfactory solution, and to effect something of a compromise\nbetween the truth of philosophy and the truth of religion.\n\nMarcus Terentius Varro came to the work equipped with all the learning\nof his time and possessed of a greater knowledge of facts than any other\nRoman of his or any other day. So far as the problem of religion was\nconcerned, he embodied this learning in the sixteen books of _Divine\nAntiquities_, which he very appropriately dedicated to Julius Caesar in\nhis capacity as Pontifex Maximus. If Ennius's _Sacra Historia_ be left\nout of account, his book was the first treatise on systematic theology\nwhich Rome ever had. In this work he desired to accomplish three things:\nfirst, by a review of the history of Rome to show how essential the\nstate religion was; second, by an examination of Greek mythology to\npurify the state religion from its immoral influences; third, to show\nthat the state religion so purified was fully in accord with Stoic\nphilosophy. In regard to the \"three religions,\" therefore, he agreed\nwith Scaevola in casting out entirely the religion of the poets, and in\naccepting both the others, but he differed from Scaevola in that he\ndenied the contradiction between them and asserted that they were not\ntwo truths but two forms of the same truth. We are not able to go into\nthe details of his attempt, because unfortunately the books in which he\nwrote it have been lost to us, and we have again merely the quotation in\nAugustine's _City of God_. But we know that in general he tried to show\nthat the formal doctrines of the state religion were merely a popular\npresentation of the truths of the Stoic philosophy, and that the whole\nsystem of Roman gods could be reduced in theory to the great\nphilosophical contrast between the sky and the earth, the procreative\nand the conceptive elements. A man might therefore hold fast to both\nreligions as to a simpler creed and a more abstruse one. Hence a man's\nbelief as a good citizen and his belief as an intelligent individual\nwere not in contrast so far as the truth was concerned, but merely in\nthe matter of form, in the manner of presentation. Varro's heroic\neffort, supported as it was by all the learning of his day and all the\ninfluence that his fame lent to his words, was nevertheless a failure.\nThe religion of the state was dead; politics had killed it. It was a\npolitical power alone which could restore life to it, but that was the\nwork of an emperor, Augustus, and not of a scholar, Varro.\n\nWhile Varro, with the weapon of philosophy, was attempting to defend the\nreligion of the state against its enemies, the poets and the\nphilosophers, a poet, also armed with philosophy, was trying to defend\nthe Roman people against its worst enemy, superstition. It may not seem\nas though Lucretius belonged among the friends of old Roman religion,\nand as though the _De Rerum Natura_ were exactly a religious poem, and\nyet his work was in so far helpful to old Roman religion in that it\nattacked the excesses of a latter-day superstition which had alienated\nthe hearts of the people from their old beliefs. Superstition is a\nparasite which lives on scepticism, and with the killing of the parasite\nscepticism sometimes dies as well; and it is open to question whether\nLucretius's book was not of considerable service in the cause of\nreligion. For religion still lived at Rome, though it is the fashion of\nthe writers on the ethics of the close of the republic to emphasise\nalmost entirely the scepticism of the day, dwelling on the attitude of a\nCicero or a Caesar, and forgetting the infinite number of \"little\npeople,\" especially outside of Rome in the country, who still believed\nin the old religion of the fathers, and who still performed the old\nfestivals of Numa, people who knew no more about Isis than they did\nabout Stoic philosophy. Their presence is disclosed to us in a few\nrepublican inscriptions, but better yet in the continuance of the rites\nof family worship down into the latest days of Rome, rites which did not\nform a part of the restoration of Augustus, and which therefore, had\nthey died now, would never have come to life again. It is by just so\nmuch more our duty to remember these people, as they have been forgotten\nby history, if we ever expect to obtain a picture of Roman religion in\nits true proportions. They were besides the people upon whom Augustus\nbuilt in the restoration, to which we now turn.\n\n\n\n\nTHE AUGUSTAN RENAISSANCE\n\n\nPolitics had caused the downfall of the state religion. Weakened by the\nattacks of a sceptical philosophy, driven from the hearts of the common\npeople by the rival cults of the Orient, the state religion had finally\nlost all its influence by the abuse of it as a political tool. Its\npriesthoods were deserted, its temples were falling into ruins with the\ngrass carpeting their mosaic pavements and the spiders weaving new altar\ncloths. To us with our modern ideas it would have seemed impossible that\nthis state religion could ever rise again; and probably no other state\nreligion that the world has ever seen could have been brought to life\nagain, because no other state religion has ever been so absolutely a\npart of the state, unless the state itself were a theocracy; and\npossibly no lesser genius than Augustus could have accomplished the task\neven under the slightly more favourable conditions which the state\nreligion of Rome offered. Whether Julius Caesar would have attempted the\nrestoration is one of the many questions which his death left\nunanswered. Certainly thoughtful men of his day hoped that he would, and\nit was in this hope that Varro dedicated his _Divine Antiquities_ to\nhim; and another contemporary, Granius Flaccus, his book _On the\nInvocation of the Gods_. But except for one law which he caused to be\nenacted \"concerning the priesthoods,\" we have no knowledge either of his\naccomplishment or of his intentions, and the great task was left\npractically untouched for the master-hand of Augustus.\n\nIn order that we may understand what Augustus did and how he managed to\nsucceed in relation to the state religion we must obtain some idea of\nthe whole scheme of Augustus in relation to the state at large, of which\nhis religious reorganisation was merely a part. One of the cleverest\ncharacterisations of the Emperor Augustus which has ever been written\nwas that by the late Professor Mommsen, but its relatively secluded\nposition in the Latin preface to an edition of Augustus's great\nautobiography, the _Res Gestae_, has prevented it from being generally\nknown. Mommsen describes Augustus as \"a man who wore most skilfully the\nmask of a great man, though himself not great.\" This epigrammatic\nstatement is undoubtedly clever but it is not just, although it is the\nopinion concerning Augustus which we would expect a man to hold who,\nlike Mommsen, had an almost unbounded admiration for Julius Caesar.\nThere have been scattered through the pages of history even down to our\nown day men of whom we say that they were not great men, though they did\na great work. In certain cases doubtless we can separate the man from\nhis work and justify the assertion, but in other cases we are deceived\nby the man himself just as his contemporaries were and as he wished them\nto be. For it occasionally happens that a man who is called to rule over\nmen and to reorganise a disordered government is able best to accomplish\nhis end by a gentle diplomacy, a conciliatory manner, which is often\nmisunderstood by those who surround him and who interpret gentleness of\nspirit as smallness of spirit and self-restraint as weakness. It would\nbe truer to describe Augustus as a man who wore most skilfully the mask\nof an ordinary man though himself an extraordinary man. The more we\nstudy the chaotic condition of Rome under the Second Triumvirate and the\nmore fully we realise not only the total disorganisation of the forms of\ngovernment but also the absolute demoralisation of the individual\ncitizen, the more we appreciate the almost impossible task which was set\nfor Augustus and which he successfully accomplished. For one hundred\nyears (B.C. 133-31), from Tiberius Gracchus to Actium, hardly a decade\nhad passed which had not brought forth some terrible revolution for\nRome. Even the great Caesar had failed, had not divined aright the only\ntreatment to which the disease of the age would yield, for although the\nblows which actually killed Caesar may have been merely an accident in\nhistory, the deed of irresponsible men, his fall was no accident but was\nthe inevitable logical outcome of his imperial policy. But Augustus\nsucceeded in establishing a form of government which enabled himself and\nhis connexion to occupy the throne for almost a hundred years, and even\nthen though revolutions came, his constitution was the main bulwark of\ngovernment in succeeding centuries. It would take us too far from our\npresent subject to answer in any completeness the question of how he\nsucceeded, but a word or two may be said in general, and the rest will\nbecome clearer when we examine his reorganisation of religion.\n\nThe secret of Augustus's success was the infinite tact and diplomacy by\nwhich he managed to strengthen the throne and his own position on it\nwhile apparently restoring the form of the republic and the manners of\nthe old days. It is open to question whether he was actuated by a\nconsideration of the good of the state, or by a regard for his own\nselfish ends, but it is beyond question that he gave to Rome the only\nform of government which could eradicate the habit of revolution, and\nthus saved the state. He succeeded because he did not underestimate the\ndifficulty of the task, and accordingly brought to bear on it every\npossible influence, emphasising especially the psychological element\nand being willing to go a long way around in order to arrive at his\ngoal. He was not content with a mere temporary makeshift, which might\ncarry him to the end of his own life; he was laying foundations for the\nfuture. Nowhere is this more clearly stated than in one of his edicts,\nwhere he says:--\"May it fall to my lot to establish the state firm and\nstrong and to obtain the wished-for fruit of my labours, that I may be\ncalled the author of it and that when I die I may carry with me the hope\nthat the foundations which I have laid may abide.\" These abiding\nfoundations must be laid deep in the national psychology, and it was his\ngrasp of the psychological problem which explains his reorganisation of\nreligion. A century of civil war had totally destroyed the spirit of\nunity and created an infinite number of petty hatreds between man and\nman. Men had looked so long at their individual interests that they had\nalmost forgotten the existence of the state. But if the spirit of\npatriotism could be quickened into a new life, then men would think of\nthe state and forget themselves, and united in their love of this one\nuniversal object of devotion they would learn a lesson of union which\nmight gradually be extended to their whole life. But the state must be\npresented not as it was in all its wretchedness, lacerated by civil\nstruggle; the sight of the present would serve only to start the quarrel\nover again; instead it must be the ideal state, a state so far away, so\ndistant from all the citizens, that they all seemed equally near. If\nthis state were to be something more than a mere abstraction, it could\nbe clothed only in the reverential garments of the past, it must be the\nRome of the good old days. Yet if they were not for ever to mourn a\n\"Golden Age\" in the past and a paradise that was lost, there must also\nbe a hope for the future, a paradise to be regained. In a word the\nbelief in the eternity of Rome must be instilled into men's hearts. Thus\nwas the idea of the \"eternal city\" born, and it is no mere coincidence\nthat the first instance of this phrase in literature occurs in Tibullus,\na poet of the Augustan age. Once convinced of the eternity of Rome men\ncould look at the past for inspiration in full confidence that the\nbeauties which had been could be obtained again. But Augustus was more\nthan a sentimental enthusiast, and he saw that it was not enough for men\nto drop their swords at the epiphany of \"Roma Aeterna,\" that their eyes\nwould grow weary and looking to earth would behold the swords again.\nThese swords must be beaten into ploughshares and pruning hooks; the\ndeserted farms of Italy must be filled again, and the stability of the\nstate must be increased by an enlargement of the agricultural community.\nBut for the accomplishment of these reforms something was needed which\nwas at once gentler and stronger than legal enactments. The poet must\nmake smooth the way of the law. It was the poet who could best interest\nmen in the past; and thus Augustan poetry was encouraged and directed by\nthe emperor, that by pointing out the glories of old Rome it might\ninspire men to make a new Rome more glorious than the old. Practically\nevery poet of the age was directly or indirectly under the influence of\nthe ruler. It was the emperor's counsellor, Maecenas, who encouraged\nVirgil to write his _Georgics_, and these glowing pictures of farm life\ndid quite as much to carry out the emperor's plans as the _Aeneid_\nlater. And Virgil was not alone in writing of country life; Tibullus,\neven more gentle than the gentle bard of Mantua, was telling the same\nstory in another form.\n\nBy this time the myths which Greece had given to Rome or which Rome had\nmade for herself on Greek models were absolutely a part of the national\npast. These too entered into Augustus's scheme. Thus another protege of\nMaecenas, the poet Propertius, was gradually weaned from love poetry and\nfilled instead with a hunger for the myths of Roman temples and of old\nRoman customs, so that Cynthia slowly gives way to Tarpeia and\nVertumnus, and the Rome of Augustus to the Rome of Romulus. Even the\nirrepressible Ovid tried in his exuberant fashion to assist in this work\nand started in his _Fasti_ to write a history of the religious\nfestivals of the Roman year. But above all these, and infinitely more\nimportant in its influence, towers the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. All through\nthe varied incidents of the twelve books there runs the scarlet thread\nof a great purpose, the glorification of Rome and of Augustus. From the\nsack of Troy, through the long wanderings and the fierce wars in Latium,\ndown to the final conquest of the enemy, we see Aeneas led by the hand\nof the gods whose will it was that Rome should be. The lesson is very\nevident. The providence which guided us in the past still protects us;\nwe have no right to be discouraged, and our future is assured us under\nthe same gods who brought our fathers out of the land of the Trojans,\nthrough the midst of the Greeks. But there is concealed in the _Aeneid_\nanother lesson, much more directly useful to Augustus. Its hero, the\nimmaculate pious Aeneas, is the direct ancestor of the Julian house to\nwhich Augustus belongs, and the founding of Rome shows not only the good\nwill of the gods toward the city, but in no less degree their special\nappointment and protection of the leader. The descendants of the house\nof Aeneas are therefore the divinely appointed rulers of Rome.\n\nThere can be no question but that this poetry had an effect none the\nless far reaching because its influence was difficult to estimate and\nanalyse. It was not necessary for the psychological result that men\nshould actually believe in these myths; much was gained if they allowed\ntheir thoughts to dwell on the ideas presented in them. It was the\nsedimentary deposit thus formed which was to fertilise the soil of\npatriotism which had grown so barren in the civil wars. But while\nAugustus was broad-minded enough to realise the value of the influence\nof literature, he did not fail to recognise that men could not live by\nmyths alone, that they must be surrounded by visible cult acts and\ntangible temples of the gods in order that their faith might be aided by\nsight and their life filled with action. Literature was to encourage\npatriotism, and patriotism was the foundation for the spiritual\nrestoration of the state religion, but the state itself must by legal\nenactment prepare the outward form which the religious activity was to\ntake. The question of the sincerity of Augustus in these religious\nreforms is a very difficult one to answer. If the essence of religion\nconsisted in acts and not in belief, in works and not in faith, Augustus\nwas a devoutly religious man. Beyond that we cannot go, for our judgment\nis hampered not only by ignorance of the facts but by our inability to\nfree ourselves from the modern standpoint in the interpretation of the\nfew facts that we do know. There can be no question of the emperor's\nfitness for the task so far as priestly learning went, for he was from a\nvery early age a member of three priesthoods: a pontiff, an augur, and\na guardian of the Sibylline books. With characteristic modesty however\nhe refrained from becoming Chief Pontiff until in B.C. 12 the death of\nLepidus, the discarded member of the Second Triumvirate, left the\nposition vacant.\n\nOne who understands the political reforms of Augustus will have no\ndifficulty in understanding his reorganisation of religion, for they\nwere both undertaken with the same general underlying principles and\nalong similar lines. In both cases innovations and novelties were\nstrenuously avoided, except of course those of a merely administrative\ncharacter. In each case a successful effort was made to have it appear\nas if the old institutions of the republic were being reinstated,\nwhereas as a matter of fact the form alone was old with its age\nartificially emphasised occasionally by an archaistic touch, while the\ncontent was quite new. The real result in each case was the\nstrengthening of the monarchy and the emphasising of the divine right of\nthe Julian house. In our study of Augustus's restoration of religion we\nmust not be content therefore with chronicling the old forms which were\nre-established, but we must examine in each case the new content which\nwas put into them, even though the evidence of that content consists\noftentimes of a mere tendency. The fondness of Augustus for the archaic\nis nowhere more clearly exhibited than in one of his earliest religious\nacts: the formal declaration of war against Antony and Cleopatra, in\nB.C. 32, by means of the Fetiales. The Fetiales were a very ancient\npriestly college which acted, under the direction of the Senate, as the\nrepresentatives of international law. It was through them that all\ntreaties and all declarations of war had been made, but it seems\nprobable that this custom had fallen into desuetude after the Punic\nwars, and that accordingly the college had lapsed into insignificance,\nif it had not died out altogether. But now as the first step in the\nrebuilding of the priesthoods Octavian restored the college to its old\nrank and gained also the additional advantage that the people were\nimpressed with the moral righteousness of their cause against Antony and\nCleopatra, and also with the fact that it was a foreign, _i.e._ an\ninternational war, and not a civil one, in which they were about to\nengage. The effect of Octavian's restoration was a lasting one, for from\nthis time on this priesthood was held in high honour during the whole of\nthe empire, and the emperors themselves were members of it.\n\nThis was a very characteristic beginning to Augustus's activity. It was\nprimarily the human element to which he was appealing in his religious\nchanges, and hence the priesthoods needed especial attention. It was not\nlong after the battle of Actium that he restored another very ancient\npriesthood, that of the Arval brothers. This was a very old priesthood\nconsisting of twelve men who took part in the purification of the land,\nthe _Ambarvalia_, so called because the ceremony consisted of a solemn\nprocession around the boundaries of the fields. But as the Roman\nterritory grew and such a ceremony in the old fashion became impossible\nand was carried out merely symbolically by sacrifices at various\nboundary points, the Arval brothers lost all their importance, so that\neven in these symbolic sacrifices their place was taken by the pontiffs.\nAugustus however recognised in this priesthood an effectual means of\nemphasising the agricultural side of Roman life, and of connecting the\nimperial family with the farming population. The centre of this new\nworship was the sanctuary in the sacred grove at the fifth milestone of\nthe Via Campana, and it is there that the wonderful discoveries have\nbeen made of the inscriptions giving the \"minutes\" of the meetings of\nthis curious corporation, beginning with Augustus. But the pastoral side\nof their worship was an insignificant matter, even in the age of\nAugustus, compared with their prayers and supplications in behalf of the\nimperial house, so that the records of this supposedly agricultural\npriesthood form one of our best sources for the study of\nemperor-worship.\n\nThree other priesthoods, the pontiffs, the augurs, and the guardians of\nthe Sibylline books (_XVviri_) did not need actual restoration, for\ntheir ability to interfere in politics had kept them alive during the\nclosing centuries of the republic, when political usefulness was the\nsurest means of surviving in the struggle for existence. But the fact\nthat they had been politically powerful made the control of them all the\nmore necessary for an emperor who wished to have in his hands all the\npossibilities of political influence. It was contrary to Augustus's\npolicy openly to crush any of the institutions which had really been or,\nwhat was from his standpoint very much the same thing, had been thought\nto be a bulwark of republicanism. As a matter of fact however these\npriesthoods had been one of the chief means of bringing the republic\ninto the control of one man. Hence for Augustus the problem was easy to\nsolve; it was only necessary to appear to honour these priesthoods by\nraising their dignity still higher and by making only men of senatorial\nrank eligible, and then to take the chief position in them himself and\nto fill them with his own supporters. Thus the republic was apparently\nsaved and the empire was really strengthened.\n\nBut the priesthood to which Augustus devoted his most especial attention\nwas the priesthood of Vesta, the Vestal virgins. Here he was guided not\nonly by his desire to improve the condition of the priesthoods in\ngeneral but also by his especial interest in the cult of Vesta. The\nreasons for this interest in Vesta will be explained in a moment when\nwe discuss the emperor's favourite cults; but a word about its effects\non the priestesses of Vesta may be said here. The Vestal virgins had\nbeen relatively little contaminated by politics, but the priesthood had\nsuffered along with all the rest of the religion of the state because of\nthe general indifferentism and neglect of religious things which\ncharacterised the closing centuries of the republic. The best families\nin the state were not as ready as in the earlier days to devote their\ndaughters to the service, and thus the rank and consequently the\ninfluence of the Vestals had to some extent declined. But now all this\nwas immediately changed, the outward honour and the insignia of the\nVestals were increased until they were allowed such privileges as not\neven the emperors possessed. When they went through the street, they\nwere attended by a lictor as the higher officers of the state were, and\nthey were given special seats at the theatre. But the most\ncharacteristic thing which Augustus did for them and that which helped\ntheir cause the most was the emperor's declaration, made to be repeated\nin public gossip, that if he had a grand-daughter of the proper age he\nwould unhesitatingly make her a Vestal virgin.\n\nToward the close of his life Augustus prepared a statement of what he\nhad accomplished during his reign, a sort of _compte rendu_ of his\nstewardship. In a roundabout way almost all of this has been preserved\nto us and it naturally forms the greatest source of our knowledge of\nhis activity. After reciting a large number of his religious reforms he\nadds:--\"The spoils of war I have consecrated to the gods in the\nCapitoline temple, in the temple of the god Julius, in the temple of\nApollo, in the temple of Vesta, in the temple of Mars the Avenger.\"\nThese words give us a clue to the more especial religious interests of\nAugustus, a clue which is all the more needed because of his apparently\ncatholic spirit, and his seemingly general interest in all the forms of\nold Roman religion. No man who restored and in some cases entirely\nrebuilt eighty-two temples to various deities could be accused of undue\npartiality in emphasising certain phases of religion to the total\nexclusion of others. But as a matter of fact underneath this general\ninterest there were present certain very specific interests, and this\npassage in his own writing adds great strength to the other evidence as\nto what these gods were. Naturally in every list of pre-eminent deities\nJuppiter must be present, hence the mention of the Capitoline temple\nfirst; as a matter of fact however Augustus's worship of Juppiter was\nmuch more a matter of form than of real interest. His attitude was one\nof graceful acceptance of the inevitable rather than of enthusiastic\nhomage. Juppiter was not adapted to his purpose, because it was almost\nimpossible to connect Juppiter with a specific form of government other\nthan the republic, much less with a particular royal family like the\nJulian house. Juppiter had come to mean republicanism. The Capitoline\ntemple had ushered in the republic in B.C. 509 and there was a halo of\nrepublicanism about it which was too genuine to be used as a mask for\nconcealing imperial features. With the four other deities matters stood\nvery differently. The god Julius, Apollo, Vesta, and Mars the Avenger\nwere either already identical with the imperial family or could easily\nbe connected with it.\n\nThe central feature of the religion of the empire was a thing altogether\nunique and unknown in the republic: the worship of the emperors as gods.\nFrom Augustus on this was the chief characteristic of the state\nreligion; its beginnings must be sought therefore under his reign and he\nis largely accountable for it. According to our modern ideas it seems a\nvery strange thing to worship a living man as a god; it seems also\nstrange to worship a dead man as a god, but there we have at least the\nanalogy of the worship of the saints, and the inherent instinct of the\nrace toward ancestor-worship which unexpectedly crops out in all of us\nat intervals. But we must rid ourselves of modern ideas and try to\nappreciate the historical evolution of emperor-worship. This evolution\nis perfectly clear and we can trace every step of it, though in doing so\nwe must remember that the various processes which we are compelled to\ntake up one after another in our explanation went on in nature side by\nside, and exercised a sympathetic influence one upon the other, which we\nhave to eliminate from our explanation but make allowance for in our\nfinished concept.\n\nWe have seen that from the very beginning of religious life in Rome the\nidea was present that everything, each individual and each family, had\nits divine double, the individual in the shape of his Genius, the family\nin the shape of protecting spirits, Vesta, the Penates, and later the\nLar. In addition to this, under the influence of the Greek myths which\nvarious families adopted, certain gods originally independent became\nespecially associated with these families. Each family was naturally\ninterested in the worship of its own gods, but this particular worship\nwas quite as naturally confined to the particular family or its\ndependents. Now the first preliminary step toward emperor-worship was\ntaken when the gods of the imperial family began to be worshipped by\nother families, then by all other families, and officially by the state.\nBut from the very beginning the gods of each family had included also\nthe deified ancestors, the _Di Manes_, at first thought of _en masse_\nand not as individuals, but toward the close of the republic they began\nto be individualised, so that the next step in emperor-worship was when\nthe dead Julius, a particular ancestor therefore of Augustus, began to\nbe worshipped by the whole people and officially by the state. But also\nfrom the beginning there had been still another element in family\nworship, the cult paid to the Genius or divine double of the living\nmaster of the house. There followed then correspondingly as another step\ntoward emperor-worship, the homage paid by the whole state to the Genius\nof the living emperor. These three steps: the worship by the whole state\nof the gods of the emperor's family, in its three forms, the gods of the\nfamily in general, and in particular the deified ancestor, and the\nGenius of the living representative, were all encouraged and officially\nestablished by Augustus. Lastly there came from the Orient a habit of\nthought in distinct contradiction to Roman ideas whereby not the Genius\nof the living emperor but the very man himself was divine in life and in\ndeath. Augustus fought against this concept but had to yield to it and\nallow himself to be worshipped directly as a god in the Orient itself\nand in certain coast towns of Italy which were under strong Oriental\ninfluence, but he forbade it in Rome, and thus established a precedent\nwhich was followed by all the better ones among the emperors who came\nafter him.\n\nThis digression was necessary in order that we might appreciate the\nreasons for Augustus's preferences in emphasising certain cults.\nUnquestionably he did not foresee or plan for an emperor-worship such as\neventually grew up out of his arrangements; he was however deeply\ninterested in emphasising the worship of the special deities of his own\nfamily. The four gods therefore whose names he couples with that of\nJuppiter in the summary of his religious activity--Apollo, Vesta, Mars\nthe Avenger, and the god Julius--are all intimately connected with his\nfamily; and if we add to this the worship of his own Genius, the Genius\nAugusti, we shall have the real kernel of his religious restoration. It\nremains for us to see in what way these deities are connected with his\nfamily, and how he managed to emphasise their cult and at the same time\nto bring them into close relationship to himself.\n\nFrom the time of his first introduction into Rome Apollo had stood in a\nrelation of contrast to Juppiter. Apollo's oracles, the Sibylline books,\nhad brought in a host of Greek gods whose presence tended inevitably to\nlessen the unique position and the unparalleled prestige of Juppiter\nOptimus Maximus, the great representative of nationalism in Roman\nreligion. At first this contrast was scarcely marked, and the very\noracles of Apollo which were destined to undermine Juppiter's\nomnipotence were stored in Juppiter's temple and under his protection.\nThe difference was felt more strongly as the priesthood of the Sibylline\nbooks began to grow in influence alongside of the pontiffs, the priests\nof the Juppiter cults. This opposition was emphasised in B.C. 367, when\nthe priesthood of the oracles was opened to the plebeians, while the\npontiffs were still patricians. At first unquestionably the object of\nthe patricians was to keep for themselves the more sacred and the then\nmore important college and to open the lesser priesthood to the\nplebeians. But in the struggle of the two orders those things which were\nopened to the plebeians grew in importance and entirely overshadowed\nthose which were so scrupulously hedged about, and the elements which\nstrove to resist progress were crushed beneath it; and just as the old\nassembly, the Comitia Curiata, which the patricians had kept for\nthemselves, was later of no account compared with the Comitia\nCenturiata, which belonged to both orders, so the college of pontiffs\nlost significance while the keepers of the oracles gained steadily in\npower and influence. But it was not merely because Apollo was the great\nleader of the Greek movement in Roman religion that Augustus chose to\nhonour him. A far more important consideration guided him, for Apollo\nwas especially attached to the Julian house in all its mythical and\nhistorical fortunes. The first great public evidence of Apollo's favour\nin Augustus's career was at the battle of Actium; but while this led to\nthe first proclamation of the emperor's devotion to Apollo, it was not\nActium which made him a worshipper of the god, but it was because he was\na worshipper of Apollo from the beginning that Actium and all subsequent\ntokens of the god's favour were emphasised by him. However much or\nlittle the people of the day may have known about Apollo's previous\nrelations to the Julian family, the legend of his assistance at Actium,\nand the immortalisation of that legend in the great temple on the\nPalatine were proofs enough. The moral effect of the Palatine temple\ncannot be overestimated, especially when we realise one fact, which is\noften neglected, that this temple gained infinitely in significance\nbecause it was on private ground, attached to the emperor's own private\nhouse, for we must not forget that the Palatine was only in process of\ntransition into the imperial residence, and though the house of\nAugustus, when he left it, was the palace, during his lifetime it was\nmerely his private residence. The temple of Apollo was therefore in its\norigin theoretically the private chapel of a Roman family rather than\nthe seat of a state cult. It was the Apollo of the Julian house who was\nbeing worshipped there. And yet it was far more than a private worship,\nfor it began very soon to be a cult centre in distinct rivalry to\nJuppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. The oracles of the Sibyl,\neven though they were the words of Apollo, had never been preserved in\nthe old temple of Apollo on the Flaminian meadow, but instead they had\nalways been in the custody of Juppiter on the Capitoline. But now these\noracles, after being carefully revised by the emperor, were deposited in\nthe new Palatine temple, and by this act the centre of all the Greek\ncults in Rome was transferred from Juppiter to Apollo, from the\nCapitoline to the Palatine, and the rivalry between the two was publicly\ndeclared. The temple was dedicated in B.C. 28 and Augustus allowed its\ninfluence to permeate the Roman people for more than a decade before he\ntook the next step, a step which was virtually to parallel Apollo and\nhis sister Artemis-Diana with Juppiter and Juno.\n\nAmong the Greek gods who came into Rome we saw the entrance in the\nmiddle of the third century before Christ of a pair of deities of the\nLower World, Dis and Proserpina, and in connexion with the introduction\nthe establishment of certain games called \"secular\" because they were to\nbe repeated at the expiration of a century (_saeculum_). The initial\ncelebration was in B.C. 249, one hundred years later with a slight delay\nthey were celebrated again in B.C. 146, the next anniversary was omitted\nbecause it fell in the midst of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey,\nbut now Augustus wished to celebrate them. There were chronological\ndifficulties, but they did not prove insurmountable. An oracle was set\nin circulation, or one actually in circulation was made use of, wherein\nit was declared that a great cycle of four times one hundred and ten\nyears had passed and that a new age was now beginning. The emperor, if\nnot responsible for this oracle, was very willing to accept it. It was\nan essential part of his plan that all things should become new, and\nthat with the new age should come a new spirit. This new _saeculum_ must\nbe ushered in by games which should be at once like and unlike those of\npast centuries. They were to be celebrated at least in part on the\nhallowed spot, the _Tarentum_ in the Campus Martius, they were to extend\nthrough three nights like the old games, but the three days were to be\nadded as well, and the deities worshipped in the night, while they were\nno longer the old gods of the Lower World, Dis and Proserpina, were at\nleast mysterious deities of fate and fortune, while the gods of the day,\nApollo and Artemis, Juppiter and Juno, were as new to the games as the\nday celebrations themselves were. But the equality of Apollo and\nJuppiter was expressed not merely in the parallelisation of\nJuppiter-Juno with Apollo-Diana. It was still more in evidence on the\nthird and greatest day of the festival, when the procession of three\ntimes nine youths and three times nine maidens sang the song in honour\nof Apollo and Diana, which Horace wrote and which has been preserved to\nus among his writings, the _Carmen Saeculare_, and to which in addition\nthe recently found inscription giving an account of the games bears\nwitness in the words _carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus_ (_C.I.L._\nvi. 32323). On this day the procession started from the Apollo temple on\nthe Palatine, and went over to the Juppiter temple on the Capitoline,\nand then back again to Apollo on the Palatine, thus indicating not only\nthe equality of Apollo and Juppiter but even the superiority of the\nformer. A new age had indeed begun, an age in which the new associations\nof the Palatine and the glamour of imperialism were to overcome the more\ndemocratic associations of the Capitoline with its incorrigibly\nrepublican Juppiter. Greek gods which had hitherto in theory at least\nbeen subordinated to the gods of old Rome were now granted not only\nequality but superiority. The specific cult of Apollo, to be sure, did\nnot always retain the exalted position to which Augustus had raised it,\nbut even it never entirely lost its prominence, whereas the general idea\nof the supremacy of the imperial cult was now established for all time\nto come. But this secular celebration of Augustus is interesting aside\nfrom the relation of Juppiter and Apollo, for it affords another\nillustration of the skilful combination of new and old in the Augustan\nreorganisation. In form the festival is avowedly the old one, but in two\nrespects at least it introduces a new element. In the first place\nparticipation in the old festival, as in all the old festivals, had been\nconfined to Roman citizens. Others might look on, but they could not\ntake part, nor were they the recipients of any of the blessings which\nwere to follow. But now every free member of the community, with wife\nand child, might join in the celebration, and thus the note was struck\nwhich was to be the keynote of all that was best in the changes\nintroduced by the empire whose \"highest and most beautiful task,\" as\nProfessor Mommsen puts it, \"and the one which she fulfilled most\nperfectly, was gradually to reconcile and thus to put an end to the\ncontrast between the ruling city and the subordinate communities, and\nthus to change the old Roman law of city-citizenship into a community of\nthe state which embraced all the members of the empire.\" But even this\nwas not all; under the guise of this restoration of an old republican\ninstitution a blow was struck at the very foundation of all republican\ninstitutions, namely the power of the Senate. It was _par excellence_\nAugustus's festival, arranged by him or by those to whom he had\ncommitted the details. The Senate had little or nothing to say about it\nand yet the control of such religious celebrations had hitherto formed\nan inalienable part of the Senate's power. Even in the procession itself\nthe republican magistrates do not seem to have been officially present.\nIt was thus no longer the Senate inviting the magistrates and the\ncitizens in good and regular standing to perform a certain divine\nfunction, but it was the emperor inviting all the members of the\ncommunity, citizens and non-citizens alike, to join with him in\nworshipping the gods of the new state.\n\nA great part of Augustus's success was unquestionably due to a certain\nform of moral courage. For all his diplomacy and his desire to feel the\npulse of the people he was never lacking in the courage of his own\nconvictions. This can be seen nowhere better than in his attitude toward\nhis adoptive father Julius Caesar. From the very beginning when he took\nupon himself, even at the cost of temporary impoverishment, the payment\nof Caesar's legacy, he was supremely true to the man whose successor he\nwas, and this faithfulness is especially apparent in the field of\nreligion. Here there are two cults, both relating to Julius Caesar, for\nwhich Augustus was largely responsible, that of the god Julius himself,\nand that of Mars the Avenger.\n\nIn consideration of what Caesar had already done for the reorganisation\nof the state, and in view of what he was planning to carry out, his\ndeath was a national calamity, but his influence might still be rescued\nand preserved by elevating him into the rank of the gods. For the\naccomplishment of this it was necessary that the Senate should act, for\nin the hands of the Senate alone lay the power to receive new gods into\nthe state. Thus the god Julius was created and the word _divus_ received\na new meaning. With that logic which was characteristic of Roman\nreligion from the very beginning, the elevation of Julius into the ranks\nof the greater and more individual gods went side by side with his\nexclusion from the ranks of the ordinary deified ancestors, so that\nthereafter at the funeral processions of the Julian family his wax mask\nwas absent from the processions of ancestors to which he no longer\nbelonged, but in the parade of the circus he was present, drawn in a\nwaggon among the greater gods. Nothing was left undone to render his\ncult both conspicuous and permanent. A special priest (_flamen_) was\nappointed to look after it, and as the irony of fate would have it one\nof the first incumbents of this position was Marc Antony after his\nreconciliation with Augustus in B.C. 40. Then too a special festival day\nwas given him among the religious holidays of the year. It was intended\nthat this day should be July 13, his birthday, but as that day happened\nto be already devoted to an important celebration in connexion with the\ngames of Apollo, the day preceding it, July 12, was chosen. But more was\nneeded than a priest and a holiday, there must be a cult centre as well,\na temple of the Divus Julius. The site of this temple was already given\nin the associations connected with Caesar's death. There could be but\none place for it, and that was in the Forum near the Regia where his\nbody had been carried to be burned. There the temple was built and\ndedicated August 18, B.C. 29. An altar had been erected on the spot\nwhere Caesar's body had been burned, and the new temple was so placed\nthat the altar was included in its boundaries, occupying a niche in the\ncentre of the front line of the substructure. The temple had the usual\nhistory of destruction and rebuilding in antiquity until in early\nChristian times it was used for secular purposes, and the eyesore of the\npagan altar was removed by building a wall across the front, the\ndiameter of the semicircular niche, and by roofing the altar over on a\nlevel with the existing platform. Thus the altar with its historical and\nreligious associations was entirely lost sight of, and though the temple\nin its main outlines had long been excavated, the altar was not\ndiscovered until 1898, when the wall was broken through and the whole\nthing laid bare. Thus by the vote of the Senate, the appointment of a\npriest, the setting apart of a holy day in the year, and the building of\na temple, the worship of the god Julius was established; but it was the\ngeneral irresistible tendency toward emperor-worship which kept it alive\nand made it the model for a tremendous subsequent development. Augustus\nhad accomplished his desire. Men were looking on Caesar as a success\nafter all and not as a failure. The _Di Manes_ of a murdered emperor had\nbeen profitably exchanged for the Divus Julius, and just as the gods had\nfounded the old Rome of Romulus, so again it was a god who had laid the\nfoundations of the empire over which his successor was ruling.\n\nBut Augustus was not content with this; it was all very well for men to\nlook upon the god Caesar as an illustration of justification after\ndeath, as an example of how heaven could right the wrongs of earthly\nexistence, but that was not sufficient; the punishment of those who\ncaused his earthly downfall must be emphasised, it must be shown that\nthe gods were quite as much interested in punishing the sinner as in\nrewarding the righteous man who was sinned against. It was one thing to\ntransfer one's ancestors to the gods, it was quite another thing to take\nmeasures to keep oneself from following in their footsteps, even though\ntheir last estate was theoretically desirable. Hence side by side with\nthe cult of the Divus Julius went that of Mars Ultor, Mars the Avenger.\nThe circumstances of the beginning of the cult show that it was no mere\npoetical title but a genuine cult-name born in an earnest moment: for\nthe great temple subsequently built to Mars under this cognomen was\nvowed by Augustus \"in behalf of vengeance for his father,\" in the war\nagainst the slayers of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius. This temple, vowed at\nPhilippi in B.C. 42, was so slow in building that in the meantime\nAugustus erected a small round temple to Mars Ultor on the Capitoline.\nThis was dedicated May 12, B.C. 20. In the years which followed Augustus\nproceeded with the difficult and extremely expensive task of purchasing\nproperty for his own Forum, and here was built and dedicated, August 1,\nB.C. 2, the great temple of Mars Ultor. But aside from being a very\npresent reminder of the vengeance which the gods had in store for those\nwho killed a Caesar, it stood also for the Julian house, for Mars was\nnot alone in the temple but with him was Venus, the ancestral mother of\nthe family of Julius and Augustus; and thus was once more emphasised the\nconnexion between the ancestors of the ruling house and the great\nancestor Mars, from whom all Romans were sprung.\n\nA temple possessed of such strong associations with the imperial family\nbecame instantly a centre of their family worship, and in this respect\nproduced another rival to the cult of Juppiter on the Capitoline. In\nconnexion namely with the putting on of the _toga virilis_ the members\nof the imperial family went to the temple of Mars Ultor instead of\nfollowing the immemorial custom of ascending the Capitol to the shrine\nof Juppiter Optimus Maximus. More important yet the insignia of the\ntriumph, which had always been in the keeping of the Capitoline Juppiter\neven before he was Optimus Maximus and while he was only the \"Striker,\"\nFeretrius, were now preserved in the temple of Mars Ultor.\n\nWith all the state worshipping Apollo, the god of the emperor's own\nfamily, on the Palatine, celebrating the divinity of his ancestor the\ngod Julius in the Roman Forum, and acknowledging Mars as the avenger of\nall those who did the emperor harm, in the emperor's own new Forum, it\nmight have seemed to a less far-seeing man that religion had been\nsufficiently pressed into the service of the royal family. But so it did\nnot seem to Augustus. These cults were all three of them essentially\nnew, and new cults may, to be sure, easily become prominent; they\nusually do, but the test comes with time whether there is external\npressure sufficiently continuous to give permanency to this prominence.\nAs a matter of fact not one of these three cults continued later to hold\nthe rank in importance which it had under Augustus. On the other hand if\none went low enough and looked sufficiently deep down certain elements\nin the religious life of the community could be found which continued\nalmost unchanged from century to century. These were the simple elements\nwhich were involved in family worship, the sacrifices at the hearth of\nVesta, and those to the Genius of the master of the house. Here simple\nbeliefs and elementary cult acts had continued virtually unchanged from\nthe very earliest period down to the present. These cults did not need\nany formal restoration on the part of the emperor, for they had not\nexperienced the decline which the other cults had suffered, but by just\nso much more they would afford a firm foundation for his empire and his\nown rule if he could in some way succeed in connecting them with\nhimself. In the case of Vesta this was comparatively easy. The Pontifex\nMaximus was the guardian of the Vestal virgins, and thus on March 6,\nB.C. 12, when Augustus became Pontifex Maximus, it was quite natural\nthat there should be a festival to Vesta and that the day should\ncontinue as a public holiday. The Pontifex Maximus however was supposed\nto live in the Regia down in the Forum, where Julius Caesar as Pontifex\nMaximus had actually lived. This Augustus did not desire to do, hence he\ngracefully gave up the Regia to the Vestal virgins and made his official\nresidence in his own house on the Palatine, fulfilling the religious\nrequirements by consecrating a part of that house. On a portion of the\nsection thus consecrated a temple of Vesta was built and dedicated April\n28, B.C. 12. This was strictly speaking his own \"Vesta,\" the hearth of\nhis own house, but the prominence of the temple of Vesta there had an\neffect similar to the prominence of the temple of Apollo on the\nPalatine, and the whole state began thus to worship at the hearth of the\nemperor, and in time the emperor was worshipped at each individual\nhearth.\n\nBut the crowning touch of Augustus's religious policy was yet to come;\nthis was the establishment of the worship of the Genius of the emperor.\nAfter Actium and in the earlier years of his reign it is certain that\nAugustus would not have thought of putting himself, even in the\nspiritualised form of his Genius, before the people as an object of\nworship. But the tendency to emperor-worship which Oriental influence\nhad brought with it was not without its effects on the emperor himself,\nand perhaps these effects were all the stronger because of his valiant\nstruggle against it. Then too the state was already worshipping the gods\nof his family, even Vesta Augusta, the goddess of his own hearth. He\nhad become in substance, even if not yet in name, the father of his\ncountry. It had been an immemorial custom that the members of the\nhousehold should worship the Genius of the master of the house. In every\nhousehold in Rome that custom still existed. It was a very logical step,\nand one therefore which a Roman could easily take, to carry out the\nanalogy of the family and to allow the whole state to worship the Genius\nof the emperor, who was the head of the family of the state. The idea\ntherefore was not at all incongruous, nor was the way in which it was\ncarried out, though the latter was so ingenious as to deserve special\nconsideration.\n\nIn the old days when Rome was a farming community, the guardianship of\nthe gods over the fields was one of the most important elements in\nreligious life. The gods were above all the protectors of the boundary\nlines, and thus it came to pass that where two roads crossed and thus\nthe corners of four farms came together the deities protecting these\nfarms were worshipped together as the Lares Compitales, the Lares of the\n_compita_ or cross-roads. Curiously enough this worship was later\nextended to the crossing of city streets, and as was natural it became\nmore highly organised in the city than it had been in the country.\nRegular associations, _collegia_, were formed to look after the details\nof the worship, headed by the _magistri vicorum_, who were however not\npublic officials but merely the elected heads of these colleges, men\nmainly from the lower ranks of society. The contagion of civil and\npolitical strife affected these colleges as well as their more\naristocratic parallels, higher up in the social scale, and turned them\ninto local political clubs. The part played by these clubs in the civil\nstruggles which occupied the last century of the republic was such that\nthe Senate in B.C. 64 was compelled to dissolve them, though they were\nrestored again six years later and existed until Caesar destroyed them\nentirely. But now Augustus was creating a new organisation for the city,\ndividing it into fourteen regions, each region containing a certain\nnumber of subdivisions called _vici_. The old \"colleges of the\ncross-roads\" afforded him just the sort of opportunity which he never\nfailed to seize, that of seeming to restore a neglected republican\ninstitution, and at the same time of making it into a support of the\nmonarchy. The colleges had antiquity in their favour, and their repeated\nsuppression was clear proof of their power. They must be recognised and\ntaken over by the state, their officials must be made into officials of\nthe state, but, most important, their worship must be permeated with the\nimperial idea. This was where Augustus's skill showed itself. At every\nshrine of the cross-roads where of old the two Lares had been worshipped\nalone, a third image now took its place between them. This was the\nGenius Augusti, who thus formed henceforth an integral part of the\nlocal worship of every part of the city. Under the presiding Genius\nAugusti the Lares themselves began to be known as the Lares Augusti and\nthe cult grew in popularity so that it began to extend through all of\nItaly and even through the provinces of the empire, and wherever the\nLares went, along with them went the worship of the Genius of the\nemperor.\n\nNow that we have seen what Augustus did, the question arises\nirresistibly as to the measure of his success. There can be no question\nbut that he was successful in obtaining the immediate object which he\nwas seeking after. A formal religious life was unquestionably brought\ninto being, and such strength as that life had was exerted in behalf of\nthe empire. This is only in part true of the city but it is absolutely\ntrue of the provinces, where after all in the long run the balance of\npower was bound to lie. In every case the religious reform, begun in the\ncity, spread rapidly through the rest of Italy and out into the\nprovinces. There the negative elements, which hindered its growth in\nRome itself, were absent. For the provinces the empire was all gain, and\neven a bad emperor was far better than none at all.\n\nThe politics of Augustus had recreated the religion which the politics\nof the last century of the republic had destroyed, had recreated it in\nas far as political considerations could. But the spirit of scepticism\nwhich had made possible the political abuse of religion could not be\ndriven out by any further application of politics. A form might be\ncreated, both the paraphernalia of temples and the hierarchy of priests\nwhose business it was to perform certain cult acts, but there the power\nof enactment ceased. In the main the religious life of the people went\non for good or for ill entirely independent of these things. All that\nwas alive and real in the simple domestic cult went on down into the\nempire, and those who were faithful were faithful still. The cults of\nthe Orient, against which Augustus had done all that he dared, still\ncaptured the minds of the vast majority of the people, and a Mithras or\nan Isis meant infinitely more than a Mars or a Vesta, even if Mars were\nthe avenger of a Caesar, and Vesta the goddess of the living emperor's\nown hearth. Among the more intellectual classes the folly of the one set\nof gods, the darlings of the common people, was felt as keenly as the\nfolly of the others, those who had been worshipped by the men of former\ndays. Philosophy, which had had its share in the breakdown of faith,\nbeginning in the days of the Punic wars, was now offering out of itself\na substitute for the faith which it had taken away. It no longer\ncontented itself with a destructive criticism which resulted in a\nnegative view of life, but in Stoicism at least it strove to provide\nsomething sufficiently constructive to afford not only a rule of living\nbut also an inspiration to live.\n\nWith the death of Augustus the last chapter in the history of old Roman\nreligion was closed. His was the last attempt to fill the spiritual need\nof the people with the old forms and the old ideas; for what he offered\nwas in the main old though certain new ideas were mixed with it. From\nnow on the lifeless platitudes of philosophy and the orgiastic excesses\nof the Oriental cults divided the field between them, and it was with\nthem rather than with the gods of Numa or even with the deities of the\nSibylline books that Christianity fought its battles. That too is a\nfascinating study, but it is quite another story and with the death of\nAugustus our present tale is told. And when we look back over the whole\nof it the main outlines become perhaps even clearer because of the\ndetails into which we have been compelled to go.\n\nWe see at the start the simple religion of an agricultural people still\nstrongly tinged with animism and inheriting from an animistic past a\ncertain formalism which is so great that it almost becomes a content.\nToward the close of the kingdom we see this religion developing through\nItalic influences so that it takes into itself a certain number of\nelements which were absent from the older religion because they had no\nconcomitants in daily life, but whose presence is now rendered\nnecessary. These elements are especially the ideas of politics, trade,\ncommerce, and the liberal arts. Then for a moment under Servius an\nequilibrium seems to have been reached, and a religion to have been\nbrought into being which was simple enough for the old lovers of\nsimplicity and varied enough to satisfy the new demands of the\ncommunity. But this was not for long, for the spiritual conquest of Rome\nby Greece began then, three centuries before the physical conquest of\nGreece by Rome. The hosts of Greek deities invaded and captured Rome\nunder the leadership of the Sibylline books, and though at first they\nhad been kept outside the _pomerium_, even this iron barrier was melted\nin the heat of the Second Punic War, and the new Greek gods swarmed into\nthe city proper. At the same time as a last heritage from the baleful\nbooks an Oriental goddess, the Magna Mater, was taken into the cult and\ninto the hearts of the people, and the elements of decay were thus all\npresent. These elements were threefold: the natural spiritual reaction\nresulting from the excesses of the period of the Second Punic War; the\nfascination of the Orient, exhibited to Rome in the cult of the Magna\nMater; and the new gift which Greece now made to Rome, the knowledge of\nher literature, especially of her philosophy. In the last two centuries\nof the republic then these forces alone would have been sufficient to\ncause the downfall of religion, but they were aided by politics, which\nfastened itself upon the formalism of the state religion and sucked the\nlittle life-blood that was left. Rome's scholars and wise men could\ndeplore the result and point out the causes, but they could not cure\nthe state of affairs. What politics had done, politics alone could undo,\nhence only the reforms of an autocrat could restore something of the\noutward structure of the old state religion. But beyond this politics\nand the autocrat were alike powerless. Against philosophy and Oriental\necstasy they were of no avail. Hence the spirit had left the religion\nwhich Augustus had restored even before the marble temples which he had\nbuilt in its honour had fallen into decay.\n\nThe age of formalism had passed, the religious demands of the individual\ncould no longer be satisfied by a mere ritual. For good or for evil\nsomething more personal, more subjective, was needed. Men sought for it\nin various ways and with varying success, but except in the simple forms\nof family worship old Roman religion was dead.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nReferences to the more recent literature on the subject of Roman\nreligion have been given in connection with the appropriate topics in\nthis index.\n\nThe following abbreviations have been employed:--_R.F._ = Warde Fowler,\n_Roman Festivals_, London, 1899; _R.R._ = Wissowa, _Religion und Cultus\nder Roemer_, Muenchen, 1902; P.W. = Pauly-Wissowa, _Encyclopaedie der\nAltertumswissenschaft_, Stuttgart, 1894--; _Lex._ = Roscher, _Lexikon\nder Griechischen und Roemischen Mythologie_, Leipzig, 1884--.\n\n\nActium, 81, 165\n\n_Aeneid_, as a political treatise, 153\n\nAesculapius, 84.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 253 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 278;\n  Thraemer, P.W. _s.v._;\n  Asklepios\n\nAgricultural character of early Roman religion, 18.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 335;\n  _R.R._ 20 ff.;\n  Mommsen, _C.I.L._ 1, ed. 2, p. 298.\n\nAgrippa, erects Temple of Neptune, 81;\n  Richter, _Topographic der Stadt Rom._ 242;\n  Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 357\n\nAlba Longa and the Latin League, 52.\n  Cp. Beloch, _Italische Bund_, 177;\n  Huelsen, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nAltar of Caesar, 173.\n  Cp. Huelsen, _Forum Romanum_, ed. 2, p. 139;\n  Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 180\n\nAnimism, 5.\n  Cp. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 377 ff., ii. 1-327;\n  Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 170 ff.\n\nAnna Perenna, 115.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 50-54;\n  _R.R._ 194;\n  Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._;\n  Usener, _Rheinisches Museum_, xxx. 206;\n  Meltzer, _Lex._ _s.v._\n\nAnthropological method, criticism of, 4, 5\n\nAntony and the cult of Isis, 137.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 293\n\nApollo, 57, 66.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 180;\n  _R.R._ 239;\n  Wernicke, P.W. _s.v._;\n  Apollo and Augustus, 164.\n    Cp. Gardthausen, _Augustus_, 873, 961;\n    _R.R._ 67;\n  Apollo Medicus, 83.\n    Cp. _R.F._ 180;\n    _R.R._ 240\n\nAricia, 53.\n  Cp. Beloch, _Italische Bund_, 187;\n  Huelsen, P.W. _s.v._\n\nArtemis, 53 ff.\n  Cp. Wernicke, P.W. _s.v._\n\nArval Brotherhood, restored by Augustus, 156.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 485;\n  Wissowa, P.W. _s.v._;\n  Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_, Berlin, 1874;\n  _C.I.L._ vi. 2023-2119, 32338-32398\n\nAsklepios, 84.\n  Cp. Aesculapius\n\nAtargatis, 138.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 300 ff.;\n  Cumont, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nAthena, contrasted with Minerva, 46\n\nAttalus of Pergamon, 97\n\nAugustus: his character and motives, 147-152\n\n\nBacchanalian scandal, 118, 119.\n  Cp. Livy, 39, 8 ff.;\n  _C.I.L._ 196, x. 104;\n  _R.R._ 58, 248\n\nBellona, 134.\n  Cp. Aust, in P.W. _s.v._;\n  _R.R._ 289 ff.\n\nBona Dea-Damia, 111.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 105-106;\n  _R.R._ 177 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._;\n  Kern, in P.W. _s.v._;\n  Damia\n\n\nCaesar, altar of, 173;\n  religious reforms of, 146, 147\n\nCalendars, as sources for early Roman religion, 10.\n  Cp. Mommsen, _C.I.L._ 1, ed. 2;\n  _R.F._ 336;\n  _R.R._ 15 ff.;\n  disorder of, owing to ignorance of priests, 132\n\nCannae, 96\n\nCarmen Saeculare, 168.\n  Cp. Wissowa, _Die Saecular-feier des Augustus_, Marburg, 1894;\n  Mommsen, _Ephem. Epigraph._ viii. 225 ff.\n\nCarmentalis Porta, 82.\n  Cp. Richter, _Topographie der Stadt Rom._ 44;\n  Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 48\n\nCastor, 37 ff.\n  Cp. Helbig, _Hermes_, xl. 1905, 101 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 296-297;\n  _R.R._ 216 ff.;\n  Albert, _Le Culte de Castor et Pollux en Italie_\n\nCeres-Demeter, 72.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 72-79, 105;\n  _R.R._ 242 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nChaldaeans, 119.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 58;\n  Baumstark, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nCircus Flaminius, 41\n\nClodius, 88\n\nCognomina, 24.\n  Cp. Carter, _De deorum Romanorum cognominibus_, Leipzig, 1898\n\nCollegia, 47.\n  Cp. Waltzing, _Les Corporations chez les Romains_, Louvain, 1895-1900\n\nCollegium mercatorum, 78\n\nColonia Neptunia, 80\n\nComitia Centuriata, 165\n\nComitia Curiata, 165\n\nCommercial spirit in Rome, 107\n\nComparative philology, 2\n\nConsus, 114.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 206-209, 212-213, 267-268;\n  _R.R._ 166 ff.;\n  Aust, P.W. _s.v._\n\nCumae, source of Sibylline books, 66\n\n\nDamia, 111, 112.\n  Cp. Ceres\n\nDead, worship of, 14-15.\n  Cp. _R.R._, 187;\n  _R.F._. 300, 306 ff.\n\nDemeter, 72.\n  Cp. Ceres\n\nDiana, 53 ff.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 198 ff.;\n  _R.R._ 198 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nDi Indigetes, 9.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 15 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 192;\n  Wissowa, _De dis Romanorum indigetibus_, Marburg, 1892\n\nDi Manes, 14, 90.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 192;\n  _R.F._ 108;\n  Peter, _Lex._ _s.v._\n\nDi Novensides, 9.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 15 ff.\n\nDionysos, 72.\n  Cp. Liber\n\nDios-kouroi, 38, 39.\n  Cp. Castor\n\nDi Penates, 13, 113.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 145 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 337;\n  De Marchi, _Culto Privato_, i. 55 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._\n\nDivus Julius, 171.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 284 ff.\n\nDrepana, 88\n\n\nEmperor-worship, 161, 162, 163.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 284;\n  Boissier, _La religion romaine_\n\nEnnius, 121, 122.\n  Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), 3, 112-113;\n  Teuffel, _Roem. Lit._ 100-104;\n  Skutsch, in P.W. _s.v._\n\nEpidauros, 84\n\nEros of Thespiae, 46.\n  Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 501 ff.\n\nEtruscans, problem of, 42 ff.\n\nEuhemerism, 122.\n  Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), 4, 200\n\nEuhemerus, 17.\n  Cp. Rohde, _Griech. Roman._ 220 ff.\n\n\nFalerii, 44.\n  Cp. _C.I.L._ xi. p. 464 ff.;\n  Deecke, _Die Falisker_, Strassburg, 1888, p. 89 ff.\n\nFamily as original social unit, 11\n\nFanatici, 135.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 291\n\nFauna, 111.\n  Cp. Bona Dea\n\nFaunus, 111.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 256-265;\n  _R.R._ 172 ff.\n\nFemale deities, absence of, in early Roman religion, 21\n\nFetiales, 156.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 230, 231;\n  _R.R._ 475 ff.\n\nFides, 25.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 237;\n  _R.R._ 103\n\nFlaccus, Granius, 147\n\nFormalism in Roman religion, 7.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 348\n\nFors Fortuna, 51.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 161-172;\n  _R.R._ 206 ff.\n\nFortuna, 50 ff.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 161-172, 223-225;\n  _R.R._ 206 ff.\n\nForum Boarium, 33, 36\n\nFrazer, _Golden Bough_, 16\n\n\nGenius, 12.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 154 ff.\n\nGenius Augusti, 179.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 72, 73, 179\n\nGreat Mother of the gods, 96.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 69-70;\n  _R.R._ 263\n\nGreek influence in Rome, 99, 100, 104\n\nGuilds in relation to Minerva, 47\n\n\nHannibal, 93, 94\n\nHarrison: _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, 22\n\nHaruspicina, 43.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 469 ff.\n\nHasdrubal, 96\n\nHebe-Juventas, 110.\n  Cp. Juventas\n\nHercules, 32.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 219 ff.\n\nHereditas sine sacris, 17\n\nHermes Empolaios, 77.\n  Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 414\n\nHesiod, 46\n\nHorace, 168\n\n\nIndo-Germanic religion, 3\n\nIsis, 136.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 292 ff.;\n  Drexler, _Lex._ _s.v._\n\n\nJanus, 13.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 282 ff.;\n  _R.R._ 91 ff.\n\nJuno, 12.\n  Cp. _R.F._ _passim._;\n  _R.R._ 113 ff.\n\nJuppiter as symbol of republic, 160\n\nJuppiter Feretrius, 21, 58.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 229, 230;\n  _R.R._ 103\n\nJuppiter Fidius, 25.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 138;\n  _R.R._ 120\n\nJuppiter Latiaris, 55.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 95 ff.;\n  _R.R._ 34 ff.\n\nJuppiter Optimus Maximus, 21, 58.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 110 ff.\n\nJus divinum, 8\n\nJus humanum, 8\n\nJuventas, 109.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 125 ff.\n\n\nKore, 72.\n  Cp. Libera\n\n\nLar Familiaris, 13.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 149 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._;\n  Rohde, _Psyche_, ed. 2, 254;\n  De Marchi, i. 38 ff.\n\nLatin League, 52 ff.\n  Cp. Alba Longa\n\nLemuria, 16.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 106-110;\n  De Marchi, 36, 37, 39;\n  _R.R._ 189\n\nLepidus, 137\n\nLiber, 74, 75.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 54, 55;\n  _R.R._ 126 ff., 243 ff.\n\nLibera, 75.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 74;\n  _R.R._ 243 ff.\n\nLivius Andronicus, 48\n\nLucretius, 144\n\nLudi Saeculares, 93.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 364 ff.;\n  Mommsen, in _Ephem. Epigraph._ viii. 225 ff.\n\nLupercalia, 111, 114.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 298, 299, 310-321;\n  _R.R._ 172 ff.\n\n\nMa-Bellona, 134.\n  Cp. Bellona\n\nMaecenas, 152\n\nMagna Mater.\n  Cp. Great Mother of the gods\n\nMarius the Epicurean, 20\n\nMars, 19.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 34 ff.;\n  _R.R._ 129 ff.\n\nMars-Ares, 110, 111\n\nMars Ultor, 174.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 70, 133\n\nMegalesia, 99\n\nMercury, 77.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 121, 186;\n  _R.R._ 248 ff.\n\nMetaurus, 96\n\nMinerva, 44 ff.\n  Cp. Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._;\n  _R.R._ 203 ff.\n\nMithradates, 127\n\nMithras, 138.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 307 ff.;\n  Cumont, _Textes et monuments_, etc. (2 vols.), Brussels, 1896\n\nMommsen, 18\n\nMundus, 15.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 211;\n  De Marchi, i. 184;\n  _R.R._ 188\n\nMythology, absence of, in Rome, 8.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 20 ff.\n\n\nName, importance of, 6.\n  Cp. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 403 ff.\n\nNemi, 54\n\nNeptune, 80.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 185-187;\n  _R.R._ 250 ff.;\n  Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._\n\nNuma, apocryphal books of, 120, 121.\n  Cp. Schwegler, _Roem. Gesch._ i. 564 ff.;\n  _R.R._ 62\n\n\nOcean commerce, beginnings of, 77\n\nOctavian, 137\n\nOctavius Mamilius, 40\n\n\nPaestum--Poseidonia, 80\n\nParentalia, 16.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 187 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 306-310;\n  De Marchi, i. 199\n\nParilia, 114.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 79-85;\n  _R.R._ 165 ff.\n\nPater, Walter, 20\n\nPersephone, 75.\n  Cp. Proserpina\n\nPhilosophers expelled from Rome, 122, 123.\n  Cp. _Athen._ xii, 547a;\n  Aul. Gell. 15, II, I;\n  Sueton. _Grammat._ 25\n\nPinarii, 35\n\nPlebeian aediles, 74.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 245;\n  Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. 471\n\nPlutarch, _Moralia_, 50\n\nPollux, 37.\n  Cp. Castor\n\nPomerium, 33, 34, 35\n\nPoseidon, 79.\n  Cp. Neptune\n\nPoseidonia-Paestum, 80\n\nPotitii, 35\n\nPriesthood of Sibylline books, 66.\n  Cp. Quindecemviri\n\nPriesthoods, political value of, 129.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 64;\n  unpopularity of, in last century of republic, 131.\n    Cp. Marquardt, _Staatsverw._ iii. 64 ff.\n\nPropertius, 152\n\nProserpina, 76.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 212;\n  _R.R._ 255 ff.;\n  Carter, in _Lex._ _s.v._\n\nPuteoli, 136\n\nPythagorianism, 120\n\n\nQuindecemviri, 68.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 461 ff.\n\n\nRegillus, 40\n\nRepublic, character of the last century of, 125, 126\n\n_Res Gestae of Augustus_, 147.\n  Cp. Mommsen's edition, Berlin, 1883\n\nRoma Aeterna, 151\n\n\nS. Bartolommeo, 87\n\nScaevola, theology of, 140.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 62;\n  Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), iv. 205\n\nScipio Aemilianus and his circle, 124\n\nSecular games, 93, 167.\n  Cp. Ludi Saeculares\n\nServius Tullius, 27, 50\n\nSextus Pompeius, 81\n\nSibyl, coming of, 62 ff.\n  Cp. Diels, _Sibyllinische Blaetter_, Berlin, 1890\n\nSibylline oracles, 64 ff.\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 17.\n  Cp. _Principles of Sociology_\n\nStoicism, the official state philosophy of Rome, 123.\n  Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), iv. 201 ff.\n\nSulla increases the priesthood of the Sibylline books, 67;\n  his influence on religion, 128\n\nSyria dea, 138.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 300\n\n\nTarentum-Colonia Neptunia, 80\n\nTarentum in Campus Martius, 89.\n  Cp. Richter, 224 _ff._;\n  Platner, 322\n\nTarquin and the old woman, 65\n\nTarracina, 98\n\nTemplum, 43.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 403 ff.\n\nTerra Mater, 90.\n  Cp. _R.F._, 294-296;\n  _R.R._ 162\n\nTiber, island in, 86\n\nTibullus, 152\n\nTibur (Tivoli), 35\n\nTifata, 54\n\nTusculum, 39, 40\n\nTyche, 50.\n  Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 50\n\n\nVarro, theology of, 142.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 62\n\nVesta, 13.\n  Cp. _R.R._ 141 ff.;\n  De Marchi, _Culto Privato_, i. 64 ff.;\n  _R.F._ 146 ff.\n\nVesta and Augustus, 176, 177.\n  Cp. Gardthausen, _Augustus_, 868\n\nVestal Virgins, 158\n\nVictoria, temple of, on Palatine, 101\n\nVirgil, 152\n\nVulcan, 21.\n  Cp. _R.F._ 209-211;\n  _R.R._ 184 ff.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_.\n\n\n\n\nHANDBOOKS OF\n\nARCHAEOLOGY & ANTIQUITIES\n\nEDITED BY\n\nProfessor PERCY GARDNER, Litt. D. of the University\n    of Oxford, and Professor FRANCIS W. 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Illustrated. 4to. 24s.\n\n\nMACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON.","title":"The Religion of Numa: And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":47846}