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diff --git a/18222.txt b/18222.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6634ab2 --- /dev/null +++ b/18222.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5202 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Religion of Numa, by Jesse Benedict Carter + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Religion of Numa + And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome + +Author: Jesse Benedict Carter + +Release Date: April 21, 2006 [EBook #18222] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RELIGION OF NUMA *** + + + + +Produced by Barbara Tozier, Bill Tozier, Taavi Kalju and +the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + + + +THE +RELIGION OF NUMA + +AND OTHER ESSAYS ON +THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME + +BY +JESSE BENEDICT CARTER + + + London +MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED +NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1906 + +_All rights reserved_ + + + + +TO + +K.F.C. + + + + +PREFACE + + +This little book tries to tell the story of the religious life of the +Romans from the time when their history begins for us until the close of +the reign of Augustus. Each of its five essays deals with a distinct +period and is in a sense complete in itself; but the dramatic +development inherent in the whole forbids their separation save as acts +or chapters. In spite of modern interest in the study of religion, Roman +religion has been in general relegated to specialists in ancient history +and classics. This is not surprising for Roman religion is not +prepossessing in appearance, but though it is at first sight +incomparably less attractive than Greek religion, it is, if properly +understood, fully as interesting, nay, even more so. In Mr. W. Warde +Fowler's _Roman Festivals_ however the subject was presented in all its +attractiveness, and if the present book shall serve as a simple +introduction to his larger work, its purpose will have been fulfilled. + +No one can write of Roman religion without being almost inestimably +indebted to Georg Wissowa whose _Religion und Cultus der Roemer_ is the +best systematic presentation of the subject. It was the author's +privilege to be Wissowa's pupil, and much that is in this book is +directly owing to him, and even the ideas that are new, if there are any +good ones, are only the bread which he cast upon the waters returning to +him after many days. + +The careful student of the history of the Romans cannot doubt the +psychological reality of their religion, no matter what his personal +metaphysics may be. It is the author's hope that these essays may have a +human interest because he has tried to emphasise this reality and to +present the Romans as men of like passions to ourselves, in spite of all +differences of time and race. + +Hearty thanks are due to Mr. W. Warde Fowler and to Mr. Albert W. Van +Buren for their great kindness in reading the proofs; and the dedication +of the book is at best a poor return for the help which my wife has +given me. + + J.B.C. +ROME, _November, 1905_. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +THE RELIGION OF NUMA 1 + +THE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS 27 + +THE COMING OF THE SIBYL 62 + +THE DECLINE OF FAITH 104 + +THE AUGUSTAN RENAISSANCE 146 + + + + +THE RELIGION OF NUMA + + +Rome forms no exception to the general rule that nations, like +individuals, grow by contact with the outside world. In the middle of +the five centuries of her republic came the Punic wars and the intimate +association with Greece which made the last half of her history as a +republic so different from the first half; and in the kingdom, which +preceded the republic, there was a similar coming of foreign influence, +which made the later kingdom with its semi-historical names of the +Tarquins and Servius Tullius so different from the earlier kingdom with +its altogether legendary Romulus, Numa, Tullus Hostilius and Ancus +Martius. We have thus four distinct phases in the history of Roman +society, and a corresponding phase of religion in each period; and if we +add to this that new social structure which came into being by the +reforms of Augustus at the beginning of the empire, together with the +religious changes which accompanied it, we shall have the five periods +which these five essays try to describe: the period before the +Tarquins, that is the "Religion of Numa"; the later kingdom, that is the +"Reorganisation of Servius"; the first three centuries of the republic, +that is the "Coming of the Sibyl"; the closing centuries of the +republic, that is the "Decline of Faith"; and finally the early empire +and the "Augustan Renaissance." Like all attempts to cut history into +sections these divisions are more or less arbitrary, but their +convenience sufficiently justifies their creation. They must be thought +of however not as representing independent blocks, arbitrarily arranged +in a certain consecutive order, not as five successive religious +consciousnesses, but merely as marking the entrance of certain new ideas +into the continuous religious consciousness of the Roman people. The +history of each of these periods is simply the record of the change +which new social conditions produced in that great barometer of society, +the religious consciousness of the community. It is in the period of the +old kingdom that our story begins. + +At first sight it may seem a foolish thing to try to draw a picture of +the religious condition of a time about the political history of which +we know so little, and it is only right therefore that we should inquire +what sources of knowledge we possess. + +There was a time, not so very long ago, when under the banner of the +new-born science of "Comparative Philology" there gathered together a +group of men who thought they held the key to prehistoric history, and +that words themselves would tell the story where ancient monuments and +literature were silent. It was a great and beautiful thought, and the +science which encouraged it has taken its place as a useful and +reputable member of the community of sciences, but its pretensions to +the throne of the revealer of mysteries have been withdrawn by those who +are its most ardent followers, and the "Indo-Germanic religion" which is +brought into being is a pleasant thought for an idle hour rather than a +foundation and starting-point for the study of ancient religion in +general. Altogether aside from the fact that although primitive religion +and nationality are in the main identical, language and nationality are +by no means so--we have the great practical difficulty in the case of +Greece and Rome that in the earliest period of which we have knowledge +these two religions bear so little resemblance that we must either +assert for the time of Indo-Germanic unity a religious development much +more primitive than that which comparative philology has sketched, or we +must suppose the presence of a strong decadent influence in Rome's case +after the separation, which is equally difficult. If we realise that in +a primitive religion the name of the god is usually the same as the name +of the thing which he represents, the existence of a Greek god and a +Roman god with names which correspond to the same Indo-Germanic word +proves linguistically that the _thing_ existed and had a name before the +separation, but not at all that the thing was deified or that the name +was the name of a god at that time. We must therefore be content to +begin our study of religion much more humbly and at a much later period. + +In fact we cannot go back appreciably before the dawn of political +history, but there are certain considerations which enable us at least +to understand the phenomena of the dawn itself, those survivals in +culture which loom up in the twilight and the understanding of which +gives us a fair start in our historical development. For this knowledge +we are indebted to the so-called "anthropological" method, which is +based on the assumption that mankind is essentially uniform, and that +this essential uniformity justifies us in drawing inferences about very +ancient thought from the very primitive thought of the barbarous and +savage peoples of our own day. At first sight the weakness of this +contention is more apparent than its strength, and it is easy to show +that the prehistoric primitive culture of a people destined to +civilisation is one thing, and the retarded primitive culture of modern +tribes stunted in their growth is quite another thing, so that, as has +so often been said, the two bear a relation to each other not unlike +that of a healthy young child to a full-grown idiot. And yet there is a +decided resemblance between the child and the idiot, and whether +prehistoric or retarded, primitive culture shows everywhere strong +likeness, and the method is productive of good if we confine our +reasoning backwards to those things in savage life which the two kinds +of primitive culture, the prehistoric and the retarded, have in common. +To do this however we must have some knowledge of the prehistoric, and +our modern retarded savage must be used merely to illumine certain +things which we see only in half-light; he must never be employed as a +lay-figure in sketching in those features of prehistoric life of which +we are totally in ignorance. It is peculiarly useful to the student of +Roman religion because he stands on the borderland and looking backwards +sees just enough dark shapes looming up behind him to crave more light. +For in many phases of early Roman religion there are present +characteristics which go back to old manners of thought, and these +manners of thought are not peculiar to the Romans but are found in many +primitive peoples of our own day. The greatest contribution which +anthropology has made to the study of early Roman religion is "animism." + +Not much more than a quarter of a century ago the word "animism" began +to be used to describe that particular phase of the psychological +condition of primitive peoples by which they believe that a spirit +(_anima_) resides in everything, material and immaterial. This spirit is +generally closely associated with the thing itself, sometimes actually +identified with it. When it is thought of as distinct from the thing, it +is supposed to have the form of the thing, to be in a word its "double." +These doubles exercise an influence, often for evil, over the thing, and +it is expedient and necessary therefore that they should be propitiated +so that their evil influence may be removed and the thing itself may +prosper. These doubles are not as yet gods, they are merely powers, +potentialities, but in the course of time they develop into gods. The +first step in this direction is the obtaining of a _name_, a name the +knowledge of which gives a certain control over the power to him who +knows it. Finally these powers equipped with a name begin to take on +personal characteristics, to be thought of as individuals, and finally +represented under the form of men. + +It cannot be shown that all the gods of Rome originated in this way, but +certainly many of them did, and it is not impossible that they all did; +and this theory of their origin explains better than any other theory +certain habits of thought which the early Romans cherished in regard to +their gods. At the time when our knowledge of Roman religion begins, +Rome is in possession of a great many gods, but very few of them are +much more than names for powers. They are none of them personal enough +to be connected together in myths. And this is the very simple reason +why there was no such thing as a native Roman mythology, a blank in +Rome's early development which many modern writers have refused to +admit, taking upon themselves the unnecessary trouble of positing an +original mythology later lost. The gods of early Rome were neither +married nor given in marriage; they had no children or grandchildren and +there were no divine genealogies. Instead they were thought of +occasionally as more or less individual powers, but usually as masses of +potentialities, grouped together for convenience as the "gods of the +country," the "gods of the storeroom," the "gods of the dead," etc. Even +when they were conceived of as somewhat individual, they were usually +very closely associated with the corresponding object, for example Vesta +was not so much the goddess of the hearth as the goddess "Hearth" +itself, Janus not the god of doors so much as the god "Door." + +But by just as much as the human element was absent from the concept of +the deity, by just so much the element of formalism in the cult was +greater. This formalism must not be interpreted according to our modern +ideas; it was not a formalism which was the result and the successor of +a decadent spirituality; it was not a secondary product in an age of the +decline of faith; but it was itself the essence of religion in the +period of the greatest religious purity. In the careful and +conscientious fulfilment of the form consisted the whole duty of man +toward his gods. Such a state of affairs would have been intolerable in +any nation whose instincts were less purely legal. So identical were the +laws concerning the gods and the laws concerning men that though in the +earliest period of Roman jurisprudence the _ius divinum_ and the _ius +humanum_ are already separated, they are separated merely formally as +two separate fields or provinces in which the spirit of the law and +often even the letter of its enactment are the same. Such a formalism +implies a very firm belief in the existence of the gods. The dealings of +a man with the gods are quite as really reciprocal as his dealings with +his fellow citizens. But on the other hand though the existence of the +gods is never doubted for a moment, the gods themselves are an unknown +quantity; hence out of the formal relationship an intimacy never +developed, and while it is scarcely just to characterise the early cult +as exclusively a religion of fear, certainly real affection is not +present until a much later day. The potentiality of the gods always +overshadowed their personality. But this was not all loss, for the +absence of personality prevented the growth of those gross myths which +are usually found among primitive peoples, for the purer more inspiring +myths of gods are not the primitive product but result from the process +of refining which accompanies a people's growth in culture. Thus the +theory of animism illumines the religious condition of that borderland +of history in which Romulus and Numa Pompilius have their +dwelling-place. + +According to that pleasant fiction of which the ancient world was so +extremely fond--the belief that all institutions could be traced back to +their establishment by some individual--the religion of Rome was +supposed to have been founded by her second king Numa, and it was the +custom to refer to all that was most antique in the cult as forming a +part of the venerable "religion of Numa." For us this can be merely a +name, and even as a name misleading, for a part of the beliefs with +which we are dealing go back for centuries before Romulus and the +traditional B.C. 753 as the foundation of Rome. But it is a convenient +term if we mean by it merely the old kingdom before foreign influences +began to work. The Romans of a later time coined an excellent name not +so much for the period as for the kind of religion which existed then, +contrasting the original deities of Rome with the new foreign gods, +calling the former the "old indigenous gods" (_Di Indigetes_) and the +latter the "newly settled gods" (_Di Novensides_). For our knowledge of +the religion of this period we are not dependent upon a mere theory, no +matter how good it may be in itself, but we have the best sort of +contemporary evidence in addition, and it is to the discovery of this +evidence that the modern study of Roman religion virtually owes its +existence. The records of early political history were largely +destroyed in B.C. 390 when the Gauls sacked Rome, but the religious +status, with the conservativeness characteristic of religion generally, +suffered very few changes during all these years, and left a record of +itself in the annually recurring festivals of the Roman year, festivals +which grew into an instinctive function of the life of the common +people. Many centuries later when the calendar was engraved on stone, +these revered old festivals were inscribed on these stone calendars in +peculiarly large letters as distinguished from all the other items. Thus +from the fragments of these stone calendars, which have been found, and +which are themselves nineteen centuries old, we can read back another +eight or ten centuries further. By the aid of this "calendar of Numa" we +are able to assert the presence of certain deities in the Rome of this +time, and the equally important absence of others. And from the +character of the deities present and of the festivals themselves a +correct and more or less detailed picture of the religious condition of +the time may be drawn. This calendar and the list of _Indigetes_ +extracted from it form the foundation for all our study of the history +of Roman religion. + +The religious forms of a community are always so bound up with its +social organisation that a satisfactory knowledge of the one is +practically impossible without some knowledge of the other. +Unfortunately there is no field in Roman history where theories are so +abundant and facts so rare as in regard to the question of the early +social organisation. But without coming into conflict with any of the +rival theories we may make at least the following statements. In the +main the community was fairly uniform and homogeneous, there were no +great social extremes and no conspicuous foreign element, so that each +individual, had he stopped to analyse his social position, would have +found himself in four distinct relationships: a relationship to himself +as an individual; to his family; to the group of families which formed +his clan (_gens_); and finally to the state. We may go a step further on +safe ground and assert that the least important of these relations was +that to himself, and the most important that to his family. The unit of +early Roman social life was not the individual but the family, and in +the most primitive ideas of life after death it is the family which has +immortality, not the individual. The state is not a union of individuals +but of families. The very psychological idea of the individual seems to +have taken centuries to develop, and to have reached its real +significance only under the empire. Of the four elements therefore we +have established the pre-eminence of the family and the importance of +the state as based on the family idea; the individual may be disregarded +in this early period, and there is left only the clan, which however +offers a difficult problem. The family and the state were destined to +hold their own, merely exchanging places in the course of time, so that +the state came first and the family second; the individual was to grow +into ever increasing importance, but the clan is already dying when +history begins. It is a pleasant theory and one that has a high degree +of probability that there may have been a time when the clan was to the +family what the state is when history begins, and that when the state +arose out of a union of various clans, the immediate allegiance of each +family was gradually alienated from its clan and transferred to the +state, so that the clan gave up its life in order that the state, the +child of its own creation, might live. If this be so, we can see why the +social importance of the clan ceases so early in Roman history. + +The centre therefore of early religious life is the family, and the +state as a macrocosm of the family; and the father of each family is its +chief priest, and the king as the father of the state is the chief +priest of the state. As for the individual the only god which he has for +worship is his "double," called in the case of a man his _Genius_ and in +that of a woman her _Juno_, her individualisation of the goddess Juno, +quite a distinct deity, peculiar to herself. But even here the family +instinct shows itself, and though later the Genius and the Juno +represent all that is intellectual in the individual, they seem +originally to have symbolised the procreative power of the individual in +relation to the continuance of the family. The family and the state, +however, side by side worshipped a number of deities. + +In the primitive hut, the model of which has come down to us in so many +little burial urns of early time (for example those that have recently +been dug up in the wonderful cemetery under the Roman Forum), with its +one door and no window, there were several elements which needed +propitiation; the door itself as the keeper away of evil, the hearth, +and the niche for the storage of food. The door-god was the god-door +Janus, the _ianua_ itself; the hearth was in the care of the womenfolk, +the wife and daughters, so it was a goddess, Vesta, whom they served; +and the storage-niche, the _penus_, was in the keeping of the +"store-closet gods" (_Di Penates_). The state itself was modelled after +the house. It had its Janus, its sacred door, down in the Forum, and the +king himself, the father of the state, was his special priest; it had +its hearth, where the sacred fire burned, and its own Vesta, tended by +the vestal virgins, the daughters of the state; and it had its +store-niche with its Penates. At a later date but still very early there +was added to the household worship the idea of the general protector of +the house, the Lar, which gave rise to the familiar expression "Lares +and Penates." The origin of this _Lar Familiaris_, as he is called, is +interesting, because it shows the intimate connection between the +farming life of the community and its religion. The Lares were +originally the group of gods who looked after the various farms; they +were in the plural because they were worshipped where the boundary lines +of several farms met, but though several of them were worshipped +together, each farm had its one individual Lar. But the care of the farm +included also the protection of the house on the farm, so that the Lar +of the farm became also the Lar of the house, first of course of houses +on farms, and then of every house everywhere even when no farm was +connected with it. + +Aside from Vesta, the Genius, the Lar, and the Penates, possibly the +most important element in family worship was the cult of the dead +ancestors. This cult is, of course, common to almost all religions, and +its presence in Roman religion is in so far not surprising, but the form +in which it occurs there is curious and relatively rare. Just as the +living man has a "double," the Genius, so the dead man also must have a +double, but this double is originally not the Genius, who seems to have +been thought of at first as ceasing with the individual. On the contrary +as death is the great leveller and the remover of individuality, so the +double of the dead was not thought of at first as an individual double +but merely as forming a part of an indefinite mass of spirits, the "good +gods" (_Di Manes_) as they were called because they were feared as being +anything but good. These _Di Manes_ had therefore no specific relation +to the individual, and the individual really ceased at death; the only +human relation which the _Di Manes_ seem to have preserved was a +connection with the living members of the family to which they had +originally belonged. It is therefore very misleading to assert that the +Romans had from the beginning a belief in immortality, when we +instinctively think of the immortality of the individual. The thing that +was immortal was not the individual but the family. It is thoroughly in +keeping with the practical character of the Roman mind that they did not +concern themselves with the place in which these spirits of the dead +were supposed to reside, but merely with the door through which they +could and did return to earth. We have no accounts of the Lower World +until Greece lent her mythology to Rome, and imagination never built +anything like the Greek palace of Pluto. But while they did not waste +energy in furnishing the Lower World with the fittings of fancy, they +did keep a careful guard over the door of egress. This door they called +the _mundus_, and represented it crudely by a trench or shallow pit, at +the bottom of which there lay a stone. On certain days of the year this +stone was removed, and then the spirits came back to earth again, where +they were received and entertained by the living members of their +family. There were a number of these days in the year, three of them +scattered through the year: August 24, October 5, November 8; and two +sets of days: February 13-21 and May 9, 11, 13. The February +celebration, the so-called _Parentalia_, was calm and dignified and +represented all that was least superstitious and fearful in the +generally terrifying worship of the dead. The _Lemuria_ in May had +exactly the opposite character and belongs to the category of the +"expulsion of evil spirits," of which Mr. Frazer in his _Golden Bough_ +has given so many instances. + +In this connection it is interesting to notice two facts which stand +almost as corollaries to these beliefs. One fact is the religious +necessity for the continuance of the family, in order that there might +always be a living representative of the family to perform the +sacrifices to the ancestors. It was the duty of the head of the family +not only to perform these sacrifices himself as long as he lived but +also to provide a successor. The usual method was by marriage and the +rearing of a family, but, in case there was no male child in the family, +adoption was recurred to. Here it is peculiarly significant that the +sanction of the chief priest was necessary, and he never gave his +consent in case the man to be adopted was the only representative of his +family, so that his removal from that family into another would leave +his original family without a male representative. In cases of +inheritance the first lien on the income was for the maintenance of the +traditional sacrifices unless some special arrangement had been made. +These exceptional inheritances, without the deduction for sacrifices, +were naturally desired above all others and the phrase "an inheritance +without sacrifices" (_hereditas sine sacris_) became by degrees the +popular expression for a godsend. The other fact of interest in this +connection is that, inasmuch as ancestors were worshipped only _en +masse_ and not as individuals, that process could not take place in +Roman religion which is so familiar in many other religions, namely that +the great gods of the state should some of them have been originally +ancestors whose greatness during life had produced a corresponding +emphasis in their worship after death, so that ultimately they were +promoted from the ranks of the deified dead into the select Olympus of +individual gods. This has been a favourite theory of the making of a god +from the time of Euhemerus down to Herbert Spencer. There are religions +in which it is true for certain of the major gods, but there are no +traces of the process in Roman religion, and the reason is obvious in +view of the peculiar character of ancestor worship in Rome. + +We have now seen the principal elements which went to make up the family +religion and that part of the state religion which was an enlargement +and an imitation of the family religion. But even in the most primitive +times a Roman's life was not bounded by his own hut and the phenomenon +of death. There was work to be done in life, a living to be gained, and +here, as everywhere, there were hosts of unseen powers who must be +propitiated. His religion was not only coincident with every phase of +private life, it was also closely related to the specific occupations +and interests of the people, and just as the interests of the community, +its means of livelihood, were agriculture and stock-raising, so the gods +were those of the crops and the herds. Some years ago the late Professor +Mommsen succeeded in extracting from the existing stone calendars a list +of the religious festivals of the old Roman year, and also in proving +that this list of festivals was complete in its present condition at a +time before the city of Rome was surrounded by the wall which Servius +Tullius built, and that it therefore goes back to the old kingdom, the +time of what has been called the "Religion of Numa." We cannot go +through all the festivals in detail, but it is extremely interesting to +notice that almost every one of them is connected with the life of the +farmer and represents the action of propitiation towards some god or +group of gods at every time in the Roman year which was at all critical +for agricultural interests. + +It must not be forgotten also that this list is not absolutely complete, +because it represents merely the official state festivals, and not even +all of them but only those which fell upon the same day or days every +year, so that they could be engraved in the stone to form a perpetual +calendar. All state festivals, of which there were several, which were +appointed in each particular year according to the backward or forward +estate of the harvest, were omitted from the list, though they were +celebrated at some time in every year; and naturally the public +calendars contained no reference to the many private and semi-private +ceremonies of the year, with which the state had nothing official to do, +festivals of the family and the clan, and even local festivals of +various districts of the city. + +In this list of peaceful deities of the farm there is one god whose +character has been very much misunderstood because of the company which +he keeps; this is the god Mars. It has become the fashion of late to +consider him as a god of vegetation, and a great many ingenious +arguments have been brought forward to show his agricultural character. +But the more primitive a community is, the more intense is its struggle +for existence, and the more rife its rivalries with its neighbours. +Alongside of the ploughshare there must always have been the sword or +its equivalent, and along with Flora and Ceres there must always have +been a god of strife and battle. That Mars was this god in early as well +as later times is shown above all things by the fact that he was always +worshipped outside the city, as a god who must be kept at a distance. +Naturally his cult was associated with the dominant interest of life, +the crops, and he was worshipped in the beautiful ceremony of the +purification of the fields, which Mr. Walter Pater has so exquisitely +described at the opening of _Marius the Epicurean_. But he was regarded +as the protector of the fields and the warder off of evil influences +rather than as a positive factor in the development of the crops. Then +too in the early days of the Roman militia, before the regular army had +come into existence, the war season was only during the summer after the +planting and before the harvest, so that the two festivals which marked +the beginning and the end of that season were also readily associated +with the state of the crops at that time. + +But the most interesting and curious thing about this old religion is +not so much what it does contain as what it does not. It is not so much +what we find as what we miss, for more than half the gods whom we +instinctively associate with Rome were not there under this old regime. +Here is a partial list of those whose names we do not find: Minerva, +Diana, Venus, Fortuna, Hercules, Castor, Pollux, Apollo, Mercury, Dis, +Proserpina, Aesculapius, the Magna Mater. And yet their absence is not +surprising when we realise that almost all of the gods in this list +represent phases of life with which Rome in this early period was +absolutely unacquainted. She had no appreciable trade or commerce, no +manufactures or particular handicrafts, and no political interests +except the simple patriarchal government which sufficed for her present +needs. Her gods of water were the gods of rivers and springs; Neptune +was there, but he was not the ocean-god like the Greek Poseidon. Vulcan, +the god of fire, who was afterwards associated with the Greek Hephaistos +and became the patron of metal-working, was at this time merely the god +of destructive and not of constructive fire. Even the great god Juppiter +who was destined to become almost identical with the name and fame of +Rome was not yet a god of the state and politics, but merely the +sky-god, especially the lightning god, Juppiter Feretrius, the +"striker," who had a little shrine on the Capitoline where later the +great Capitoline temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus was to stand. +Another curious characteristic of this early age, which, I think, has +never been commented on, is the extraordinarily limited number of +goddesses. Vesta is the only one who seems to stand by herself without a +male parallel. Each of the others is merely the contrasted potentiality +in a pair of which the male is much more famous, and the only ones in +these pairs who ever obtained a pronounced individuality did so because +their cult was afterwards reinforced by being associated with some +extra-Roman cult. The best illustration of this last is Juno. We may go +further and say that it-seems highly probable that the worship of female +deities was in the main confined to the women of the community, while +the men worshipped the gods. This distinction extended even to the +priesthoods where the wife of the priest of a god was the priestess of +the corresponding goddess. Such a state of affairs is doubly interesting +in view of the pre-eminence of female deities in the early Greek world, +which has been so strikingly shown by Miss Jane Harrison in her recent +book, _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_. + +The most vital question which can be put to almost any religion is that +in regard to its expansive power and its adaptability to new conditions. +Society is bound to undergo changes, and a young social organism, if +normal, is continually growing new cells. New conditions are arising and +new interests are coming to the front. In addition, if the growth is to +be continuous, new material is being constantly absorbed, and the simple +homogeneous character of the old society is being entirely changed by +the influx of foreign elements. This is what occurred in ancient Rome, +and it is because ancient Roman religion was not capable of organic +development from within, that the curious things happened to it which +our history has to record. It is these strange external accretions which +lend the chief interest to the story, while at the same time they +conceal the original form so fully as to render the writing of a history +of Roman religion extremely difficult. + +Yet it must not be supposed because Roman religion was unable to adapt +itself to the new constitution of society with its contrasted classes, +and to the new commercial and political interests which attracted the +attention of the upper classes, that it was absolutely devoid within +itself, within its own limitations, of a certain capability of +development. For several centuries after outside influences began to +affect Rome, her original religion kept on developing alongside of the +new forms. The manner in which it developed is thoroughly significant of +the original national character of the Romans. + +We have seen that from the very beginning the nature of the gods as +powers rather than personalities tended to emphasise the value and +importance of the name, which usually indicated the particular function +or speciality of each deity and was very often the only thing known +about him. In the course of time as the original name of the deity began +to be thought of entirely as a proper name without any meaning, rather +than as a common noun explaining the nature of the god to which it was +attached, it became necessary to add to the original name some adjective +which would adequately describe the god and do the work which the name +by itself had originally done. And as the nature of the various deities +grew more complicated along with the increasing complications of daily +life, new adjectives were added, each one expressing some particular +phase of the god's activity. Such an adjective was called a _cognomen_, +and was often of very great importance because it began to be felt that +a god with one adjective, _i.e._ invoked for one purpose, was almost a +different god from the same god with a different adjective, _i.e._ +invoked for another purpose. Thus a knowledge of these adjectives was +almost as necessary as a knowledge of the name of the god. The next step +in the development was one which followed very easily. These important +adjectives began to be thought of as having a value and an existence in +themselves, apart from the god to which they were attached. The +grammatical change which accompanied this psychological movement was the +transfer of the adjective into an abstract noun. Both adjectives and +abstract nouns express quality, but the adjective is in a condition of +dependence on a noun, while the abstract noun is independent and +self-supporting. And thus, just as in certain of the lower organisms a +group of cells breaks off and sets up an individual organism of its own, +so in old Roman religion some phase of a god's activity, expressed in an +adjective, broke off with the adjective from its original stock and set +up for itself, turning its name from the dependent adjective form into +the independent abstract noun. Thus Juppiter, worshipped as a god of +good faith in the dealings of men with one another, the god by whom +oaths were sworn under the open sky, was designated as "Juppiter, +guarding-good-faith," Juppiter Fidius. There were however many other +phases of Juppiter's work, and hence the adjective _fidius_ became very +important as the means of distinguishing this activity from all the +others. Eventually it broke off from Juppiter and formed the abstract +noun _Fides_, the goddess of good faith, where the sex of the deity as a +goddess was entirely determined by the grammatical gender of abstract +nouns as feminine. + +This is all strange enough but there is one more step in the development +even more curious yet. This abstract goddess _Fides_ did not stay long +in the purely abstract sphere; she began very soon to be made concrete +again, as the Fides of this particular person or of that particular +group and as this Fides or that, until she became almost as concrete as +Juppiter himself had been, and hence we have a great many different +_Fides_ in seeming contradiction to the old grammatical rule that +abstract nouns had no plural. Now all this development in the field of +religion throws light upon the character of the Roman mind and its +instinctive methods of thought, and we see why it is that the Romans +were very great lawyers and very mediocre philosophers. Both law and +philosophy require the ability for abstract thought; in both cases the +essential qualities of a thing must be separated from the thing itself. +But in the case of philosophic thought this abstraction, these +qualities, do not immediately seek reincarnation. They continue as +abstractions and do not immediately descend to earth again, whereas for +law such a descent is absolutely necessary because jurisprudence is +interested not so much in the abstraction by itself, but rather in the +abstract as presented in concrete cases. Hence a type of mind which +found it equally easy to make the concrete into the abstract and then to +turn the abstract so made into a kind of concrete again, is _par +excellence_ the legal mind, and no better proof of the instinctive +tendency to law-making on the part of the Romans can be found than in +the fact that the same habits of mind which make laws also governed the +development of their religion. + +Unfortunately however it was not these abstract deities who could save +old Roman religion. They were merely the logical outcome of the deities +already existing, merely new offspring of the old breed. They did not +represent any new interests, but were merely the individualisation of +certain phases of the old deities, phases which had always been present +and were now at most merely emphasised by being worshipped separately. + + + + +THE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS + + +Like a lofty peak rising above the mists which cover the tops of the +lower-lying mountains, the figure of Servius Tullius towers above the +semi-legendary Tarquins on either side of him. We feel that we have to +do with a veritable character in history, and we find ourselves +wondering what sort of a man he was personally--a feeling that never +occurs to us with Romulus and the older kings, and comes to us only +faintly with the elder Tarquin, while the younger Tarquin has all the +marks of a wooden man, who was put up only to be thrown down, whose +whole _raison d'etre_ is to explain the transition from the kingdom to +the republic on the theory of a revolution. Eliminate the revolution, +suppose the change to have been a gradual and a constitutional one, and +you may discard the proud Tarquin without losing anything but a +lay-figure with its more or less gaudy trappings of later myths. But it +is not so with Servius; his wall and his constitution are very real and +defy all attempts to turn their maker into a legend. Yet on the other +hand we must be on our guard, for much of the definiteness which seems +to attach to him is rather the definiteness of a certain stage in Rome's +development, a certain well-bounded chronological and sociological +tract. It is dangerous to try to limit too strictly Servius's personal +part in this development; and far safer, though perhaps less +fascinating, to use his name as a general term for the changes which +Rome underwent from the time when foreign influences began to tell upon +her until the beginning of the republic. He forms a convenient title +therefore for certain phases of Rome's growth. And yet even this is not +strictly correct, for Servius stands not so much for the coming into +existence of certain facts, as for the recognition of the existence of +these facts. The facts themselves were of slow growth, covering probably +centuries, but the actions resulting from them, and the outward changes +in society, came thick and fast and may well have taken place, all of +them, within the limits of one man's life. The foundation fact upon +which all these changes were based is the influence of the outside world +on the Roman community. Until this time there had been little to +differentiate Rome from any other of the hill-communities of Italy, of +which there were scores in her immediate neighbourhood; nor was she the +only one to come into contact with the outside world. It was the effect +which that influence had upon her as contrasted with her neighbours +which made the difference. When we ask why this influence affected her +differently we find no satisfactory answer, and are in the presence of a +mystery--the world-old insoluble mystery of the superiority of one tribe +or one individual over others apparently of the same class. Political +history is wont to tell this chapter of Rome's story under the title of +the "Rise of the Plebeians," but the presence of the Plebeians was only +the outward symbol of an inward change. This change was the breaking up +of the monotonous one-class society of the primitive community with its +one--agricultural--interest, and the formation of a variegated +many-class society with manifold interests, such as trade, handicraft, +and politics. It was the awakening of Rome into a world-life out of her +century-long undisturbed bucolic slumber. + +There were at this time two peoples in Italy, who by reason of their +older culture were able to be Rome's teachers. One lay to the north of +her, the mysterious Etruscans, whose culture fortunately for Rome had +only a very moderate influence, because the Etruscan culture had already +lost much of its virility, possibly also because it was distinctly felt +to be foreign, and hence could effect no insidious entry, and probably +because Rome was at this time too strong and young and clean to take +anything but the best from Etruria. The other lay to the south, the +Greek colonies of Magna Graecia, separated from Rome for the present by +many miles of forest and by hostile tribes. Around her in Latium were +her own next of kin, the Latins, becoming rapidly inferior to her, but +enabled to do her at least this service, that of absorbing the foreign +influences which came, and in certain cases latinising them, and thus +transmitting them to Rome in a more or less assimilated condition. + +The three great facts in the life of Rome during this period are the +coming of Greek merchants and Greek trade from the south, the coming of +Etruscan artisans and handicraft from the north, and the beginnings of +her political rivalry and gradual prominence in the league of Latin +cities around her. Each one of these movements is reflected in the +religious changes of the period. In regard to the first two this is not +surprising, for the ancient traveller, like his mythical prototype +Aeneas, carried his gods with him. Thus there were worshipped in private +in Rome the gods of all the peoples who settled within her walls, and +the presence of these gods was destined to make its influence felt. Your +primitive polytheist is very catholic in his religious tastes; for, when +one is already in possession of many gods, the addition of a few more is +a minor matter, especially when, as was now the case in Rome, these +deities are the patrons of occupations and interests hitherto entirely +unknown to the Roman, and hence not provided for in his scheme of gods. +It was therefore in no spirit of disloyalty to the already existing +gods, and with no desire to introduce rival deities, that the new cults +began to spread until they became so important as to call for state +recognition. + +Possibly the most interesting cases are those of the two gods who came +from the south, Hercules and Castor, interesting because they were the +forerunners of that great multitude of Greek gods who later came in +proudly by special invitation, and even more interesting yet because, +though they were Greek as Greek could be, they came into Rome, as it +were, incognito, and were so far from being known as Greek, that, when +the same gods came in afterwards more directly, these new-comers were +felt to be quite a different thing, and their worship was carried on in +another part of the city away from the old-established cults. + +In the Greek world Herakles and Hermes were the especial patrons of +travellers, and as travelling was never done for pleasure but always for +business, they became the patrons of the travelling merchant. It was +also natural that they should go with the settlers away from the +mother-city into the new colony. Thus it was that they came from the +mother-land into the colonies of Magna Graecia in Southern Italy, and +once being established there made their way slowly but inevitably +northwards. The story of Hermes, under the name of Mercury, belongs to a +later chapter, but that of Herakles = Hercules must be recounted here. +It is only within the last few years that the scholarly world has been +persuaded that there was no such thing as an original Italic Hercules; +at first sight it was very difficult to believe, because there seemed to +be so many apparently very old Italic legends centering in Hercules. But +it has been shown, either that these legends never existed and rest +solely upon false interpretation of monuments, or that, though they did +exist at an early date, they were introduced under Greek influence. It +was the trading merchant therefore who brought Herakles northward. And +as the god went, his name was softened into Hercules, and with the +assimilation of the name to the tongue of the Italic people, there went +hand in hand an adaptation of his nature to their needs, so that by +degrees he became thoroughly italicised both in form and content. It is +probable that the cult came into Rome as well as into the other cities +of Latium, but in Rome it was confined to a few individuals, and at +first obtained no public recognition. On the contrary, for reasons that +we are at a loss to find, this Greek cult seems to have reached very +large proportions in the little town of Tibur (Tivoli), fourteen miles +north-east of Rome. There it dominated all other worship and lost so +much of its foreign atmosphere that it became thoroughly latinised. In +the course of time the Roman state acknowledged this Tivoli cult of +Hercules and accepted a branch of it as its own. But the extraordinary +thing about this acknowledgment is that the Romans felt it to be a Latin +and not a foreign cult. They showed this intimate and friendly feeling +by permitting an altar to Hercules to be erected within the city proper, +in the Forum Boarium. But in order to understand the significance of +this act a word of digression is necessary. + +Under the old Roman regime every act of life was performed under the +supervision of the gods, and this godly patronage was especially +emphasised in acts which affected the life of the community. No act was +of greater importance for the community than the choice of a home, the +location of a settlement. Thus the founding of an ancient city was +accompanied by sacred rites, chief among which was the ploughing of a +furrow around the space which was ultimately to be enclosed by the wall. +This furrow formed a symbolic wall on very much the same principle as +that on which the witch draws her circle. The furrow was called the +_pomerium_ and was to the world of the gods what the city wall was to +the world of men. It did not however always coincide with the actual +city wall, and the space it embraced was sometimes less, sometimes more, +than that embraced by the city wall; and just as new walls covering +larger territory could be built for the city, so a new _pomerium_ line +could be drawn. As was becoming for a spiritual barrier there was +nothing to mark it except the boundary stones through which the +imaginary line passed. The wall, which Servius built and which continued +to be the outer wall of Rome for a period of eight or nine hundred years +until the third Christian century, was at the time of its building +coincident in the main with the line of the _pomerium_, with one very +important exception: namely that all the region of the Aventine, which +was inside the limits of the political city and embraced by the Servian +wall, lay outside the _pomerium_ line and was in other words outside the +religious city. It continued thus all through the republic and into the +empire until the reign of Claudius. Originally the _pomerium_ line +played an important part in the religious world and it continued to do +so until the middle of the republic, during the Second Punic War, when +its sanctity was destroyed and it lost its real religious significance, +though it remained as a formal institution. As a divine barrier it +served originally in the world of the gods very much the same purpose as +the material wall of stone did in the world of men. Before the problem +of foreign gods had begun to exist for the Romans, in the good old days +when they knew only the gods of their own religion, the _pomerium_ +served to keep within the bounds of Rome all the beneficent kindly gods +whose presence was not needed outside in the fields, and it served fully +as important a purpose in keeping outside of Rome the gods who were +feared rather than loved, for example the dread war-god Mars. When +foreign gods began to be introduced into Rome they might, of course, be +worshipped inside the _pomerium_ by private individuals, but when the +state acknowledged them it was more prudent that her worship should be +outside the sacred wall. Thus it came to pass that the foreign gods, who +were taken into the cult of the Roman state, were given temples in the +Campus Martius or over on the Aventine, and the two or three cases where +they were publicly worshipped inside the _pomerium_ form no real +exception to this rule--such an exception would be, in fact, quite +unthinkable in the strictly logical system of Roman worship--but these +gods were allowed inside because they came to Rome from her kinsfolk, +the Latins, and were not felt to be foreign. + +Hercules is one of the cases in this last category. Though originally, +as we have seen, a Greek god, his long residence in Tibur (Tivoli) had +made him, as it were, a naturalised citizen of Latium, and hence Rome +felt it no impropriety to take him inside her _pomerium_. At first his +worship seems to have been carried on by two clans, the Potitii and the +Pinarii, but later, during the republic, the state assumed control. But +though it was really the Greek Herakles who had come in as the latinised +Hercules, the god had paid a certain price for his admission, for he +came stripped of all the various attributes which he had had in Greece +and retaining merely his function as patron of trade and travel. It was +this practical side of his nature alone which appealed to the Romans; it +found its expression in the offering of "the tenth" at the great altar +in the Forum Boarium. This altar always remained in a certain sense the +centre of Hercules-worship in Rome. It was reinforced at an early date +by no less than three temples of Hercules in the more or less immediate +neighbourhood, all of which were characterised by the same relative +simplicity of ritual. Centuries later Herakles became known to the +Romans through direct Greek channels, and it was recognised that this +new Herakles was akin to the old Hercules, so that he too was called +Hercules. There was nothing surprising in this to the Romans, because +they considered it a matter of course that there should be found a +parallel among their own gods for each Greek deity. They never +understood the true state of affairs; it is doubtful whether they could +have understood it: namely, that in almost all their other +identifications of Roman and Greek deities, they were really doing +violence to their own native gods by superimposing upon them the +attributes of a deity with whom they had really nothing in common, +whereas, in identifying the new Herakles with their old Hercules, they +were doing a perfectly legitimate thing. For one who knows the true +state of affairs there is something pathetically amusing in the fact +that they really showed more delicacy in making their old (really +originally Greek) Hercules into the new Greek Herakles-Hercules, than +they did in throwing together Neptune and Poseidon, Mars and Ares, Diana +and Artemis. As a matter of fact they always reverenced the old cult of +the great altar, and never allowed the more sensational phases of Greek +worship to be practised there, and put off into another quarter the +temples which were built to Hercules under the various new attributes +which the new Greek cult brought with it. These temples were placed, as +was proper, outside the _pomerium_, in the southern part of the Campus +Martius. + +But to return to the simple Hercules and the Servian regime, the Roman +state had now obtained a deity, of which, by the contagion of commerce, +they already felt a need, a god of great power from whom came success in +the practical undertakings of life. Hence he had a strong hold on the +Romans whose practical side was undergoing a rapid development. The idea +of trade was now represented in the religious world, it had received its +divine sanction. + +The other god, who came up from Magna Graecia and whose formal +acceptance into the state-cult formed one of the earliest incidents in +the breakdown of the old agricultural religion, was Castor, with his +twin-brother Pollux, although brother Pollux was always an insignificant +partner, so much so that the temple which was subsequently built to them +both was referred to either as the temple of "Castor" alone or as the +temple of "the Castors." At various points in the old Greek world we +meet with a pair of brothers, at first not designated by individual +names but merely named as a pair. Even these pair-names do not agree, +but they represent all of them the same idea. Later when individual +names are substituted for the general pair-name, these individual names +also differ. They are gods of protection, and on the sea-coast--and most +of Greece is sea-coast--they are especially helpful as rescuers from the +dangers of the sea, and they are also very early and almost everywhere +connected with horses. But in spite of their usefulness they are not +very prominent, and it is doubtful whether they would ever have become +famous, except for one of those little accidents which make the fortunes +of gods as well as of men. It so happened that horses began to be used +in warfare more than for the mere drawing of chariots; a primitive sort +of cavalry came into being, produced by mounting heavy-armed +foot-soldiers on horseback. With this cavalry the "Twin-Brothers" +(_Dios-kouroi_ = "Sons of Zeus"), especially Castor, became prominent. +Just as the Greek merchants had taken Herakles with them when they set +out to plant colonies in Southern Italy, so the heavy-mounted horsemen +carried their god Castor with them wherever they went. The Italic tribes +in their turn were quick to seize upon this idea of cavalry, and with +it as an essential part went its divine patron, Castor. Thus the +Castor-cult moved steadily northward, carried, as it were, on horseback. +At last it reached Latium, and there the little town of Tusculum, +afterwards so famous as the residence of Cicero, became in some +unaccountable way an important cult-centre, and did for Castor what +Tibur had done for Hercules, _i.e._ latinised him, so that Rome received +him not as an alien but as one of her kin. There can be little doubt +that the Roman cult actually did come from Tusculum, and that in its +introduction into Rome, as in every other step on its march, it was +connected with the reorganisation of the cavalry. This would seem to +imply that Tusculum was famous for its cavalry and that Rome took the +idea of it from her--statements for which we have unfortunately no other +confirmation, though we have abundant proof of the cult at Tusculum and +of Rome's close association with it. + +Castor was thus the patron of the "horsemen" (_equites_) and his great +day was July 15, when the horsemen's parade took place. Possibly this +had been the date of the festival at Tusculum, a day especially +appropriate because it was the Ides of the month, and the Ides were +sacred to Juppiter, whose sons Castor and Pollux (_Dios-kouroi_) were +supposed to be. It is extremely interesting in the light of this +knowledge of the true state of affairs to see how legend later +explained the coming of Castor and Pollux. It was an incident in the +mythical war which was supposed to have taken place after the last +Tarquin had been driven out, and the republic had been started. The +adversaries of Rome, allied with Tarquin, notably Octavius Mamilius of +Tusculum, fought against the Romans in the battle of Lake Regillus on +July 15, B.C. 499. The Romans won, and the first news of victory was +brought to Rome by the miraculous appearance of Castor and Pollux who +were seen watering their horses in the Forum at the spring of Juturna. A +temple on this spot was then vowed and fifteen years later, B.C. 484, it +was completed and dedicated. Tusculum, July 15, and the dedication of +the temple in B.C. 484 are seemingly the only historical facts in this +legend; and long before B.C. 499 Castor was worshipped in Rome, +especially on July 15. The site of his original worship was without +doubt the same locality in the Forum where his temple was subsequently +built, for it is an almost invariable rule that the earliest temples are +built on the actual site of, or close to, the old altar or shrine which +preceded the formal temple. Like Hercules therefore he was received +inside the _pomerium_, and probably for a similar reason, because it was +felt that he was a god of Tusculum, and hence a god of Rome's kinsfolk. +We have an additional confirmation of this feeling in the way in which +the later direct cult of Castor was treated. This cult, connecting +Castor with healing and the interpretation of dreams, and emphasising +his function as a rescuer from the dangers of the sea, would have been +without meaning for the old Romans who worshipped him merely as a patron +of horsemen and horsemanship. The new ideas seem to have had as their +centre a later temple in the Circus Flaminius and thus Hercules and +Castor may again be paralleled, since they have, each of them, an old +cult-centre inside the _pomerium_, Hercules in the Forum Boarium, Castor +in the Forum, and a later cult-centre, for more advanced ideas, in each +case in the Circus Flaminius. + +Although it was Greek influence which ultimately caused the destruction +of Roman religion, and although the cults of Hercules and of Castor are +the first definite effects of this influence, it cannot be said that the +destruction had in any sense begun, because in their slow journey +northward, and in their long residence at Tibur and Tusculum +respectively, the two cults had lost all that was pernicious. The Roman +instinct, which felt them to be akin to itself, did not go amiss; they +were indeed akin to the new Rome with its new interest in trade and its +increased interest in warfare, for the trader and the warrior have gone +side by side in all ages of the world's history, whether it be a +primitive instinct to grasp territory for commercial purposes or a more +civilised endeavour to obtain an open port. + +The beginnings of Greek influence have thus been exhibited in the case +of Hercules and of Castor, and it remains to inquire what Etruria did. +There is no race about which we know so much and yet so little as about +the Etruscans. They have always been and still are a riddle, and as our +knowledge of them increases we seem further than ever from a solution, +and what we gain in positive knowledge is more than counterbalanced by +the increased sense of our ignorance. Altogether aside from the problem +of the origin of the Etruscans, and the race to which they belonged, is +the other problem of their disappearance. In a certain sense Etruria +steps out of history quite as mysteriously as she entered into it, nay +even more mysteriously, for we are always willing to allow a certain +percentage of mystery as the legitimate accompaniment of prehistoric +history, but when in the light of more or less historic times a nation +steps off the stage of the world's history, and leaves practically no +heritage behind her, we have a right to be amazed. Of all the peoples in +Italy Rome ought in the order of events to have been her successor, and +yet when we contrast the influence of Etruria on Rome with the influence +of the Greek colonies of Southern Italy we see an amazing difference. +The influence of these Greek colonies on Rome prepared the way for the +direct influence of the Greek motherland, so that one passed over into +the other by imperceptible gradations, but the influence of Etruria on +Rome not only led to nothing but was in itself of a most superficial +sort. Etruria must have had some literature, yet we search the history +of Roman literature in vain for any traces of the influence of that +literature on Rome, with the one exception of books on divination and +the interpretation of lightning. We know too little of her manners and +customs to be able to tell exactly how much they may have influenced +Rome, and yet it is worth noting that the things which Roman writers +actually refer to Etruria, are all of them most superficial: a few of +the insignia of political office; a few of the trappings of one or two +ritualistic acts; a branch of divination, by the consultation of the +entrails (_haruspicina_), which was of secondary importance compared to +augury; and the most depraved form of Roman public sport, the +gladiatorial games. The only fundamental institution of Rome which it is +the habit to ascribe to Etruria, the idea of the so-called _templum_ or +division of the sky into regions as an axiom of augury, seems to have +been quite as much a general Italic idea as a specifically Etruscan one. +Even in art her influence was relatively slight, and though her +architects seem to have built the earliest formal temples for Rome, they +were soon succeeded in this work by the Greeks. We seek in vain for a +complete and satisfactory explanation of this limitation of her +influence, but certain thoughts suggest themselves, which, as far as +they go, are probably correct. All that we know of Etruria impresses us +with the fact that hers was an outward civilisation unaccompanied by an +inward culture, that it was a formal rather than a spiritual growth, an +artificial acquisition from without rather than a development from +within outwards. It was strong but with its strength went brutality, it +was interested in art but for its sensual rather than its spiritual +aspects. Now the idealism of youth is present in nations just as in +individuals, though probably a nation is less conscious of it than an +individual. It is with the nation one of the effects of the instinct of +self-preservation, and for a youthful nation to absorb the vices of an +old decadent one would be self-destruction. Thus the youthful Rome +rejected most of the Etruscan poison, and thus nature purified herself, +and Etruria was buried in the pit of her own nastiness. + +There was however one town which acted as an interpreter between Rome +and Etruria, and was the original cult-centre for a very great goddess, +spreading her cult in both directions, into Rome and into Etruria. The +town was Falerii and the goddess was Minerva, who in a certain sense +entered Rome three times, once direct from Falerii to Rome, and once +from Falerii to Rome by way of Etruria, and finally, when Falerii was +captured by the Romans, again direct to Rome. In the earliest period +there are scarcely any traces of the worship of Minerva in Latium or +Southern Italy, and we are absolutely certain that she was not known in +Rome. In the country north of Rome, however, the situation is different +There she is found quite frequently, especially in Etruria under the +name of MENERVA or MENRVA. Yet she cannot have been an Etruscan goddess, +because the name itself is Italic and not Etruscan. She is therefore +neither Roman, nor Etruscan, nor Latin, at least so far as we know Latin +in Latium. If we can find a place however where a Latin people is under +strong Etruscan influence, we shall be near the solution. Such a place +is Falerii, in the country of the Faliscans. To the ancients it appeared +so thoroughly Etruscan that they go out of their way to explain that it +was not. As a matter of fact it was the only Latin town on the right +bank of the Tiber, and because of its locality it was early brought into +vital connection with the Etruscans, so vital that while it never lost +all of its original Latin character, it lost enough of it to exercise a +very considerable direct influence over Etruria, and to be to a very +large extent influenced by her in turn. We cannot of course positively +prove that Minerva was originally worshipped only at Falerii, and that +her cult spread entirely from this one point, but we have at least +strong negative evidence, and so far as the general history of ancient +religion is concerned there is nothing impossible in such a spread. +Religious history shows many parallels to this; for example the classic +case of the god Eros of Thespiae, in Boeotia, who would have lived and +died merely a little insignificant local god, if it had not been for the +Boeotian poet Hesiod who adopted Eros into his poetry and thus gave him +a start in life by which he ultimately succeeded in going all over the +Greek world, and then passing into Rome as Cupid; and so into all later +times. + +We are accustomed to think of Minerva as the Latin name for Athena, the +daughter of Zeus, and unconsciously we clothe Minerva with all the glory +of Athena and endow her with Athena's many-sidedness. In reality the +little peasant goddess of Falerii had originally nothing in common with +Athena except the fact that both of them were interested in handicraft +and the handicraftsman, but Athena had a hundred other interests +besides, while this one thing seems to have filled the whole of +Minerva's horizon. When Minerva went on her travels into Etruria, she +came among a people who eventually learned from the representations of +Greek art a very considerable amount of Greek mythology, and who, when +they heard of Athena, saw her resemblance to Minerva and began thus to +associate the two. But even in this association Minerva was still +pre-eminently the goddess of the artisan and the labouring man, she was +the patroness of the works of man's hands rather than of the works of +his mind, and as such she was brought into Rome by Etruscan and +Faliscan workmen. At first she was worshipped merely by these workmen in +their own houses, but by degrees as the number of these workmen +increased and as a knowledge of their handicraft spread to native +Romans, Minerva became so prominent that the state was compelled to +acknowledge her, and to accept her among the gods of the state. But it +was a very different acknowledgment from that of Hercules or Castor; +these gods had been received inside the _pomerium_, but Minerva was +given a temple outside, over on the Aventine. None the less her cult +throve, and her power was soon shown both religiously and socially. Her +great festival was on the 19th of March, a day which had been originally +sacred to Mars, but the presence of Minerva's celebrations on that day +soon caused the associations with Mars to be almost entirely forgotten. +Socially her temple became the meeting-place of all the artisans of +Rome, it was at once their religious centre and their business +headquarters. There they met in their primitive guilds (_collegia_) and +arranged their affairs, and thus it continued to be as long as pagan +Rome lasted. The respect shown to these guilds of Minerva is nowhere +more clearly exhibited than in an incident which happened in the time of +the Second Punic War, several centuries after the introduction of the +cult. Terrified by adverse portents the Roman Senate instructed the old +poet Livius Andronicus to write a hymn in honour of Juno and to train a +chorus of youths and maidens to sing it. The hymn was sung, and was such +a great success that the gratitude of the Senate took the form of +granting permission to the poets of the city to have a guild of their +own, and a meeting-place along with the older guilds in the temple of +Minerva on the Aventine. This was the Roman state's first expression of +literary appreciation; from her standpoint it was flattery indeed, for +were not poets by this decree made equal to butchers, bakers, and +cloth-makers, and was not poetry acknowledged to be of some practical +use and adjudged a legitimate occupation? + +The history of the cult of Minerva is much more complicated than that of +Hercules or Castor. Like them she was subjected to strong Greek +influence, and, as we shall see later, not very long after her +introduction she was taken into the company of Juppiter and Juno, thus +forming the famous Capitoline triad. Also temples were built to her +individually under various aspects of the worship of Athena with whom +she gradually became identified, but in the old Aventine temple the +original idea of Minerva, the working man's friend, continued +practically unchanged. Doubtless the society of Servius's day, who +witnessed the coming of Minerva, did not realise what this introduction +meant, and how absolutely necessary it was for Rome's future +development that the artisan class should be among her people, and that +this class should be represented in the world of the gods. They little +knew that in the temple on the Aventine was being brought to expression +the trade-union idea, which was to pass over into the mediaeval guild of +both workmen and masters, still under religious auspices, and to find a +latter-day parody in the modern labour-union, with its spirit of +hostility to employers, and its indifference, at least as an +organisation, to things religious. + +Trade and handicraft were thus added to the Roman world, of men on +earth, and of the gods above the earth, and it remains for us to +consider the awakening of the political spirit and its corresponding +religious phenomenon; but before we do this, we must clear the way by +casting aside one ancient hypothesis connected with Servius's religious +reforms, which is not correct, at least in the way in which the ancients +meant it. + +The writing of the earlier period of Rome's history is sometimes +complicated rather than helped by the statements of the generally +well-meaning but often misguided historians of later times. Their real +knowledge of the facts was in many cases no greater than ours, while +they lacked what modern historians possess: a breadth of view and a +knowledge of the phenomena of history in many periods and among many +nations. The study of the social and religious movements under Servius +presents us with an interesting illustration of this. It was customary +namely to ascribe to Servius Tullius the introduction of the cult of +Fortuna, and Plutarch takes occasion twice in his _Moralia_ to describe +the interest of Servius in this cult and to recount the extraordinary +number of temples which he built to the great goddess of chance under +her various attributes. The Romans of Plutarch's day thought of Fortuna +in very much the way in which their poets, especially Horace, described +her, as a great and powerful goddess of chance, the personification of +the element of apparent caprice which seems to be present in the running +of the universe. It is very much our way of thinking of her, and of +course both our own concept and the later Roman concept go back to +Greece. But Greece had not always had this idea of the goddess of luck. +The older purer age of Greek thought was permeated with the idea of the +absolute immutable character of the divine will, a belief which +precluded the possibility of chance or caprice. The earliest Greek Tyche +(Fortuna) was the daughter of Zeus who fulfilled his will; and that his +will through her was often a beneficent will is shown in the tendency to +think of her as a goddess of plenty. It was only the growth of +scepticism, the failure of faith to bear up under the apparently +contradictory lessons of experience, which brought into being in the +Alexandrian age Tyche, the goddess of chance, the winged capricious +deity poised on the ball. It was this habit of thought which eventually +gave the Romans that idea of Fortuna which has became our idea because +it is the prevalent one in Roman literature and life in the periods with +which we are most familiar. Now if Fortuna be thought of in this latter +way, it is a very easy matter to connect her with Servius Tullius, for +the legendary accounts of Servius's career picture him as a very child +of "fortune," raised from the lowest estate to the highest power, the +little slave boy who became king. What goddess would he delight to +honour, if not the goddess of the happy chance which had made him what +he was? + +All this is very pretty, but it is unfortunately quite impossible, +because whatever the time may have been when Fortuna began to be +worshipped in Rome, it is certain that the idea of chance did not enter +into the concept of her until long after Servius's day. Instead the +early Fortuna was a goddess of plenty and fertility, among mankind as a +protectress of women and of childbirth, among the crops and the herds as +a goddess of fertility and fecundity. Her full name was probably Fors +Fortuna, a name which survived in two old temples across the river from +Rome proper, in Trastevere, where she was worshipped in the country by +the farmers in behalf of the crops. Fortuna is thus merely the cult-name +added to the old goddess Fors to intensify her meaning, which finally +broke off from her and became independent, expressing the same idea of +a goddess of plenty. Later under Greek influence the concept of luck, +especially good-luck, slowly displaced the older idea. The possibility +of such a transition from fertility to good-luck is shown us in the +phrase "_arbor felix_," which originally meant a fruitful tree and later +a tree of good omen. As regards Fortuna and Servius therefore there is +no inherent reason why they should have been connected, and whenever it +was that Fortuna began to exist, be it before or after Servius, she came +into the world as a goddess of plenty and did not turn into a goddess of +luck till centuries after her birth. + +It must not be supposed that Rome in this sixth century before Christ +could take into herself all these traders and artisans, and become thus +interested also among her own citizens in these new employments, without +receiving a corresponding impulse toward a larger political life. Thus +there began that ever-increasing participation in the affairs of the +Latin league, which was her first step toward acquiring a world +dominion. It is probable that Rome had always belonged to this league, +but at first as a very insignificant member. Those were the days in +which Alba Longa stood out as leader, a leadership which she afterwards +lost, but of which the recollection was retained because the Alban Mount +behind Alba Longa remained the cult-centre, connected with the worship +of the god of the league, the Juppiter of the Latins (Juppiter +Latiaris), not only until B.C. 338 when the league ceased to exist, but +even later when Rome kept up a sentimental celebration of the old +festival. In the course of time, for reasons which we do not know, Alba +Longa's power declined and the mantle of her supremacy fell upon Aricia, +a little town still in existence not far from Albano. The coming of +Aricia to the presidency of the league started a religious movement +which is one of the most extraordinary in the checkered history of Roman +religion. The ultimate result of this movement was the introduction of +the goddess Diana into the state-cult of Rome, where she was +subsequently identified with Apollo's sister Artemis. But this is a long +story, and to understand it we must go back some distance to make our +beginning. + +Among the more savage tribes and in the wilder mountain regions of both +Greece and Italy there was worshipped a goddess who had a different name +in each country, Artemis in Greece, Diana in Italy, but who was in +nature very much the same. This does not imply that it was the same +goddess originally or that the early Artemis of Greece had any influence +on the Diana of Italy. Their similarity was probably caused merely by +the similarity of the conditions from which they sprang, the similar +needs of the two peoples. She was a goddess of the woods, and of nature, +and especially of wild animals, a patroness of the hunt and the +huntsman, but also a goddess of all small animals, of all helpless +little ones, and a helper too of those that bore them, hence a goddess +of birth, and in the sphere of mankind a goddess of women and of +childbirth. Later in Greece Artemis was absorbed into the sea-cult of +Apollo on the island of Delos, where she became Apollo's sister, like +him the child of Latona; but naturally Diana experienced no similar +change until in Rome, centuries later, she was artificially identified +with Artemis. In the earliest times there were two places in Italy where +the cult of Diana was especially prominent, both, as we should expect, +in wooded mountainous regions: one on Mount Tifata (near Capua), the +modern St. Angelo in Formis; the other in Latium, in a grove near +Aricia. It is with this latter cult-centre that we have here to do. The +grove near Aricia became so famous that the goddess worshipped there was +known as "Diana of the Grove" (Diana Nemorensis), and the place where +she was worshipped was called the "Grove" (_nemus_), a name which is +still retained in the modern "Nemi." She was a goddess of the woods, of +the animal kingdom, of birth, and so of women; and almost all the +dedicatory inscriptions which have been found near her shrine were put +up by women. She was worshipped above all by the people of Aricia, and +she seems to have been the patron deity of the town. When it fell to +Aricia's lot to become the head of the league, her goddess Diana +promptly assumed an important position in the league, not because she +had by nature any political bearing whatsoever, but merely because she +was wedded to Aricia, and experienced all the vicissitudes of her +career. Thus there came into the league, alongside of the old Juppiter +Latiaris of the Alban Mount, the new Diana Nemorensis of Aricia, and +sacrifices to her formed a part of the solemn ritual of the united towns +of Latium. It does not take actually a great many years for a religious +custom to acquire sanctity, and before many generations had passed, +Diana was felt to be quite as original and essential a part of the +worship of the league as Juppiter himself. During these same centuries +Rome was growing in importance and influence in the league, until, +instead of being one of its insignificant towns, she was in a fair way +to become its president. Here her diplomacy stepped in to help her. The +league was of course essentially a political institution, but in a +primitive society political institutions are still in tutelage to +religious ones, and the direct road to strong political influence lies +through religious zeal. The way to leadership in the Latin league lay +through excessive devotion to Juppiter and Diana. It is therefore no +accidental coincidence that we find Rome in the period of Servius +building a temple to Juppiter Latiaris on the top of the Alban Mount, +and introducing the worship of Diana into Rome, building her a temple on +the Aventine, hence outside the _pomerium_. Yet it was not the +introduction of her worship as an ordinary state-cult, for then she +would have been taken inside the _pomerium_ with far greater right than +Hercules and Castor were. It was, on the contrary, the building of a +sanctuary of the league outside the _pomerium_, yet inside the civil +wall; not the adoption of Diana as a Roman goddess, but the close +association of the Diana of the Latin league with Rome. It was the +attempt to put Rome religiously as well as politically into the position +which Aricia held; and it was successful. Diana was still the +league-goddess; tradition has it that the league helped to build the +temple; and the dedication day of the temple, August 13, was the same as +that of the temple at Nemi. The Roman temple was outside the _pomerium_ +therefore, not because she was a foreign goddess like Minerva, but +because as a league-goddess she must be outside, not inside, the sacred +wall of Rome. + +Diana had been introduced for a specific purpose as part of a diplomatic +game, not because Rome felt any real religious need of her; it is hardly +to be expected therefore that her subsequent career in Rome would be of +any great importance. Naturally when once the state had taken the +responsibility of the cult upon itself, that cult was assured as long as +pagan Rome lasted, for the state was always faithful, at least in the +mechanical performance of a ritual act; but popular interest could not +be counted on, especially as many of the things which Diana stood for, +for example her relation to women, were ably represented by Juno. It is +not likely that Diana would ever have been of importance in the religion +of subsequent time, had it not been for another accident which served to +keep alive the interest in Diana, just as the accident of Diana's +connection with the Latin league had aroused that interest in the +beginning. This was the coming of Apollo and his sister Artemis. Apollo +came first, probably during the time of Servius, but Artemis seems to +have come much later, not before B.C. 431. Her identification with Diana +was inevitable, and from that time onward Diana begins a new life with +all the attributes and myths of Artemis, but this new Artemis-Diana was +quite as different a goddess from the old Aventine Diana as the new +Athena-Minerva was from the old Aventine Minerva. + +The political interest of the Romans had been aroused, they had found +their life-work, their career was opening before them, and it must not +be supposed that the reflex action of this new political spirit on the +religious world was confined to the building of two league temples, one +to Juppiter Latiaris on the Alban Mount, miles away from Rome, and one +to Diana outside the _pomerium_ over in the woods of the Aventine. This +political interest was no artificial acquisition, but the inevitable +expression of an instinct. It must therefore find its representation +inside the city, in connexion with a deity who was already deep in the +hearts of the people. This deity could be none other than the sky-father +Juppiter, who had stood by them in the old days of their exclusively +farming life, sending them sunshine and rain in due season. Up on the +Capitoline he was worshipped as _Feretrius_, "the striker," in his most +fearful attribute as the god of the lightning. To him the richest spoils +of war (_spolia opima_) were due, and to him the conqueror gave thanks +on his return from battle. It was this Juppiter of the Capitoline who +was chosen to be the divine representative of Rome's political ambition; +and her confidence in the future, and the omen of her inevitable success +lay in the cult-names, the _cognomina_, with which this Juppiter was +henceforth and forever adorned, Juppiter Optimus Maximus. These +adjectives are no mere idle ornament, no purely pleasant phraseology; +they express not merely the excellence of Rome's Juppiter but his +absolute superiority to all other Juppiters, including Juppiter +Latiaris. And so while Rome with one hand was building a temple for the +league on the Alban Mount, merely as a member of the league, with the +other hand she was building a temple in the heart of her city to a god +who was to bring into subjection to himself all other gods who dared to +challenge his supremacy, just as the city which paid him honour was to +overcome all other cities which refused to acknowledge her. From +henceforth Juppiter Optimus Maximus represents all that is most truly +Roman in Rome. It was under his banner that her battles were fought, it +was to him in all time to come that returning generals gave thanks. + +Tradition sets the completion of the Capitoline temple in the first year +of the republic, but the idea and the actual beginning of the work +belong to the later kingdom and hence to our present period, and the +contemplation of it forms a fitting close to the development which we +have tried to sketch. And now that this part of our work is over it may +be well to ask ourselves what we have seen, for there have been so many +bypaths which we have of necessity explored, that the main road we have +travelled may not be entirely distinct in our mind. In the period which +corresponds to the later kingdom, and roughly to the sixth century +before Christ, and which we have called "Servian" for convenience, we +have watched a primitive pastoral community, isolated from the world's +life, turning into a small city-state with political interests, the +beginnings of trade and handicraft, and various rival social classes; +and we have seen how along with the coming of these outside interests +there came various new cults connected with them, most of them implying +entirely new deities, and only one or two of them new sides of old +deities. The body of old Roman religion had received its first blows; +what Tacitus (_Hist._ i. 4) says of the downfall of the empire--"Then +was that secret of the empire disclosed, that it was possible for a +ruler to be appointed elsewhere than at Rome"--is true of Roman religion +in this period when it was discovered that the state might take into +itself deities from outside Rome. And yet while the principle itself was +fatal, the practice of it, so far, had been without much harm. Rome's +growth was inevitable, it was quite as inevitable that these new +interests should be represented in the world of the gods; her old gods +did not suffice, hence new ones were introduced. But the actual gods +brought in thus far were harmless; Hercules, Castor, Minerva, Diana +never did Rome any injury in themselves, never injured her national +_morale_, never lowered the tone of earnest sobriety which had been +characteristic of the old regime. + +So far it was good, and well had it been for Rome if she could have shut +the gate of her Olympus now. What the old religion had not provided was +now present. Politics, trade, and art were now represented. With these +she was abundantly supplied for all her future career. But that was not +to be, the gate was still open, and the destructive influence of Greece +was soon to send in a host of new deities, who were destined not only to +overwhelm the old Roman gods--which in itself we might forgive--but to +sap away the old Roman virtues, to the maintenance of which the +atmosphere of these old gods was essential. The forerunner of this +influence was in himself innocent enough, it was Apollo, and it is to +his coming and the subsequent developments which set him in distinct +opposition to Juppiter Optimus Maximus that we now turn. + + + + +THE COMING OF THE SIBYL + + +The Rome of the first consuls was a very different Rome from that of the +earlier kings. Not only was the population larger but it was divided +socially into different classes. The simple patriarchal one-class +community had been transformed into the complex structure of a society +which had in it virtually all those elements and interests, except the +more strictly intellectual ones, which go to make up what we call +society in the modern sense. The world of the gods also had increased in +population, and there too there was present a slight social distinction +between the old gods (_Indigetes_) and the new-comers (_Novensides_), +though it is open to question how strongly this distinction was felt. +The new gods thus far were not incommensurable with the old ones. They +formed a tolerably harmonious circle, and there was not felt to be any +need of new priesthoods; the old priests were sufficient to look after +them all. There were a few new names, and a few new temples or altars, +but everything was in the old spirit, and there was no rivalry between +the old and the new. None of the old gods was crowded into the +background by the new-comers. This was on the face of it impossible as +yet, because the new gods all represented new ideas which had not been +provided for under the old scheme. Even Diana, who afterwards usurped +somewhat the functions of Juno, stood at present pre-eminently for the +political idea pure and simple, so far as Rome was concerned. This +period of equipoise did not continue very long, but while it lasted it +was beyond doubt the best and strongest period in the whole history of +Roman religion. There was no violent religious enthusiasm, but then +there was no corresponding depression offsetting it. It was the cold but +conscientious formalism which was best adapted to the Roman character, +because so long as it held sway the excesses of superstition were +avoided. + +But this element of superstition was already on the way, it came in +within a few years of the opening of the republic, and it exercised its +insidious influence ever more and more powerfully until it celebrated +its wildest orgies in the time of the Second Punic War. It is in this +period of the first three centuries of the republic, roughly from B.C. +500 to B.C. 200, that this change was produced. Outwardly it resembled a +steady growth in religious feeling and enthusiasm, and it might well +have seemed so to contemporaries. It was a period of many new gods and +many new temples, but this in itself was no harm. It was the principle +behind it which did the damage. It was the essential contradiction to +what true Roman religion and Roman character demanded; and the last half +of the republic paid the price for what the first half had done, in a +decline of faith which has scarcely been exceeded in the world's +history. + +It has been customary for writers on the history of Roman morals to +attribute these changes to the coming of Greek influence; and of course +in the main this is correct, but these writers have in general neglected +to analyse this Greek influence more closely, and to distinguish the +various aspects of it in different periods, and to ask and answer the +question why this influence should be so particularly harmful to the +Romans. It is generally spoken of as the influence of Greek literature +and philosophy, but for our present period this is entirely incorrect, +for we all know that Greek literature did not begin to influence Rome +until the time of the Punic wars, and yet the Greek influence of which +we speak here began to exert its effects two hundred and fifty years +before the Punic wars. The real cause of the unnatural stimulation of +religion during these three centuries is nothing more nor less than the +books of the Sibylline oracles. It is therefore a very definite and +interesting problem which we have before us. It is to examine the +workings of these oracles and to explain why they had such an +extraordinary effect on religion and society, that in three centuries +they could entirely change both the form and the content of Roman +religion, and under the guise of increasing its zeal, so sap its +vitality that it required almost two hundred years of human experience +and suffering before true religion was in some sense at least restored +to its own place. + +Like the origin of almost all the great religious movements in the +world's history, the beginnings of the Sibylline books are shrouded in +mystery. A later age, for whom history had no secrets, with a cheap +would-be omniscience told of the old woman who visited Tarquin and +offered him nine books for a certain price, and when he refused to pay +it, went away, burned three, and then returning offered him at the +original price the six that were left; on his again refusing she went +away, burned three more and finally offered at the same old price the +three that remained, which he accepted. Except as a sidelight on the +character of the early Greek trader the story is worthless. It is +doubtful even if the presence of the Sibylline books in Rome goes back +beyond the republic. The first dateable use of them was in the year B.C. +496, and there is one little fact connected with them which makes it +probable that they did not come in until the republic had begun. This is +the circumstance that in view of the great secrecy of the books it is +unthinkable that they should ever have been in Rome without especial +guardians, and yet the earliest guardians that we know of were a newly +made priesthood consisting originally of two men, the so-called "two men +in charge of the sacrifices" (_IIviri sacris faciundis_). Now the form +of this title is peculiar; it is not a proper name like the titles of +all the other priesthoods. Instead it is built on the plan of the titles +of the special committees appointed by the Senate for administrative +purposes; it bears every mark therefore of having arisen under the +republic, rather than under the kingdom, at a time when the Senate had +the supreme control. So much may be said regarding the time when they +were introduced into Rome; as for the place from which they came, this +was without doubt the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, probably the +oldest and most important of them, Cumae, so famous for its Sibyl. This +was not the first association that Rome had had with Cumae, for in all +probability the worship of Apollo had spread from there into Rome toward +the close of the kingdom. Apollo and the books were connected at Cumae, +for it was Apollo who inspired the Sibyl, and the oracles were his +commands, but it is almost certain that Apollo came to Rome in advance +of the oracles. He came there as a god of healing and was given a sacred +place outside the _pomerium_ in the Campus Martius, on the spot where +later (B.C. 431) a temple was built for him with his sister +Artemis-Diana and their mother Latona. This was the only state temple +that Apollo ever had, until Augustus built the famous one on the +Palatine. It was in the wake of Apollo that the Sibylline books came. As +for the books themselves, they were kept so secret that we cannot expect +to know much about them, but in rare cases where the seriousness of the +exigency warranted it, the Senate permitted the actual publication of +the oracle upon which its action was based, and of the oracles thus +published one or two have been preserved to us. They were of course +written in Greek and were phrased in the ambiguous style which for +obvious reasons was the most advantageous style for oracles. They +commanded the worship of certain specific deities, naturally all of them +Greek, and the performance of certain more or less complicated ritual +acts. When they were received in Rome, they were placed in the temple of +Juppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline in the keeping of their +guardians, the new priesthood of the "two men in charge of the +sacrifices." This committee of two was enlarged to ten in B.C. 367 when +the great compromise between the Patricians and the Plebeians was made, +and the Plebeians were admitted into this one priesthood, with five +representatives. Subsequently Sulla made the number fifteen, which +continued as the official number from that time on, so that the +priesthood is ordinarily called the _Quindecemviri_, even when one of +the older periods is referred to. The real control of the books however +lay in the hands of the Senate. When the Senate saw fit, the priests +were ordered to consult the books, but without this special command even +their guardians dared not approach them. The priests reported to the +Senate what they had found, and the Senate then decreed whatever actions +the oracles commanded. The carrying out of these actions was again in +the charge of the Sibylline priests, who performed the ceremonies +demanded and were for all time to come responsible for the maintenance +of any new cults which might be introduced. + +When we see how carefully these oracles were guarded and how +circumspectly their use was hedged about by senatorial control, and when +we think how relatively little harm the use of oracles had wrought in +Greece in all the centuries of her history, it may well seem as if the +statements made in the beginning of this chapter about the havoc caused +by these oracles were grossly exaggerated. But the efforts of the Senate +to safeguard these oracles only prove that the older and wiser men in +the community realised how dangerous they were, and the comparison with +Greece leads to a consideration of certain essential differences between +the Greek and the Roman temperament which made that which was meat for +one into poison for the other. + +In the older purer age of Greece the gods were never far away from men, +they lived almost side by side with them; there were to be sure many +gods of whom they were afraid and from whom they desired to keep as far +away as possible, but there were a great many other gods of whom they +liked to think. In constructing the records of their history they did +not work backwards from the light of the present into an ever darkening +past, but they began from the beginning in the full light of the gods +from whom all things sprang, and mythology passed into history by +imperceptible gradations. They knew more about the beginning when all +things were completely in the hands of the gods than they did about +their immediate past. Art began very early to make them familiar with +the appearance of the gods, so that there was little that was mysterious +about their religion, so little that the element of mystery had later to +be almost artificially cultivated in the "mysteries." They respected the +gods rather than feared them, and they felt that the gods would do them +no harm unless they themselves first sinned against them or their own +fellow-men, and the oracles of Delphi were no more terrifying to them +than the coming of the word of God was to the prophets of Israel. They +were accustomed to these messages, which were almost every-day affairs. +It was all a part of that marvellous poise of nature which made the +every-day mortal Greek almost as calm as the unperturbed imperturbable +faces of their gods as their great sculptors saw them. + +In Rome all was very different. The superstitious element in the Italian +character, which amazes us so much to-day when cultured twentieth +century men and women in good society persecute their fellows because of +the evil eye, is a heritage of many thousand years. Sometimes it seems +as if it were the Italian birthright, the blight of Etruria which came +into their nature in spite of themselves. It required centuries to +educate the Roman into the concept of personal individual gods. He had +begun his theological career by terror of unknown powers all about him, +and by regarding religion as the science of propitiating the right power +on the right occasion. One could not know these powers, one did not +desire to. Their gods were at once their masters and their servants, but +never their companions. The early Roman knew no such thing as an oracle, +the only messages from the gods were the expressions of their wrath, in +the sending of prodigies and portents. They did indeed consult the gods +by watching the flight of birds or studying the entrails of the +sacrifice, but it was merely to obtain a "yes or no" answer to a +categorical question as to whether a certain act was pleasing to the +gods. Otherwise all about them lay mystery, and at the point where sight +failed, since neither imagination nor faith carried them any further, +superstition stepped in, and the more they thought of the gods the more +terrified they became. Now if you present to a people thus constituted a +divine book of infallible oracles, you increase their terror in greater +measure than the book itself can assuage it, and with the use of the +book the simpler forms of their old belief will grow less and less +effective in the face of this new "witchcraft," which can work wonders. +And no matter how you may hedge the use of the book about, it will be +used more and more as the craving for magic is increasingly aroused. + +The study of the outward and the inward effects of the Sibylline books +is therefore the real history of religion in the first half of the +republic. The outward effects are seen in the introduction of a series +of Greek gods, who were in themselves in the main eminently respectable, +and whose presence was in itself no offence to good morals, and if we +stop there we fail to understand why the religious interest of the +Second Punic War should change so quickly to the scepticism of the +following century. The inward effects however, which, though they are +hard to see, may yet be discovered between the lines of the chronicle, +will explain all the undermining of foundation, until we wonder not why +the structure collapsed so suddenly but how it managed to last so long. + +The history of the activity of the books begins peaceably enough. In the +year B.C. 496 Rome was in a bad way; her crops had failed and the +importation of grain from Latium was rendered very difficult because of +the war with the Latins in which she was engaged. In her distress she +turned to the Sibylline books, and on the occasion of this their first +recorded use, the oracles ordered the introduction into Rome of the cult +of three Greek deities, Demeter, Dionysos, and Kore. It was a most +appropriate and characteristic choice. In the first place the deities in +question were worshipped at Cumae, the home of the books, whence Rome +could, and probably did, borrow the cult; and in the second place +Demeter was the goddess of grain, and it was from Cumae that Rome was +already beginning to obtain her imported grain supply. Thus the coming +of the Cumaean Demeter into the religious world of Rome is but the +sacred parallel to the coming of Cumaean grain into the material world +of Rome. The Greek goddess of grain came with the grain, just as Castor +had come with the Greek cavalry, with this essential distinction however +that Demeter came by the incantation of the books and the enactment of +the Senate, whereas Castor's coming was a slow and normal development. + +It is important to notice closely exactly what happened when these +deities were introduced, partly because they form the first recorded +instance, and hence may well have acted as a model for subsequent +repetitions of the act, but also because we have a more definite +knowledge of the phenomena in this case than in many others. In the +first place it is clear that the deities were felt to be foreign: not +only was their temple built out the Aventine way, in the valley of the +Circus Maximus, outside the _pomerium_, but--a much more significant +fact--their Greek names were dropped, and they were given Roman names +instead, to make them seem less out of place. Then too these Roman names +were not new names, translations of their Greek titles, but were the +names of already existing Roman deities with whom they were easily +identified, so that we see at once that their coming was no real +enrichment of the Roman Olympus; what they stood for was already +represented there, and their coming was simply a reduplication, with the +consequent result that as these parvenus increased in prominence and +influence, they robbed of all their vitality the sober old Roman deities +to whom they had attached themselves. What were these original deities +who were thus doomed to death in B.C. 496? Demeter took the name of the +old Roman goddess Ceres, a goddess of fertility, about whom we know just +enough to assert that she belonged to the old religion of Numa and that +she was at heart quite a different person from Demeter. All the rest is +lost, submerged under the new Demeter-Ceres with her temple built by +Greek architects and her April games. It is this new Ceres who soon +develops an extraordinary political importance because her temple is to +the Plebeians as a class what the temple of Minerva is to the unions of +organised labour. It is there that they have their meeting-place, and +the temple itself is always their treasury as contrasted with the Saturn +temple, the treasury of the state as a whole. The very officers of the +Plebeians, the famous Plebeian aediles, get their name from association +with this temple (_aedes_). This political side of her activity is the +only real advantage, except the grain itself, connected with her +importation; the two form at best a poor economic compensation for the +ever increasing immoral effects of the public games of Ceres. + +But though Ceres is the most important of the three deities economically +and politically, we must not forget the other two, both of whom are +interesting, though one of them more for what she is not than for what +she is. Along with Demeter came Dionysos and Demeter's daughter Kore: +the three were associated in the solemn mysteries of Eleusis, but none +of the beauty of these ideas went over into the Roman cult. Demeter was +merely the deified grain-traffic, and Dionysos was little else than the +god of wine, while poor Kore fell out without any particular content for +a curious reason that we shall see in a moment. The only old Roman deity +with whom Dionysos could be identified was the god Liber, who had had a +rather interesting history, and who had done enough along the line of +self-development to deserve a better fate than to be crushed to +insignificance under the prominence of his new namesake. Liber was at +this time a flourishing god of fertility and, since the introduction of +the grape into Italy, especially the patron of the fruit of the vine, +but he had made his own career, and there was a time when he had no +individuality of his own but was merely a cult-adjective of the great +god Juppiter, the giver of all fertility in every phase of life. Thus +out of the original Juppiter-Liber there had grown the independent god +Liber; and now this Liber lost his individuality by identification with +Dionysos. Finally comes Kore, Demeter's daughter. Here the Romans were +hard put to it to find a goddess who represented any similar content, +and after all this was no light task because Kore has little meaning +unless she is taken also as Persephone, Pluto's bride--a process which +required a mythological knowledge and appreciation in which the Romans +of the early republic were totally lacking. But there was an old goddess +Libera, a shadowy potentiality contrasted and paired with the masculine +Liber, and they chose her and gave Kore her name. We have a curious +proof of how little the Romans knew of Kore-Libera, and of how purely +mechanical both the introduction of Kore and her identification with +Libera were, in the fact that about two hundred and fifty years later, +as we shall see, Persephone, the real Kore, was introduced into Rome as +an altogether new deity, and existed there side by side with Libera for +at least a century before people began to realise that Proserpina and +Libera stood for the same Greek goddess. + +It was necessary to go into these details in order that we might +understand as much as possible of the process by which the gods of the +Sibylline books were assimilated into the body of Roman religion. We see +how in the main they were superfluous and therefore unnecessary and even +undesirable because by their presence they robbed old Roman deities of +their existence, and how those elements in them which were least in +accord with the old Roman spirit were most apt to develop, and how in +general their adoption was a purely mechanical process, like any act in +witchcraft, where the form is all important because the meaning cannot +be understood, and how totally different therefore the estate of these +gods was in Rome from what it had been in Greece, because in Rome they +were introduced, stripped of all their mythology, worshipped only for +their practical bearings, and compelled therefore to work for their +living. + +The importation of grain from Cumae meant more to Rome than the mere +satisfaction of her physical needs; it meant much more than the addition +of three deities to her state-cult, for the grain thus imported was +carried from Cumae to Ostia by sea and so up the Tiber to Rome, and the +whole matter therefore marks one of the important steps in Rome's +interest in commerce generally but especially in ocean commerce. As yet +she did not do the actual carrying herself, but she began to be +interested in it, and the sea began to mean something to this inland +town. This increased interest in trade in general and this inceptive +interest in those who "go down to the sea in ships" have both of them +left their reflexion in the religious life of the time; two new deities +are introduced, both of them almost certainly by means of the Sibylline +oracles, though some accidental blanks in our historical tradition have +deprived us of details. + +The chronicle of the year B.C. 495 tells us that there was a dispute in +that year as to who should dedicate the temple of Mercury. This is +Mercury's first appearance in our sources. The circumstances of the +vowing of the temple have been omitted through some oversight, but in +spite of this the connexion of his introduction with the Sibylline books +is beyond all reasonable doubt, for the simple reason that the guardians +of the oracles always looked after his cult in all subsequent time. +Notwithstanding the suddenness of his appearance and the silence of the +chronicle, his story is quite clear and his past history easy to +restore, at least in outline. + +The versatile Hermes, who as messenger of the gods plays a part in so +many Greek myths, became in the course of time among other things +associated with travelling, as god of roads, and also with trade, +partly because trading necessitates travelling, and partly because +Hermes was also the protector of the market-place in which the trading +was done. Thus he was called "Hermes Protector of the Merchant" +(_Empolaios_) and in this capacity went into the colonies of Greece, +including those of Southern Italy. Thus Hermes travelled with the grain +merchant from Cumae and became known to the Romans. They however knew +him merely as the god of trade, and their name for him is nothing but +the translation into Latin of his Greek cult-title: _Empolaios_ = +_Mercurius_. For a long time it was thought that there had existed a +Mercurius among the original gods of Rome, but the traces of this old +god are apparent rather than real and suggest one phase of that pastime +of which the later Romans were so fond, that of writing history +backwards and putting an artificial halo of antiquity about the gods +whom they borrowed from Greece. Thus Mercury was received into the +state-cult at about the time when the grain trade began, and was, as it +were, the divine representative of the interest which the Roman state +took in the whole transaction. His temple was outside the _pomerium_ on +the Aventine side of the Circus Maximus. It was in this temple of the +merchant god that the primitive Chamber of Commerce (_collegium +mercatorum_) had its beginning, an association, partly sacral, partly +commercial, whose members, the _mercuriales_, are frequently met with +in literature and also in inscriptions, one of which has been found as +far away as the island of Delos. In the actual cult of the Romans +Mercury never regained the many-sidedness which he had lost in coming to +them merely as a god of trade. In this capacity he appears on the +sextans of the old copper coinage, and under the empire he went into the +provinces as the companion of Mars, since the merchant went side by side +with the soldier. On the contrary when in the third century before +Christ Greek literature came to Rome, this simple idea of Mercury was +reinforced by many new Greek ideas and he entered into Roman poetry with +all the attributes and functions of Hermes; but this had little or no +effect on the cult and there were no great rivals to the old temple near +the Circus Maximus, no cult-centre with advanced Greek ideas, as we have +seen spring up in the case of Hercules, Castor, Minerva, and Diana. + +We have already seen how the rise of the grain trade brought four new +deities to Rome, but there is one more chapter to our story. The grain +itself and the trade itself had now obtained their divine complements, +but the sea had not yet received its due; it too must have its parallel +among the gods of Rome. And so it came to pass that again under the +influence of the fateful books, though exactly when or how we cannot +say, the Greek Poseidon came into Rome. The sea had always meant much +to the Greeks, and the joyful shout of Xenophon's troops "The sea! the +sea!" finds an echo all through the centuries of Greek history before +and after the Anabasis. But the multitude of islands and harbours in +Greece is in marked contrast to the dearth of them in Italy, where even +to-day there is no good port of call on the west coast between Naples +and Civitavecchia--and the latter would be useless, were it not for +Trajan's mole. In Italy accordingly the sea-god Poseidon was worshipped +only in the Greek colonies, where however he had two famous cults, one +at Tarentum, later called Colonia Neptunia, and one at Paestum, whose +old name was Poseidonia. The Romans had worshipped deities of water in +abundance, as became an agricultural people, for water meant life, and +drought, death; but their deities were those of the sweet waters of +springs and rivers, they knew no god of the sea. But when the oracles +brought Poseidon to Rome he was identified with an old Roman water-god +Neptune, whose cult henceforward included the sea. We do not know where +the shrine of the old sweet-water Neptune had been, but his old festival +had occurred on July 23. The new Poseidon-Neptune was given a temple +outside the _pomerium_ in the Campus Martius, but the new was connected +with the old in so far at least that the dedication day of the new +temple was July 23, the day of the old Neptune festival. + +With the introduction of Neptune, the sea-god, the state had +accomplished, as it were, a sort of divine marine insurance; the +transport of the grain was now watched over by a Roman god; but it was +not to be expected that the cult of a sea-god would ever mean very much +to the Romans. The maritime commerce of the Eternal City was very slow +in developing, and it grew to its subsequent proportions, not because +the Romans of Italy engaged in it, but because those foreigners who took +to the sea by nature later became Romans. Nor did naval warfare fall to +her lot until the First Punic War, and even then her victories were +gained by the tactics of land fighting transferred to the decks of two +ships, her own and the enemy's, fastened together by landing-bridges, +and the glory of victory was due not to Neptune but to Mars. It was not +until the civil wars at the close of the republic that real naval +battles occurred, and that Neptune received his share of glory for the +victory at Actium in B.C. 31, and later over Sextus Pompeius, in a +temple erected by Agrippa in the Campus Martius, behind the beautiful +columns of which the Roman Stock-Exchange transacts its business to-day. + +In the first decade of the republic therefore, as we have seen, a group +of Greek gods was introduced by the Sibylline oracles, no one of whom +can be said to have been really needed, no one of whom except the +sea-element in Neptune represented any new and vital principles not +already present in the religious world, if not of Numa, at least of +Servius. The best that can be said of these gods is that one or two of +them, notably Mercury and Neptune, exerted no positively detrimental +influences on later generations. For the next two centuries our +chronicles are silent, so far as the actual introduction of new deities +by the aid of the books is concerned, and it is not until B.C. 293 that +the narrative of new gods begins again. But in other ways the oracles +were not idle during these two hundred years. We must rid ourselves of +the idea that it was necessary that their consultation should always +result in the importation of some new Greek deity. The oracles might +order the carrying out of some new religious rite regarding the deities +already present, and these religious rites, especially the public +processions so frequently performed, feed the ever-growing superstition +of the populace. It is essential to a charm or incantation that it +should contain something strange or foreign, it is above all things help +from without; and when the gods send prodigies and portents, when their +statues weep and sweat blood, when cattle speak, and meteors fall from +the sky, something strange and unusual must be done to counteract these +things. Among the foreign acts thus ordered the sacred procession occurs +frequently. It started from the temple of Apollo in the Campus Martius +and passed into the city through the Porta Carmentalis, went across the +Forum and then outside the _pomerium_ again to the temple of Ceres, and +then to the temple of Juno Regina on the Aventine. It was therefore a +power from without which came into their city to purify them and to +carry away out of the city again the impurities of which it had rid the +community. + +It is also characteristic of such semi-magical things that they lose +their effects after a few applications, and other things must be sought +always more complicated and more strange. Thus from the beginning of the +republic down through the Second Punic War we have a series of +extraordinary measures, growing more and more complicated until in the +religious frenzy of the years after Cannae even human sacrifices are +performed at the command of the books. In this the third century before +Christ deities begin again to be introduced, and it is to this century +that we now turn. + +It is probable that the Romans had always worshipped certain powers of +healing, but what their names were under the old regime we do not know, +except that possibly they were connected with the gods of water. At the +close of the kingdom they received, as we have seen, Apollo the divine +healer, Apollo Medicus, and this was originally the only side of his +activity which he exercised at Rome. At various seasons of plague during +the early centuries of the republic they called on him for help, and on +one such occasion (B.C. 431) they built him a temple. But in the course +of time men began to think lightly of the old family physician who had +stood by the Romans during more than two centuries; his methods were too +conservative, they were felt not to be thoroughly up to date. A new god +of healing had appeared in Rome, the Greek god Asklepios, whom myth +called Apollo's son, though originally he had had no connection with +Apollo. His great sanctuary was at Epidauros, and from there his cult +spread over all the Greek world. At first he was known at Rome only in +the worship of private individuals, who had brought him up from the +Greek colonies of Southern Italy, probably Tarentum or Metapontum; but +his cult was contagious, and the stories of his miraculous cures were +eagerly heard. It is no wonder then that in the presence of a great +pestilence in B.C. 293, when the Sibylline books were consulted, "it was +found in the books," as Livy says, "that Aesculapius must be brought to +Rome from Epidauros." The war with Pyrrhus however was on, and nothing +could be done that year except the setting apart of a solemn day of +prayer and supplication to Aesculapius. It is interesting to observe how +much the Romans have changed since the time exactly two centuries before +(B.C. 493), when Ceres and her companions, the first gods introduced by +the books, received their temple. That was the acknowledgment of gods +well known at Rome, and even then they were immediately identified with +already existing Roman gods; now they actually send an expedition not +only outside of Rome but of Italy itself to bring in the cult of a god +whom they accept by his Greek name. In the following year (B.C. 292) the +expedition started for Epidauros to bring back the god, that is the +sacred snake which was both his symbol and his visible presence. Such an +importation of a sacred snake from Epidauros is not unique in the case +of Rome, but was the normal method of establishing a branch cult. Snakes +were kept at Epidauros for just this purpose, and many branches were +thus established. It is an extremely interesting question as to the +practical medical value of the methods of healing practised at Epidauros +and its branches. For a long time those best fitted to express a +technical opinion, modern physicians who examined the matter, found +nothing good in them, and their opinion seems to receive confirmation +from some of the inscriptions recently discovered at Epidauros, which +tell the most extraordinary tales of miraculous cures. And yet many of +these tales are not intended as actual facts, but rather as pious +legends, proclaimed for the edification of the devout, in order that +their faith might be quickened. Before we condemn the whole affair, we +must realise two facts; one is that some of the most able minds of +Greece, men who were otherwise by no means remarkable for their +religious faith, believed implicitly in Epidauros and went there to be +cured; and the other is that the miraculous action of the god was always +supplemented by medicines, in which there may well have been some real +value. + +We are told too much rather than too little about this embassy to +Epidauros, for the atmosphere of this third century is different from +that of the early republic. Greek literature was beginning to influence +Rome, and those generations were being born who were to be the pioneers +in Roman literature. Thus Roman mythology was commencing along Greek +lines and with Greek models, and one of the points where legend grew +thickest and fastest is in this coming of Aesculapius. The plain facts +are evidently that the committee went to Epidauros, obtained the snake, +brought it back safely to Rome, and established the sanctuary on the +island in the Tiber, where a temple was built and dedicated January 1, +B.C. 291. Probably this was the first use to which the island had ever +been put, and from this time dates the first bridge connecting it with +the city; the other bridge, to the right bank, was much later. The +Romans had always considered the island a disadvantage rather than an +advantage. Even in legend it was cursed, for it sprang from the wheat of +the Tarquins. They had always desired to be cut off from it, and had +always feared lest it might act as a means of approach for the enemy +from the opposite bank. The few real facts of Aesculapius's coming grew +into a romantic account of how, to the great surprise and terror of the +sailors, the snake went of its own accord into the Roman ship; and how +it stayed aboard until they reached Antium, and then suddenly swam +ashore and coiled itself up in a sacred palm tree in the enclosure of +the temple of Apollo there; and how, when they were in despair of ever +getting it back again, it returned peaceably to them at the end of three +days, and all went well on the journey to Ostia and up the Tiber until +they were passing the island, when the snake went ashore to make its +permanent home there. + +It was a pretty fancy which at a later date formed the island into the +likeness of a boat by building a prow and stem of travertine at either +end, the traces of which may still be seen; and it is a curious instance +of the many survivals of ancient Rome in the modern city, that the +Hospital of S. Bartolommeo stands on the site of the old Aesculapius +sanctuary, and so far as we can tell, twenty-two centuries of suffering +humanity have had the burden of their pain lightened there, in +uninterrupted succession since that new year's day, above three hundred +years before Christ, when the hospital of Aesculapius of Epidauros was +formally opened. + +The coming of the god of healing in the opening years of the third +century may well be regarded as an omen of the great suffering which +that century was to bring to Rome. It was a century of almost +uninterrupted warfare: first the Samnite war; then the war with Pyrrhus +and Rome's conquest of Southern Italy; then after a breathing spell of +about a decade the first war with Carthage, and Rome's bitter +apprenticeship in fighting at sea; then campaigns in Cisalpine Gaul; and +finally the war with Hannibal roughly filling the last two decades, the +most fearful contest in all Rome's history, with her most terrible enemy +in her own land of Italy. It is little to be wondered at therefore that +this was in the main a century of religious depression, a time when the +fear of the gods filled every man's heart and when every trifling +apparent irregularity in the course of nature was exaggerated into a +portent declaring the wrath of the gods and needing some immediate and +extraordinary propitiation. It is in just such a moment as this in the +middle of the century (B.C. 249) that the next recorded instance of new +gods occurs. The first war with Carthage was in progress, Rome had just +suffered a terrible defeat off the north-western point of Sicily, at +Drepana, a defeat all the more hideous because it was supposed to have +been caused by the impiety of the Consul Clodius, who, hearing that the +sacred chickens would not eat, perpetrated his grim jest by saying "let +them drink then instead," and drowning them all. But to cap it all the +wall of Rome was struck by lightning. Then action was necessary and the +books were consulted. They ordered that sacrifice should be made to Dis +and Proserpina, a black steer to Dis, and a black cow to Proserpina, +three successive nights, out on the Campus Martius, at an altar which +was called the _Tarentum_, and that the ceremony should be repeated at +the end of a hundred years. Here the myth-makers of later times have +been even more busily at work than they were in the case of Aesculapius. +The Aesculapius story was fitted out by them merely with a few +miraculous details, a few legendary ornaments, but the story of Dis and +Proserpina was so covered with their fabrications that it has only +recently been freed from them and seen in its true light, and certain +phases were so absolutely perverted that there are still a number of +very difficult points. To get a clear understanding of the situation we +must begin quite a distance back. + +Taken as a whole, religious beliefs are among the most conservative +things in the world; the individual may grow as radical as you please, +but his effect on the general religious consciousness of his time is +extremely slight. Occasionally the number of radical individuals grows +larger and certain classes of society are affected by their views, but +even, in the periods of religious development which we are apt to think +of as most iconoclastic, society taken in the large, and on the average +of all classes, is not much more radical than in apparently normal +times. And while religion as a whole is conservative, there is one +section of it more conservative than all the rest, a section from which +change is almost excluded, that is the beliefs concerning the dead. In +our discussion of the religion of Numa we saw the very primitive +character of Roman beliefs in this field, the firm retention of the old +animistic idea of the dead, the tendency to class the dead together as a +mass and to believe in a collective rather than an individual +immortality, and above all the abhorrence of the dead and the +disinclination to dwell on their condition and to paint imaginary +pictures of life beyond the grave. In view of these feelings it is not +strange that we have great difficulty in finding any old Roman gods of +the dead, aside from the dead who are themselves all gods. These dead as +gods (_Di Manes_) and possibly Mother Earth (_Terra Mater_) are the only +rulers in the Lower World. In Greece on the contrary death was almost as +natural as life, and though the conditions in early times were not +unlike those in Rome, as Rohde in his _Psyche_ has so wonderfully +described them, the Greek soon grew beyond this, and the world of the +dead became almost as well known to him as the world of the living. +There was a kingdom of the dead, and a king and queen ruled over them. +These rulers were called by different names in different parts of +Greece, but the names which they had in certain parts of the +Peloponnesus, Hades the king of the dead and Persephone his bride, were +destined to survive the rest. The cult of this royal pair travelled far +and wide, but its most notable development occurred in Attica, where +Persephone became Kore the daughter of Demeter, stolen by Hades to +become his bride, while Hades himself under the sunny skies of Athens +lost some of his terrors and became Pluto, the god of riches, especially +the rich blessings of the earth. But all this was very foreign to Rome, +and while the Greeks were thinking these thoughts, the Romans were going +quietly along, content with their simple _Di Manes_. No better proof of +this can be desired than the one accidentally given us in the +introduction of Demeter and her daughter Kore into Rome as Ceres and +Libera in B.C. 493, and the absolute colourlessness and pointlessness of +Libera, in a word the entire lack of connexion in the religious +consciousness of Rome between Libera and Persephone. But in B.C. 249, +almost two and a half centuries later, matters were on a different +basis; Rome had been learning a great deal that was foreign to her old +beliefs, and there was no longer anything impossible to her in the idea +of individual rulers of the dead. Thus at the command of the books Pluto +and Persephone were received into the state-cult, though the strangeness +of the situation was acknowledged, at least in so far that they +translated Pluto into the Latin Dis; Persephone to be sure was left +alone, or more strictly speaking was accommodated to the Latin tongue by +being changed to Proserpina. It is of course impossible that the Romans +of B.C. 249 were entirely ignorant of Pluto and Persephone until the +Sibylline books bade them be brought in. Here again the traders from +Southern Italy had been their teachers; and the name _Tarentum_ of the +altar where the sacrifice was to be made may possibly indicate the town +of Tarentum as the source of the cult. The Romans knew Tarentum only too +well since the eventful war with Pyrrhus, which lay only a generation +back in their history. + +And so the Romans adopted the Greek gods of the dead, and thus, at least +theoretically, put their dead ancestors into subjection to the Greeks +just as they themselves, the descendants, were sitting at the feet of +the Greeks in this life. But though the enactment of the Senate gave +these gods Roman citizenship, and the priests of the Sibylline books +were in duty bound to perform the ritual of the cult, be it said to the +credit of the Romans, the gods themselves never took a very deep hold of +the religious life of the people in general. Their names, to be sure, +crept into a few of the old formulae and stood side by side with the +older deities, and Proserpina was made much of by the Roman poets; but +the real tests of devotion, dedicatory inscriptions, are almost entirely +absent. Strangely enough the only thing which seems to have caught +their fancy was the weird ritual of the nightly sacrifice at the +Tarentum, and especially its repetition after one hundred years. This +idea of the hundred years is Roman rather than Greek, and it is at least +open to question whether it may not have been added to the instructions +in the oracle to give the whole matter an added Roman colour. Thus in +B.C. 249 were instituted the Secular Games, which were repeated with +approximate accuracy in B.C. 146, and would doubtless have been again +between B.C. 49 and 46, had not the Civil War completely filled men's +minds and made human sacrifices to the dead, in battle, an almost daily +occurrence. Meantime the Roman annalists were working backwards in their +own peculiar fashion, and building out into the past a series of +fictitious celebrations preceding B.C. 249, one hundred years apart, +back into the time of the kingdom. On the other hand we shall have +occasion later to speak of the restoration of the games and their +reorganisation by Augustus. + +Under the test of adversity nations are very much like individuals, and +a national weakness, which is often entirely concealed in normal +conditions, comes prominently and disastrously to the surface in the +hour when strength is most needed. The war with Hannibal was just such a +crisis in Rome's history, and under its influence Rome's dependence upon +the Sibylline books was more pronounced than ever. The seeds of +superstition sown during the earlier centuries burst now into full +blossom, destined to produce the fruit, the gathering of which was to be +the bitter task of the closing centuries of the republic. The story of +the Second Punic War, regarded merely from the military standpoint, +reads for Rome almost like a nightmare, with its long succession of +apparently easy victories turning one by one into defeats; but when we +add to this that other chronicle, of which Livy is equally fond, the +long lists of portents and prodigies sent by the angered gods, and when +we realise that to the masses of the people the wrath of the gods was +more terrible and just as real as the hostility of Hannibal, then we +have not the heart to reproach them for their religious frenzy. Seen by +themselves, the jumping of a cow out of a second-story window, or the +images of the gods shedding tears, do not seem very serious matters, but +endow us with three hundred years of hereditary dread of these things, +give us the instinctive interpretation of them as the turning away from +us of the powers upon which we rely for help, nay their positive +opposition to us and our hopes--and our condition in the presence of +these phenomena would be very different. + +Thus almost every year between B.C. 218 and 201 had its share of +religious ceremonial, and the Sibylline books, which had hitherto been, +in theory at least, merely an alternative method of religious procedure +permitted to exist alongside of the older and more conservative forms, +became now the order of the day. Like a Homeric picture in which the +quarrels of the gods in Olympus run parallel to the battles of Greeks +and Trojans on the plains of Troy, so every victory which Rome won over +Hannibal on the field of battle was bought at the price of a victory of +Greek gods over Roman gods in the field of religion; and further, +although Rome succeeded in keeping Hannibal outside of her own walls, +her gods did not succeed in defending the _pomerium_ against the Greek +gods, and it is during this Second Punic War that this, the greatest +safeguard of old Roman religion and customs, was broken down, and the +new gods gained entire possession of the city, placing their temples on +the spots hitherto held most sacred. From now on all distinction ceases, +and it is scarcely possible to speak of a Roman in contrast to a +Graeco-Roman cult. It is important however to observe that this +breakdown occurred because of excess of religious zeal rather than +through neglect and indifference, and though we may indeed notice a +gradual deterioration of the deities introduced by the books, all the +way down from the busy working gods like Ceres and Mercury and Neptune +to the more miraculous Aesculapius, and the cult of Dis or Proserpina +with its possibilities of weird fantastic worship, there have been +however as yet only scanty traces of the orgiastic element. But this was +the next step, and it was not long in coming. The rapid campaigns of the +earlier years of the war with Hannibal had passed, Cannae (B.C. 216) had +been somewhat retrieved by Metaurus (B.C. 207), where the reinforcements +for Hannibal, led by Hasdrubal, had been cut to pieces, but the result +was not what had been hoped for, and Hannibal had not left Italy, but +entrenched in the mountains of the south he seemed to be preparing to +pass the rest of his life there. It was in this the year B.C. 205 that +the help of the books was again sought, if peradventure they might show +the way to drive Hannibal out of the country. The reply came that, when +a foreign-born enemy should wage war upon the land, he could be +conquered and driven from Italy, if the Great Mother of the gods should +be brought to Rome from Phrygia. The rest of the story is so quaintly +and withal so truthfully told by Livy (Bk. xxix.) that it will not be +amiss to quote his words:--"The oracle discovered by the Decemviri +affected the Senate the more on this account because the ambassadors who +had brought the gifts [vowed at the battle of Metaurus] to Delphi +reported that when they were sacrificing to the Pythian Apollo the omens +were all favourable, and that the oracle had given response that a +greater victory was at hand for the Roman people than that one from +whose spoils they were then bringing gifts. And as a finishing touch to +this same hope they dwelt upon the prophetic opinion of Publius Scipio +regarding the end of the war, because he had asked for Africa as his +province. And so in order that they might the more quickly obtain that +victory which promised itself to them by the omens and oracles of fate, +they began to consider what means there was of bringing the goddess to +Rome. As yet the Roman people had no states in alliance with them in +Asia Minor; however they remembered that formerly Aesculapius had been +brought from Greece for the sake of the health of the people, though +they had no alliance with Greece. They realised too that a friendship +had been begun with King Attalus [of Pergamon] ... and that Attalus +would do what he could in behalf of the Roman people; and so they +decided to send ambassadors to him, ... and they allotted them five +ships-of-war in order that they might approach in a fitting manner the +countries which they desired to interest in their favour. Now when the +ambassadors were on their way to Asia they disembarked at Delphi, and +approaching the oracle asked what prospect it offered them and the Roman +people of accomplishing the things which they had been sent to do. It is +said that the reply was that through King Attalus they would obtain what +they sought, but that when they brought the goddess to Rome they should +see to it that the best man in Rome should be at hand to receive her. +Then they came to Pergamon to the king [Attalus], and he received them +graciously and led them to Pessinus in Phrygia, and he gave over to them +the sacred stone which, the natives said, was the Mother of the gods, +and bade them carry it to Rome. And Marcus Valerius Falto was sent ahead +by the ambassadors and he announced that the goddess was coming, and +that the best man in the state must be sought out to receive her with +due ceremony." In the next year (B.C. 204) after recounting new +prodigies Livy continues:--"Then too the matter of the Idaean Mother +must be attended to, for aside from the fact that Marcus Valerius, one +of the ambassadors who had been sent ahead, had announced that she would +soon be in Italy, there was also a fresh message that she was already at +Tarracina. The Senate had to decide a very important matter, namely who +was the best man in the state, for every man in the state preferred a +victory in such a contest as this to any commands or offices which the +vote of the Senate or the people might give him. They decided that of +all the good men in the state the best was Publius Scipio.... He then +with all the matrons was ordered to go to Ostia to meet the goddess and +to receive her from the ship, to carry her to land and to give her over +to the women to carry. After the ship came to the mouth of the Tiber, +Scipio, going out in a small boat, as he had been commanded, received +the goddess from the priests and carried her to land. And the noblest +women of the land ... received her ... and they carried the goddess in +their arms, taking turn about while all Rome poured out to meet her, and +incense-burners were placed before the doors where she was carried by, +and incense was burned in her honour. And thus praying that she might +enter willingly and propitiously into the city, they carried her into +the temple of Victory, which is on the Palatine, on the day before the +Nones of April [April 4]. And this was a festal day and the people in +great numbers gave gifts to the goddess, and a banquet for the gods was +held, and games were performed which were called _Megalesia_." This +extraordinary picture is probably in the main historically correct. The +most striking part of it, the enthusiasm of the Roman populace, is +certainly not overdrawn. Thus was introduced into Rome the last deity +ever summoned by means of the books, the one whose cult was destined to +outlast that of all the others, and to do more harm and produce more +demoralisation than all the other cults together. To understand why this +was so, we must go back for a moment. + +The influence of Greece on Rome was progressive, and we are able to +indicate at least three distinct periods and phases of it, so far as +religion is concerned: first, the informal coming of a few Greek gods +who adapted themselves more or less completely to the old Roman +character; such are Hercules and Castor and even Apollo, though Apollo +was indirectly responsible for the second period, because he was the +cause of the coming of the Sibylline books. The influence of these books +produced the second period, with its characteristics of ever-growing +superstition, and greater pomp in cult acts, but though the sobriety of +the old days had changed into a restless activity, the new gods who came +in and the new cult acts introduced were still of such a character that +Romans could take part in the worship without shame. But just as the +staid Apollo had produced the books, so now as their last bequest the +books brought in the Great Mother, and the third period had begun, the +period of orgiastic Oriental worship, which prevailed, at least among +certain classes, until the establishment of Christianity. We may well +ask who this Great Mother was, and why this one Greek cult should be so +different from all the rest. + +At different points in Asia Minor and in Crete a goddess was worshipped, +originally without proper name, as the great source of all fertility, +the mother of all things, even of the gods. Mount Dindymos in Phrygia +was one of the chief centres of the cult, and there the Great Mother was +known also as Cybele. From these various centres the cult spread over +all the Greek world, but wherever it went, it always gave evidence of +its birthplace by certain strange Oriental elements both in its myths +and in its rites. Its devotees were a noisy orgiastic band, who filled +the streets with their dances, and the air with their singing and the +clashing of their symbols, to the accompaniment of the rattling of coin +in the money box--for the collection of money from the bystanders was +always a part of the performance. + +This then was what the "best man in the state" and the grave Roman +matrons went forth from Rome to receive--a sacred stone representing the +goddess, and a band of noisy emasculated priests; and this was what they +opened their gates to, and took up into their holy of holies, the +Palatine hill, the birthplace of Rome. The Greeks had again come bearing +gifts, and like the Trojans who broke down their walls and took the +wooden horse up into their citadel, Romans, the reputed descendents of +these Trojans, were carrying up to their most sacred hill another gift +of Greece which was to capture their city. They put the image in the +temple of Victoria on the Palatine until such time as its own temple was +ready to receive it, and the goddess of Victory seemed to respond to its +presence, for did not Hannibal leave Italy the very next year? And who +would be so impious as to suggest that to Scipio and not Cybele belonged +the glory, and that a strong Roman army in Africa affected Hannibal +more than a sacred stone on the Palatine? + +It may well be doubted whether anything but such a great exigency would +ever have induced Rome to accept such an utterly foreign cult; and when +the nightmare of the war was past, the Senate awoke to the realisation +that a very serious act had been committed. To their credit be it said +that they did what they could to minimise the evil. The goddess had +brought her own priests with her, the cult was in their hands, and there +the law decreed it must stay, and no Roman citizen could become a +priest. That this law was really enforced is shown by several cases +where punishment, even transportation across the sea, was meted out to +transgressors. Then too the worship must be in the main confined to the +precincts of the temple on the Palatine, and only on certain days of the +year were the priests allowed to perform in the streets of the city. It +is significant of the strength of Roman law that these enactments held +good for three and a half centuries, and were not changed until the +reign of Antoninus Pius. + +In the introduction of the Great Mother the Sibylline books performed +their last and most notable achievement. Hereafter they introduced no +new deities, and were consulted only occasionally, chiefly for political +purposes, for example in B.C. 87 against the followers of Sulla, and in +B.C. 56 in connexion with a scheme of purely political import. Their +work was done, and we have seen in what it consisted. For three hundred +years they had been encouraging the growth of superstition. From their +vantage ground of the temple of Juppiter Optimus Maximus, the essence of +all that was most patriotically Roman in Rome, they had been giving +forth these infallible oracles which seemed so much superior to the +simple "yes and no" answers with which the old Romans had been content +in their dealings with the gods. In times of peril by pestilence and by +battle they had given advice, and the pestilence had ceased and the +battle had turned to victory. It seemed indeed that the Sibyl deserved +the gratitude of Rome. Time alone could teach them what the books had +really given them. It was only in the coming generations that it became +evident that the abuse of faith, the substitution of incantation for +devotion, was destructive of true religion. It is the effect of this +substitution on the various classes of society under the new and trying +social conditions of the last two centuries of the republic that forms +the theme of our next chapter. + + + + +THE DECLINE OF FAITH + + +It is the fashion of our day to think no evil of Greece. In art we are +experiencing another Renaissance, not like that of the fourteenth and +fifteenth centuries in a revival of ancient Rome, but in a movement +leading behind Rome to the classic and even the pre-classic models of +Greece. In itself it is a healthful tendency, a needed corrective to the +sensational search for novelty which characterised the closing years of +the nineteenth century. But in our admiration for the Greek spirit we +ought not to forget that after Alexander that spirit lost much of its +beauty, and aged very rapidly. We may indeed regret the fact that Rome, +like certain persons of our acquaintance, seemed at times to possess a +strong faculty for assimilating the worst of her surroundings, while +occasionally curiously unresponsive to the better things; and yet we +ought in justice to strive to realise the fact that not only is the +Greek spirit at its best an unteachable thing, but that at the +historical moment when Rome came under that influence the Greek world +was very old and weary. It was Rome's misfortune and not her fault that +when she was old enough to go to school, Alexandrianism with its +pedantic detail was the order of the day in mythology, and the timorous +post-Socratic schools were the teachers of philosophy. Naturally if Rome +had been another Greece she would have worked back from these later +forms to the truer, purer spirit, but Rome was not Greece, and no +thoughtful man ever pretended that she was. In the third century before +Christ Greece began actively to influence Rome; before that time +Hellenic influence had been confined largely to the effects on religion +produced by the Sibylline books, and to the effects on society caused by +the presence of Greek traders. But now Greek thought as embodied in the +literature began to affect Roman thought, and to bring into being a +literature based on Greek models. Three centuries of Sibylline oracles +had produced for Rome the pathological religious condition of the Second +Punic War, when she did not think twice before breaking down the +religious barrier which had hitherto separated the national from the +adopted elements in her religion, and at the same time unhesitatingly +reached out to Asia Minor for an Oriental cult, masquerading in Greek +colours, and placed on the Palatine the Great Mother of Pessinus. From +this time on two influences were steadily at work which shaped the +history of Roman religion in the two remaining centuries till the close +of the republic: one, mythology, directly affecting the forms of the +cult and the beliefs concerning the individual gods; the other, +philosophy, attacking the whole foundation of religious belief in +general. + +Greece gave her gods to Rome when she herself was weary of them, she +gave her the tired gods, exhausted by centuries of handling, long ago +dragged down from Olympus, and weary with serving as lay-figures for +poets and artists, and being for ever rigged out in new mythological +garments, or jaded with the laboratory experiments of philosophers who +tried to interpret them in every conceivable fashion or else to do away +with them entirely. It is no wonder that it did not take the Romans more +than a century to come to the end of these gods, to find that the only +one among them who could satisfy their religious desires was the least +Greek of them all, the Magna Mater, and having found this to go forth to +take to themselves more like unto her, in a word, to crave the +sensational cults of the Orient. And the philosophy which Greece gave +Rome was no better than the mythology. It is not strange that human +thought experienced a reaction after a century which contained both +Plato and Aristotle, but it is a pity that Rome should have learned her +philosophy from a period of doubt and scepticism, an age in which the +lesser masters, who had known the greater ones, had gone, leaving +nothing but pupils' pupils. + +The history of religion in Rome during the last two centuries of the +republic is the story of the action and reaction of these two +tendencies--the one toward the novel and sensational in worship, which +we may call superstition, the other the philosophy of doubt, which we +may call scepticism--in the presence of the established religion of the +state. This much the two centuries have in common, but here their +resemblance ends. In the first of these centuries (B.C. 200-100) the +state religion was able to hold her own, at least in outward appearance, +and to wage war against both tendencies. In the other century (B.C. 100 +to Augustus) politics gained control of the state religion and so robbed +her of her strength that she was crushed between the opposing forces of +superstition and scepticism. It is to the story of the earlier of these +two centuries, the second before Christ, that we now turn. + +With the close of the Second Punic War there began for Rome a period of +very great material prosperity. This prosperity was, to be sure, not +exactly distributed, and it is not without its resemblance to some of +our modern instances of commercial prosperity, in that it was not so +much a general bettering of economic conditions as the very rapid +increase of the wealth of a relatively small number, an increase gained +at the expense of positive detriment to a large element in the +population. Thus it was that a century of which the first seventy years +provide an almost unparalleled spectacle of the increase of national +territory, accompanied, according to the ancient methods of taxation, by +a vast increase in national wealth, should close with the tragedies of +Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus and the legacy of class hatred which +produced the civil wars. This growth in wealth and territory was not +without its effects on the outward appearance of the state religion. The +territory was gained by a series of minor wars in the course of which +many temples were vowed; and the spoils of the war provided the means +for the fulfilment of the vows. Thus to the outward observer it might +well have seemed that the religion of the state was enjoying a time of +great prosperity. Between the close of the Punic War (B.C. 201) and the +year of Tiberius Gracchus (B.C. 133) we have accurate knowledge of the +dedication of no less than nineteen state temples, and there were +undoubtedly many others of which we have no record. Another apparently +good sign is the fact that the Sibylline books are silent, so far as the +introduction of new deities is concerned. Yet these surface indications +are deceptive. As for the Sibylline books, now that the _pomerium_ line +had been broken down, and the temples of Greek gods might be placed +anywhere in the city, it was a very simple matter for the state to bring +in any Greek god that it pleased, and likening him to a more or less +similar Roman god and calling him by the Roman name, to put up a temple +to him anywhere. It was also true that, as Roman theology was now based +on the principle that every Roman god had his Greek parallel and _vice +versa_, there were no gods left, whose names would have occurred at all +in the Sibylline books, who could not be brought in now without them. +And as for the vowing of new temples, this represented at best merely +the habit formed during more devout days; religion was moving by the +momentum acquired during the Second Punic War, and the gods to whom +these temples were erected were really Greek gods under Roman names. In +a word, not only was the state religion becoming more and more of a form +day by day, but the form was that of Greece and not of Rome. It is +extremely interesting to trace this movement in detail, to look behind +the outward appearance and see the remarkable changes that were really +taking place. + +If we look at the temples which were built in the years following the +Second Punic War, we shall have no difficulty in finding examples of the +introduction of Greek gods under Roman names. During the war itself in +the year B.C. 207 a Roman general had vowed a temple to Juventas on the +occasion of a battle near Siena. Juventas was an old Roman goddess, one +of those abstract deities which had been produced by the breaking off +and becoming independent of a cult-title. She was intimately associated +with Juppiter, and had a special shrine in the Capitoline temple. +Juventas was the divine representative of the putting away of childish +things and the assumption of the responsibilities and privileges of +young manhood. This act was symbolised by the Romans in the beautiful +ceremony of putting on the toga of manhood (_toga virilis_), when the +lad was led by his father to the Capitoline temple to make sacrifices to +Juppiter, and at the same time a contribution was made to the treasury +of Juventas. But this was not the goddess in whose honour the temple +vowed at Siena was built at the Circus Maximus and dedicated B.C. 191. +This Juventas was nothing more or less than the Greek Hebe, the female +counterpart of Ganymedes, as cupbearer to the gods. Similarly in B.C. +179 a temple was dedicated to Diana at the Circus Flaminius, but this +was not the old goddess of Aricia, whose cult Rome had adopted for the +sake of increasing her influence in the Latin league. It was the Greek +Artemis, who at her first coming into Rome had been associated with +Apollo in the temple built in B.C. 431, and was now given a temple of +her own. Perhaps the strangest of all is the temple which was erected to +Mars in the Campus Martius in B.C. 138. It might well be supposed that +the Romans would keep holy the reputed father of their race, the god to +whom, under Juppiter, their success was due. On the contrary in B.C. +217, when they were carrying out a Greek ceremony of offering a banquet +to a set of gods, arranged in pairs, they showed no hesitation in +grouping together Mars and Venus to represent the Greek pair Ares and +Aphrodite, thus doing violence to Mars by bringing him into a +relationship with Venus which was entirely foreign to old Roman thought, +and identifying him with Ares, with whom he had nothing to do. Now in +B.C. 138 a temple is built to Ares under the name of Mars, close beside +the venerable old altar of Mars, one of the oldest and most sacred of +Roman shrines. + +But this passion for identifying Greek gods with Roman ones did not +confine itself to finding a parallel for the greater gods of Greece; and +less known deities were introduced into Rome in the same way. The old +Roman god, Faunus, in whose honour the ancient festival of the +_Lupercalia_ was yearly celebrated, had as his associate a goddess, +Fauna, who was better known as the "good goddess" (Bona Dea). Eventually +this new title Bona Dea crowded out the old title Fauna, so that it was +almost entirely forgotten. Bona Dea was a goddess of women, and the most +characteristic feature of her worship was the exclusion of men from +taking part in it. Now there was a Greek goddess, called Damia, also a +goddess of women, from whose cult also men were excluded, and her cult +spread from Greece to the Greek colonies of Southern Italy, especially +Tarentum, and so eventually to Rome. But by the time she arrived in Rome +the connexion of Fauna and Bona Dea had been entirely forgotten. Damia +was surely a Bona Dea, yes she was _the_ Bona Dea, for was not the proof +at hand in the fact that men were excluded from both cults? So a temple +was built for her, probably shortly after the Second Punic War, and from +the time no one ever thought of poor Fauna again, except scholars and +poets, who amused themselves, as was their wont, by putting her in +various genealogical relationships to Faunus, as sister, wife, or +daughter, while Damia lived and prospered under the stolen title of the +Bona Dea. + +We see from this on what a small resemblance such identifications were +based, in this case merely on the presence of a similar minor injunction +in the laws of each cult. But we have here at least a genuine cult which +had arrived and was asking for admission, and in so far we are better +off than in most instances, where nothing substantial was gained by the +identification. Two forces were now at work assisting in this fusion of +Greek and Roman gods, namely art and literature. The capture of Syracuse +marked an epoch in Rome's artistic career; for several centuries she had +employed Greek architects and had also become acquainted with the +artistic types of certain Greek gods, but now all at once a wealth of +Greek sculpture was disclosed to her, and she could not rest content +until all her gods were represented in the fashion of man. The adoption +of the Greek type, in those cases where an identification had already +been effected, was not difficult and was in the main successful, though +there followed almost inevitably an enrichment of the Greek element in +the Roman god because of the presence of some attribute in the statue, +which brought its own myth with it. But there were certain Roman gods +for whom Greek parallels could not be found, and in these cases a +compromise, usually rather an awkward one, had to be effected, as for +example when the Roman gods of the storeroom, the _Di Penates_, were +represented by statues of the Greek Castor and Pollux. In such cases +confusion was sure to follow, and subsequent antiquarians would be +tempted to write treatises proving the original connexion of Castor or +Pollux with the Penates, as gods of protection in general, etc. +Literature too in its own way was fully as misleading, and Roman +scholars became fascinated with the labyrinths of Alexandrian mythology, +and straightway began to build Roman myths as rapidly as possible, +establishing lists of old Latin kings and all sorts of genealogies, and +weaving as many Greek mythological figures as possible into the legends +of the foundation of Italic towns. + +It was the ceremonial of the cult however which most often offered the +best means of identification, as we have seen above in the case of Bona +Dea-Damia, where the exclusion of men from the rites was the main point +of similarity. In a similar way the old Roman god of the harvest, +Consus, was identified with the Greek ocean-god Poseidon because +horse-races were a characteristic feature of the festivals of each; and +the old Roman goddess of women and of childbirth was given as her Greek +parallel the Greek goddess Leukothea, the helper of those in peril at +sea, because in both cases slaves were forbidden to take part in the +cult. + +But the effect of the capture of Rome by these Greek gods and Greek +ceremonials was not confined to the mere addition of new ideas, and the +transformation of certain old Roman deities. This would have been +comparatively harmless, but there was inevitably another result: the +consequent neglect of all Roman deities for whom no Greek parallels were +forthcoming, and the forgetting of all the original Roman ideas which +were crowded into the background by the novel and more brilliant Greek +ideas. Even the festivals of the old Roman year were treated in the same +cavalier manner. The interest of the people continued only with those +ceremonies which frightened them or pleased them. There were certain +festivals, for example the _Lupercalia_, the old ceremony of +purification on February 15, for which a reverence was still felt; and +others like the _Parilia_, the birthday of Rome, on April 21, or the +Anna Perenna festival on March 15, which involved open-air celebrations +and picnics. These and others like them were always kept up, while many +others were totally neglected. Naturally for the present the forms were +continued by the state; the festivals were celebrated at least by the +priests; and every temple received sacrifice on its birthday. The wheels +of the state religion were still running, but the power behind them had +stopped, and it was only momentum which kept them in motion. + +It is only when we realise these things that we can understand how it +was possible that the most learned scholars at the close of the republic +were so desperately ignorant concerning old Roman religion. In regard to +many of the old Roman gods they know absolutely nothing, and try to +disguise their ignorance behind a show of learning based on etymological +sleight-of-hand; in regard to the rest their information is so tangled +with Greek ideas that it is often almost impossible to unravel the mass +and separate the old from the new. This unravelling has been the tedious +occupation of the last half century in the study of Roman religion; and +so patiently and successfully has it been accomplished that, although we +would give almost anything for a few books of Varro's _Divine +Antiquities_, it is tolerably certain that the possession of these books +would not change in the least the fundamental concepts underlying the +modern reconstruction of ancient Roman religion; though it is equally +certain that these books would emphasise just so much more strongly, +what we already realise, that this modern reconstruction is in distinct +contradiction to many of Varro's favourite theories. It is an +accomplishment of which History may well be modestly proud, that modern +scholars have been able to eliminate, to a large degree, the personal +equation and the myopic effects of his own time from the statements of +the greatest scholar of Roman antiquity, and thus though handicapped by +the possession of merely a small percentage of the facts which Varro +knew, to arrive at a concept of the whole matter infinitely more correct +than that which his books contained. + +During this second century before Christ, therefore, the state religion +was apparently unchanged so far as the outward form was concerned. The +terminology and the ceremonies were much the same as before, but the +content was quite different: Greek gods and Greek ideas had displaced +Roman gods and Roman ideas, and the official representatives of +religion, the state priests, were carrying the whole burden of worship +on their own shoulders, because popular interest had been in the main +deflected and was working along other lines. These lines of rival +interest were superstition and scepticism, phenomena which at first +sight appear as distinct opposites, but which are on the contrary very +closely akin, so that they usually occur together not only in the same +age, but frequently even in the same individual. They are purely +relative terms, and the essence of superstition consists in its surplus +element, just as the essence of scepticism lies in its deficiency. No +religion judged from the standpoint of the worshipper can properly be +called a superstition, but if once we can establish the essential things +in a religion, then any large addition to those essential things savours +of superstition. Speaking with historical sympathy we have no right +therefore to designate early Roman religion as a superstition--it may of +course be relatively so in comparison with other religious forms--but +once we have established the essential elements in that early religion, +we may consider the introduction of new and entirely different elements +as superstition. The old religion of Rome consisted in the exact and +scrupulous fulfilment of a large number of minute ceremonials. The +result of this careful fulfilment of ritual was that the powers around +man did him no harm but rather good, and that was the end of the whole +matter. Religion did not command or even permit special inquiries into +these powers; it was not only not man's duty to try to know the gods, it +was his positive duty to try not to. Through the influence of Greece +there had now come into Rome an altogether new idea, nourished largely +by the Sibylline books, and represented most fully in the Magna Mater, +the idea of the perpetual service of a god, a consecration to him, to +the exclusion of all other things, and a life given over to the +orgiastic performance of cult acts, which produced a state of ecstasy +and consequently a communion with the deity. Along with this there went +a belief in the possibility, by means of certain books and certain men, +of obtaining from the gods a knowledge of the future. It is these +surplus beliefs, quite contrary to the spirit of old Roman religion, +which may justly be called superstition. + +The Sibylline books had aroused these feelings, a knowledge of the +oracle at Delphi had increased them, the rites of Aesculapius had +carried them farther, but it was not until the Magna Mater came that +they seem to have burst forth in any large degree. But aside from the +rapid growth of the Magna Mater cult itself we have in this second +century two instances of this tendency. The first was connected with the +god Dionysos-Liber, innocent enough at his first reception in B.C. 493, +in the company of Demeter-Ceres and Kore-Libera. To be sure the state +had introduced him merely as the god of wine, but the mystery element in +Dionysos took firm hold on private worship, and the Bacchanalian clubs +or societies began to spread over Italy. In the course of about three +centuries they had become a formidable menace to the morals and even the +physical security of the inhabitants of Rome. Their meetings instead of +occurring three times a year took place five times a month, and finally +in B.C. 186 the famous Bacchanalian trial took place, of which Livy (Bk. +xxxix.) gives such a graphic account, and to which a copy of the +inscription of the decree of the Senate, preserved to our day, gives +such eloquent testimony, providing as it does severe penalties for +subsequent offenders, and recognising on the other hand large liberty of +conscience. + +The same love of mystery and longing for knowledge which produced the +Bacchanalian clubs accorded a warm reception to astrology and made men +listen with eagerness to those who could tell their fortunes or guide +their lives by means of the stars. We do not know when the bearers of +this knowledge first arrived in Rome, but Cato, in his _Farm Almanac_, +our earliest piece of prose literature, in giving rules for the +behaviour of the farm bailiff especially enjoins the intending landowner +that his bailiff should not be given to the consultation of Chaldaean +astrologers. Within half a century the problem of the Chaldaeans grew so +serious that state interference was necessary, and in B.C. 139 the +praetor Cn. Cornelius Hispalus issued an edict ordering the Chaldaeans +to leave Rome and Italy within ten days. + +The same age which produced this growth of superstition brought also the +antidote for it in the shape of a sceptical philosophy, but the only +trouble was that this philosophy not only cured superstition but in +doing so killed the genuine religious spirit underlying it. It cast out, +to be sure, the seven devils of superstition, but when men returned to +themselves again, they found their whole spiritual house swept and +garnished. With the death of the direct pupils of Aristotle, the Greek +mind had thought out all the problems of philosophy of which man at that +time was able to conceive. The following generations of philosophers +devoted themselves either to the elaboration of detail or to a renewed +examination of the foundations of belief, with the result that their +smaller minds came to smaller conclusions, and the end of their +investigations was one increased scepticism. The schools of the day +showed many slight variations and bore many different names, but they +all agreed in being more or less pervaded by a sceptical spirit, and by +accenting ethics as against metaphysics, though they defined ethics very +differently according to their starting point. + +One of the earliest philosophical influences which reached Rome was +however that of a pre-Socratic school, the school of Pythagoras. This +was natural enough in itself, as the headquarters of the school was in +Southern Italy, but it is curious and significant that the first +pronounced instance of its influence occurred shortly after the Second +Punic War, and in connexion with a clever fraud which was perpetrated +with a view to influencing religion. In the year B.C. 181 a certain man +reported that when he was ploughing his field, which lay on the other +side of the Tiber, at the foot of the Janiculum, the plough had laid +bare two stone sarcophagi, stoutly sealed with lead, and bearing +inscriptions in Greek and Latin according to which they purported to +contain, one of them the body of King Numa, the other, his writings. +When they were opened the one which ought to have contained the body was +empty, in the other lay two rolls, each roll consisting of seven books; +the one set of seven was written in Latin and treated of pontifical law, +the other consisted of philosophical writings. They were examined, found +to be heretical and subversive to true religion, and were accordingly +burned in the Comitium. The connexion of Numa and Pythagoras, +historically impossible but believed in at this time, makes it +practically certain that this was a clever attempt to introduce the +philosophy of Pythagoras into Rome under the holy sanction of the name +of Numa. Fortunately the zeal of the city praetor frustrated the scheme. +But the doctrines of philosophy, which thus failed to enter by the door +of religion, found the door of literature wide open for them. As the +irony of fate would have it, Cato, the stalwart enemy of Greek +influence, had brought back from Sardinia with him the poet Ennius, and +at about the time when the false books of Numa were burning in the +Comitium Ennius was giving to the world a Latin translation of the +_Sacred History_ of the Greek Euhemerus. This Euhemerus, a Sicilian who +had lived about a century before this time, earned his title to fame by +writing a novel of adventure and travel, in which he described a trip +which he had taken in the Red Sea along the coast of Arabia to the +wonderful island of Panchaia, where he found a column with an +inscription on it telling the life history of Ouranos, Kronos, and Zeus, +who were thus shown to have been historical characters afterwards +elevated into deities. It was this theological element in his book which +made him famous. This theory of the historical origin of the gods is +even to-day called Euhemerism, and has exerted a baleful influence over +writers on mythology from its author's day down to our own. These then +were the doctrines which Ennius presented to the Romans in their own +tongue, and it is pathetic to realise that his _Sacred History_ formed +the first formal treatise on theology which Rome ever possessed. Born +under such an evil star, it is small wonder that her theological +speculations never reached great metaphysical heights. + +In these days it seemed to the Senate that the question of philosophy +was beginning to be so serious that it might be considered as a public +danger, and that it was therefore their duty to try to cope with it. +They chose, of course, the typical Roman method of dealing with such +matters, and the philosophers were expelled from Rome. At first in B.C. +173 it was only the Epicureans who were sent out, but in B.C. 161 the +edict was broadened to include philosophers in general. However six +years later, in B.C. 155, there came to Rome an embassy of philosophers +whose mission was avowedly political and not philosophical, and who thus +could not be excluded, while at the same time they took occasion to +preach their philosophical doctrines. It was fortunate for Rome that +Stoicism, the best among all these philosophies, appealed to her most +strongly and became thus the national philosophy of Rome. Stoicism was +in many respects quite as sceptical as the others, but it had at least +this great advantage that it laid a strong emphasis on ethics, and was +in so far capable of becoming a guide of life. It might be well enough +for Greeks, whose aggressive work in the world had been done, to settle +down to an idle old age with a theory of life which practically excluded +the possibility of strong decisive action, but Rome was still young, and +most of her work was still before her. She might think herself very old +and pretend to take peculiar delight in many of the more decadent forms +of Greek thought, but in reality her leaders instinctively turned to +Stoicism, as affording a compromise between the mere thoughtless +activity of youth, which acts for the love of acting, and the jaded +philosophy of the vanity of all effort. About the middle of the century +(_circa_ B.C. 150) there existed in Rome a centre of culture and +intellectual influence, a little group of men peculiarly interesting, +because they form practically the first instance of an intellectual +coterie in the history of Rome. Their leader was the younger Scipio, who +had as his associates his friend Laelius, the poet Lucilius, whose +brilliant writings, submerged by the more brilliant satires of Horace, +form one of the most deplorable losses in Roman literature, and the +Stoic philosopher Panaitios of Rhodes. Terence had also belonged to the +circle, but he was now dead. Stoicism was the avowed philosophy of these +men, and their influence, especially that of Panaitios and Lucilius, did +much to popularise their chosen philosophical creed. + +While Stoicism claimed superiority to religion and showed the +impossibility of attaching any value to religious knowledge, it +recognised the necessity of religion for the common people on grounds of +expediency, and effected a reconciliation between this denial of +religion on the one hand, and the recognition of it on the other, by +asserting that the religion of the state was justified not only by +expediency but much more by the fact that it was after all only the +presentation of the truths of Stoicism in a form which was intelligible +to the lower classes. Had this group of Scipio and his associates made +an effort to emphasise these particular doctrines of Stoicism in +relation to religion, the downfall of the state religion, which occurred +in the following century, might have been hindered. But for reasons, +which we shall see in a moment, this downfall could not have been +prevented, and it is doubtful whether the influence of any philosophical +system, even when supported by such prominent men, could have +perceptibly postponed the catastrophe. Meantime the only visible +contribution of Stoicism to the problem of religion was the growth under +her influence of the idea of a "double truth," one truth for the +intellectual classes and one for the common people, reaching its climax +in the phrase "It is expedient for the state to be deceived in matters +of religion" (_expedit igitur falli in religione civitatem_). This was +the attitude toward religion of the most intellectual men in the +community at the beginning of what was in many ways the most terrible +period in Rome's history. + +The last century before Christ (more exactly B.C. 133-B.C. 27) is the +story of how Rome became an empire because she was no longer able to be +a republic; it is the history of the growth of one-man power because +many-men power had become impossible. This growth was caused not only, +nor at first even chiefly, by the grasping character of Rome's +statesmen, but by the increase of the rabble and the consequent +unmanageable character of her population, except under the firm hand of +a single master. And the reason why it took one hundred years of civil +war to change the republic into the empire was not because the spirit of +the republic was so slow in dying that its death struggles filled a +century, but merely because the republic died too easily and the way to +one-man power was so simple that there were too many candidates for the +position, and hence the civil wars between them. These civil wars were +bound to continue until the bitter lessons of experience had taught men +not only how to gain the supreme control, which was relatively easy, but +how to keep it and exclude rivals, which was much more difficult. The +ambitious leaders of this century did not have to create a throne; that +was ready to their hand. Their task was only to put defences around it. +Even these defences of it were not directly against the people, for the +people had no desire to overthrow the throne, but merely against the +rival candidates. Step by step from Tiberius Gracchus to Gaius Gracchus, +and on to Marius, to Sulla, to Pompey, to Julius Caesar, possession +became more and more permanent; until from being a mere momentary +position, it became nine points of the law, and Octavian made the tenure +perfect by adding an almost religious reverence to his person in the +title _Augustus_. + +In the main the foreign wars of the second century before Christ gave +place to the Civil War at home, but there was one exception to this, the +war with Mithradates, king of Pontus, which on various occasions during +the early part of the century took large bodies of Romans to the Orient. +And as though to supplement this knowledge of the East, in the closing +half of the century the field of the civil struggle was enlarged so that +it too included the East and South-East. We have already seen so many +instances of the effects of political events on the course of Roman +religion that it is a matter of no surprise to us to see that both of +these struggles, the Civil War and the Oriental wars, left their marks +on religion. It would be much more surprising if they had not done so. +In the struggle of the rivals at home every possible weapon was +employed, and it was soon discovered that the priests and the +paraphernalia of religion were excellent means of political power and +influence. The religion of the state therefore became enslaved to +politics. On the other hand the campaigns in the East made the soldiers, +and eventually on their return the whole populace, acquainted with +various Oriental deities, which helped to satisfy their craving for the +sensational and the superstitious. Thus while the state religion in its +debauched condition was losing influence, the orgiastic element in +worship was gaining power through these newly acquired Oriental cults. +The story of the religion of the last century of the republic is +accordingly the history of the control of state religion by politics and +its consequent destruction, and the growth of superstition because of +the coming of new Oriental worships; and we may add to these two topics +a third: the pathetic attempts of philosophy to breathe new life into +the dead religion of the state. + +When it comes to the question of the human characters whose names are +writ large on this page of religious history, the Dictator Lucius +Cornelius Sulla towers above all others. To his political insight is +largely owing the harnessing of the state religion to the chariot of the +politician, now and hereafter; and it was he who was the foremost leader +of Roman armies to the Orient, and the man who, because of his +peculiarly superstitious character, encouraged the worship of the +strange deities which were found there. In both these directions he was +ably seconded by Pompey, half a generation later. On the other hand the +futile efforts of philosophy to improve the situation were inspired +during the earlier period by the chief priest Scaevola, a contemporary +of Sulla, and during Pompey's and Caesar's time by Varro, the greatest +scholar that Rome ever produced. + +Let us follow first the fortunes of the religion of the state at the +hands of the politicians. The upper and influential classes of Roman +society were now thoroughly imbued with Stoic philosophy and accordingly +with the doctrine of the "double truth" in the field of religion--the +real philosophical truth which was their own peculiar property and +which showed them clearly that all the forms of religion were vain, and +its doctrines at best a clumsy statement in roundabout parables of a +truth which they saw face to face; and that lower "truth" intended for +the masses and dictated by the pressure of necessity, the concrete state +religion in all its details, which must be preserved among the lower +classes in the interest of the state and of society. The state religion +was thus a matter of expediency and of usefulness. But once this idea of +its usefulness was put into the foreground, it was natural that the +question should immediately be asked: Was this state religion as useful +after all as it might be? Could it not be put to greater uses? If +religion existed in general for its political effects, why should it not +be used by the individual, like any other political apparatus, for his +own individual advancement? The man to whom this idea seems to have come +first in all its fullness was Sulla, and he proceeded immediately to act +upon it. The control of religion could, of course, be obtained best +through the priesthoods, and those priesthoods were naturally most worth +gaining which possessed the greatest right of interference in affairs of +state. These priesthoods were: first the Augurs, with their traditional +right to break up assemblies and to declare legislative action null and +void; then the Pontiffs, with their general control of all vexed +questions concerning the intersection of divine and human law; and +lastly the XVviri, or the keepers of the Sibylline books, in charge also +of the cults to which the oracles had given birth. Accordingly he +increased the numbers of these three priesthoods, raising each to +fifteen; and inasmuch as the old right of the colleges of the priests to +fill vacancies in their own bodies themselves had been taken away from +them in B.C. 103, and such vacancies were now filled by popular vote, it +was an easy thing for him to fill the new positions with his own men. + +The result of accentuating the political importance of these three +colleges was that the whole body of the state religion became actuated +with a political spirit, and the whole structure was remodelled along +the lines of this new valuation. The immediate effect of this was that +the priests themselves became entirely absorbed in politics. To be sure +Sulla was not responsible for all of this, because the tendency had been +in this direction ever since the time of the Punic wars. In the good old +days of Roman religion the office of priest had been in the main its own +reward, and though the priests formed by no means a separate class, and +the individual priest had many secular interests and occasionally some +political ones, he was not supposed to hold political office. In the +time of the Punic wars, however, the tide began to turn. The earliest +recorded instance of a priest holding a high political office is in the +year B.C. 242 when the Flamen Martialis or special priest of Mars was +chosen Consul; but when the gentleman in question started to go to the +war, he was forbidden by the Pontifex Maximus. In B.C. 200 the Flamen +Dialis, or special priest of Juppiter, was allowed to be made aedile, +but his brother had to be especially authorised to take the oath of +office in his stead, since the priest of Juppiter, the god of oaths, was +himself not allowed to take an oath. In the course of the next century +such cases became more common, and where the thing was not allowed, the +priesthood became unpopular, and was sometimes left entirely vacant. +This last thing happened, for instance, in the case of the Flaminium +Diale, a position which was unfilled from B.C. 87 till B.C. 11. But the +evil effects of politics were not confined to the emptying of certain +priesthoods, which after all were of no very great importance, except as +their presence tended to sustain the _morale_ of the old religious +ritual. Its effects were much more disastrous in the very important +priesthoods which had now become essentially political offices. The +exclusively political interests of the incumbents, combined with the +fact that each man was elected by general vote of the people and without +any special fitness for the position, as had been the case in the old +days, tended to break down all the traditions of the college, and thus +to destroy much of the knowledge which was being handed down largely by +oral tradition. There arose therefore an ignorance of the ritual of the +cult which was great just in proportion as the knowledge originally +present had been accurate and intricate. But even this was not all; the +arranging of the yearly calendar, with its complicated intercalation of +days to bring into harmony the solar and the lunar years, was still in +the hands of the priests, and here the results of their growing +ignorance were most appalling. The calendar became terribly disordered; +and this again had its reaction on religion, for the calendar month +occasionally fell so out of gear with the natural seasons that it was +impossible to celebrate some of the old Roman festivals, which had a +distinct bearing on certain seasons of the year. + +Thus the greatest enemies of the religion of the state were those of its +own household, the priests, who turned the reverent formalism of the old +days into a mockery, and made their priesthood merely a means of +political influence. + +Now that the old Roman gods had been changed into new-fangled Greek +gods, and the old Roman priesthoods into modern political clubs, it is +little wonder that the religion of the fathers ceased to satisfy their +descendants. But while history shows that specific religious creeds have +often proved mortal and subject to change and decay, the same history +makes clear that the religious instinct is a constant factor in +humanity; and we must not suppose for a moment that the religious need +of the Roman community had ceased to exist, simply because the religion +of the state had ceased to satisfy it. From the day when the Sibyl gave +her first oracles to Rome on down to the time of Sulla, the desire for +the sensational and the extraordinary in religion had been steadily +growing. It had its birth in the idea that there was such a thing as a +direct communion with the deity, and that the oracles were an immediate +command from him. It was nourished by the sense of foreignness in the +Greek ceremonies gradually introduced into the cult. It fed on the more +sensational aspects of certain of the gods brought in: on the +enthusiastic rites of Bacchus, on the miracle-working of Aesculapius, on +the Stygian mystery of Dis and Proserpina. But its fulfilment was to +come from the East, that inexhaustible fountain of religious energy. In +the Magna Mater it recognised its own. This was the first undiluted +Orientalism which came to Rome. But the state itself had received it, +and had managed in some unaccountable way to put upon this outlandish +Eastern cult the stamp of Rome's nationality, that stamp which no nation +ever successfully and permanently resisted; and thus the reception of +the cult on the part of the state was not only a disgraceful thing, +tending to degrade true religion and spread the contagion of +Orientalism, but it also made those whose appetite had been aroused +eager for other deities, whose cult would have the great additional +charm of being unlicensed by the state, and hence savouring of +unlawfulness. + +Such a cult, long half-consciously desired, was at length found, when in +B.C. 92 the Roman soldiery commanded by Sulla penetrated into the valley +of Comana in Cappadocia. There was a whole community, a miniature state, +devoted to the service of a goddess not unlike the Great Mother of +Pessinus, but whose cult was more ecstatic, more orgiastic, than that of +the Magna Mater, at least as Rome knew her. The king was the chief +priest, and the citizens were priests and priestesses. The war with +Mithradates brought the Roman army there again and also to another +Comana in Pontus, where there was a branch of the Cappadocian cult. It +was not the ignorant soldiery alone who were impressed by what they saw; +their leader, Sulla, was fully as much affected, and on his return to +Italy when the great crisis in his career, his march on Rome and his +storming of the Eternal City, lay before him, it was the goddess of +Comana who appeared to him in a dream and gave him courage. Thus her +cult entered Rome, and the capture of the city by Sulla has its parallel +in the capture of the hearts of the people by his companion, the goddess +of Comana. The original name of this goddess seems to have been Ma, but +the Greeks, who also knew her, had likened her to Enyo, their goddess +of strife and warfare; hence in these days of facile identification the +Romans' course was clear, and she became straightway Bellona, called by +the name of their old goddess of war. Of all the chapters of the history +of such identifications none is more curious than this. The old Bellona +had borne to Mars the same relation that Fides, the goddess of good +faith, had borne to Juppiter. She was the result of the separate +deification of one of the qualities of Mars, the breaking off of an +adjective and the turning of it into a noun; but from now on, though the +old goddess still existed and had her own temple and her own worship, +the name was also applied to this strange Oriental goddess who came in +the train of the debauched Roman army on its return from the East. But +though men might call this new-comer by the name of a sacred old +national goddess and worship her in private as they pleased, the +religion of the state, even in its sunken condition, refused to admit +her among its deities, and the priests, the _Fanatici_, with their wild +dances, to the music of cymbals and trumpets, slashing themselves with +their double axes until their arms streamed with blood, were not, at +least as yet, the official representatives of the state, the companions +of the reverend old Salii with their dignified "three-step." Even the +sanctuaries of the private cult must be kept outside the city, and the +violation of this law in B.C. 48 resulted in the raiding and +destruction of one of these private chapels. Her cult does not seem to +have become a state affair until the beginning of the third century +A.D., when Caracalla, who had extended Roman citizenship to all the +inhabitants of the provinces, gave a similar citizenship to all the +foreign deities resident in Rome. It is a curious coincidence that this +action of Caracalla's occurred just about the same year A.D. in which +the breakdown of the _pomerium_ for state cults had occurred B.C. For +the present, however, that is to say in the first century B.C., the +state retained her dignity, though the resultant unorthodox character of +the cult increased its power and influence, and made it more subversive +to morals than the Magna Mater was. + +An even more interesting instance, both of the popularity of sensational +foreign cults and of the struggle of the state religion against them, is +found in the case of the Egyptian goddess Isis. The spread of Isis +worship into the Greek, and consequently also into the Roman world, +began relatively early. In the third century Isis and her companion +Serapis were well established on the island of Delos; and in the second +century we find traces of their worship in Campania, especially at +Pompeii and Puteoli. This last-named place, the seaport Puteoli, the +modern Pozzuoli, outside of Naples, was probably the door through which +Isis and her train came into Italy. Puteoli was the chief port for +Oriental ships, including Egypt, and it also had commercial relations +with Delos. At this later date it supplied Rome with gods in somewhat +the same way that Cumae, in the same neighbourhood, had done centuries +before. So far as the city of Rome itself is concerned, an apparently +trustworthy tradition traces the private cult back to the time of Sulla; +and it certainly cannot have been introduced much later than this time, +because in B.C. 58 it had became so prominent and so offensive to the +authorities of the state that they destroyed an altar of Isis on the +Capitoline. Apparently Isis was no exception to the general law of +growth by persecution, because in the course of the next decade the +state found it necessary to interfere no less than three times, _i.e._ +in B.C. 53, 50, and 48. Finally the policy of suppression proved so +ineffectual that it was decided to try the opposite extreme, and to see +what could be done by state acknowledgment and state control, and so the +Triumvirs, Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus, in B.C. 43 decreed the +building of a state temple for Isis. But although they had decreed the +erection of a temple, they were too much engaged in their own affairs to +build it immediately, and until the temple was built Isis could not +properly be considered among the state gods. As events turned out this +temple was never built, for in the course of the next few years the +trouble with Antony and Cleopatra began, and thus the gods of Egypt +became the gods of Rome's enemies, and so far as the state was concerned +an acknowledgment of these gods was impossible. Instead Augustus forbade +even private chapels inside the _pomerium_. The subsequent history of +Isis does not directly concern us; suffice it to say that after various +vicissitudes she was admitted to the state cult by Caracalla along with +all the other foreign deities. + +But it was not only Asia Minor and Egypt which gave their cults to Rome; +the deities of Syria came too. Prominent among them was Atargatis, whose +cult seems to have touched the Italian mainland first at Puteoli. In +B.C. 54 the army of Crassus on its Eastern expedition, which was +destined to come to such a tragic end in the terrible defeat at Carrhae, +visited and plundered the sanctuary of the goddess in Syria. Thus she +became known at Rome, where she was called simply the "Syrian goddess" +(_dea Syria_) and was worshipped in a way very similar to the Magna +Mater and Bellona. + +Lastly when Pompey swept the Mediterranean clean of Cilician pirates, +the sailors became acquainted with a Persian deity, Mithras, whose cult +in Rome began during our period and subsequently crowded all the other +orgiastic cults into insignificance. + +We have now seen how the politicians were turning the state religion +into a tool for the accomplishment of their own selfish ends, and how +the masses of the people were seeking satisfaction for their religious +needs in sensational foreign worships, introduced from Asia Minor, +Egypt, Syria, and Persia. We must now see whether any efforts were being +made by any members of the community in behalf of the old religion, and +whether there were still in existence any traces of the pure old Roman +worship. + +The latter-day philosophies of Greece had dealt a severe blow at Roman +religion by convincing the intellectual classes in the community that in +the nature of things there could be no such knowledge as that upon which +religion was based, and hence that religion was an idle thing unworthy +of a true man's interest. Yet all the philosophy in the world could not +take away from a Roman his sense of duty to the state. Now the state in +its experience had found religion so necessary that she had built up a +formal system of it and made it a part of herself. As it was the duty of +the citizen to support the state in every part of her activity, it was +clearly his duty to support the state religion. Hence there arose that +crass contradiction, which existed in Rome to a large degree as long as +these particular systems of philosophy prevailed, between the duty which +a man, as a thinking man, owed to himself, and the duty which he, as a +good citizen, owed to the state. We have seen how during the second +century before Christ no attempt was made to reconcile these two views +and how they existed side by side in such a man, for example, as Ennius, +who wrote certain treatises embodying the most extraordinary sceptical +doctrines, and certain patriotic poems in which the whole apparatus of +the Roman gods is prominently exhibited and most reverently treated. We +have also seen how this "double truth" could not but have disastrous +results on the state religion in spite of all efforts to the contrary. +The first effort which was made to improve the situation was not so much +an attempt at reconciliation as a frank statement of the difficulties of +the case. The problem had advanced considerably toward solution when +once it had been clearly stated. The man who had the courage to make the +statement was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, a famous lawyer as well as the +head of the college of Pontiffs (Pontifex Maximus). He was a +contemporary of Sulla, and was admirably fitted for his task because he +not only represented religion in his position as Pontifex Maximus, but +could speak also in behalf of the state both theoretically as a lawyer, +and practically because he had filled almost all the important political +offices (consul, B.C. 95). The treatise in which he made his statements +has been lost to us, but we may obtain a fair idea of what he said from +a quotation by the Christian writer Augustine in his wonderful book _The +City of God_ (iv. 27). For Scaevola the double truth of Ennius has grown +into a triple truth, and there are no less than three distinct +religions: the religion of poets, of philosophers, and of statesmen. The +religion of the poets, by which he means the mythological treatment of +the gods, he condemns as worthless because it tells a great many things +about the gods which are not true and which are entirely unworthy of +them. The religion of philosophers he does not consider suitable to the +state, because it contains many things which are superfluous, and some +which are injurious. The superfluous things may be allowed to pass, but +the injurious things, by which he evidently means the doctrines of +Euhemeros, are a very serious matter, not because they are untrue but +because the knowledge of them is inexpedient for the masses. The +religion of the statesman can have no part in these things, even if they +are true; and a man as a citizen of the state must believe in many +things, or profess belief in them, which the same man, as an individual +and a philosopher, knows are false. Scaevola's honest well-intentioned +effort to support the religion of the state was naturally a failure. The +very "masses" in whose behalf Scaevola was calling on his +fellow-citizens to undergo these casuistical gymnastics soon cared more +for Bellona and Isis than for all the gods of Numa together. But we +cannot help admiring Scaevola for his patriotism, though we may not envy +him his ethics. The state religion could never be supported on the +arguments of expediency; every one granted its expediency, and still it +fell; its worst enemies, the politicians, granted it most of all, and +they were the only ones who put the doctrine to any practical use. It +was precisely this discovery of its expediency and its great practical +value which caused its downfall. From the practical standpoint the +problem was settled once and for all, but as a matter of theory it +remained for the next generation, in the person of Varro, to provide a +more satisfactory solution, and to effect something of a compromise +between the truth of philosophy and the truth of religion. + +Marcus Terentius Varro came to the work equipped with all the learning +of his time and possessed of a greater knowledge of facts than any other +Roman of his or any other day. So far as the problem of religion was +concerned, he embodied this learning in the sixteen books of _Divine +Antiquities_, which he very appropriately dedicated to Julius Caesar in +his capacity as Pontifex Maximus. If Ennius's _Sacra Historia_ be left +out of account, his book was the first treatise on systematic theology +which Rome ever had. In this work he desired to accomplish three things: +first, by a review of the history of Rome to show how essential the +state religion was; second, by an examination of Greek mythology to +purify the state religion from its immoral influences; third, to show +that the state religion so purified was fully in accord with Stoic +philosophy. In regard to the "three religions," therefore, he agreed +with Scaevola in casting out entirely the religion of the poets, and in +accepting both the others, but he differed from Scaevola in that he +denied the contradiction between them and asserted that they were not +two truths but two forms of the same truth. We are not able to go into +the details of his attempt, because unfortunately the books in which he +wrote it have been lost to us, and we have again merely the quotation in +Augustine's _City of God_. But we know that in general he tried to show +that the formal doctrines of the state religion were merely a popular +presentation of the truths of the Stoic philosophy, and that the whole +system of Roman gods could be reduced in theory to the great +philosophical contrast between the sky and the earth, the procreative +and the conceptive elements. A man might therefore hold fast to both +religions as to a simpler creed and a more abstruse one. Hence a man's +belief as a good citizen and his belief as an intelligent individual +were not in contrast so far as the truth was concerned, but merely in +the matter of form, in the manner of presentation. Varro's heroic +effort, supported as it was by all the learning of his day and all the +influence that his fame lent to his words, was nevertheless a failure. +The religion of the state was dead; politics had killed it. It was a +political power alone which could restore life to it, but that was the +work of an emperor, Augustus, and not of a scholar, Varro. + +While Varro, with the weapon of philosophy, was attempting to defend the +religion of the state against its enemies, the poets and the +philosophers, a poet, also armed with philosophy, was trying to defend +the Roman people against its worst enemy, superstition. It may not seem +as though Lucretius belonged among the friends of old Roman religion, +and as though the _De Rerum Natura_ were exactly a religious poem, and +yet his work was in so far helpful to old Roman religion in that it +attacked the excesses of a latter-day superstition which had alienated +the hearts of the people from their old beliefs. Superstition is a +parasite which lives on scepticism, and with the killing of the parasite +scepticism sometimes dies as well; and it is open to question whether +Lucretius's book was not of considerable service in the cause of +religion. For religion still lived at Rome, though it is the fashion of +the writers on the ethics of the close of the republic to emphasise +almost entirely the scepticism of the day, dwelling on the attitude of a +Cicero or a Caesar, and forgetting the infinite number of "little +people," especially outside of Rome in the country, who still believed +in the old religion of the fathers, and who still performed the old +festivals of Numa, people who knew no more about Isis than they did +about Stoic philosophy. Their presence is disclosed to us in a few +republican inscriptions, but better yet in the continuance of the rites +of family worship down into the latest days of Rome, rites which did not +form a part of the restoration of Augustus, and which therefore, had +they died now, would never have come to life again. It is by just so +much more our duty to remember these people, as they have been forgotten +by history, if we ever expect to obtain a picture of Roman religion in +its true proportions. They were besides the people upon whom Augustus +built in the restoration, to which we now turn. + + + + +THE AUGUSTAN RENAISSANCE + + +Politics had caused the downfall of the state religion. Weakened by the +attacks of a sceptical philosophy, driven from the hearts of the common +people by the rival cults of the Orient, the state religion had finally +lost all its influence by the abuse of it as a political tool. Its +priesthoods were deserted, its temples were falling into ruins with the +grass carpeting their mosaic pavements and the spiders weaving new altar +cloths. To us with our modern ideas it would have seemed impossible that +this state religion could ever rise again; and probably no other state +religion that the world has ever seen could have been brought to life +again, because no other state religion has ever been so absolutely a +part of the state, unless the state itself were a theocracy; and +possibly no lesser genius than Augustus could have accomplished the task +even under the slightly more favourable conditions which the state +religion of Rome offered. Whether Julius Caesar would have attempted the +restoration is one of the many questions which his death left +unanswered. Certainly thoughtful men of his day hoped that he would, and +it was in this hope that Varro dedicated his _Divine Antiquities_ to +him; and another contemporary, Granius Flaccus, his book _On the +Invocation of the Gods_. But except for one law which he caused to be +enacted "concerning the priesthoods," we have no knowledge either of his +accomplishment or of his intentions, and the great task was left +practically untouched for the master-hand of Augustus. + +In order that we may understand what Augustus did and how he managed to +succeed in relation to the state religion we must obtain some idea of +the whole scheme of Augustus in relation to the state at large, of which +his religious reorganisation was merely a part. One of the cleverest +characterisations of the Emperor Augustus which has ever been written +was that by the late Professor Mommsen, but its relatively secluded +position in the Latin preface to an edition of Augustus's great +autobiography, the _Res Gestae_, has prevented it from being generally +known. Mommsen describes Augustus as "a man who wore most skilfully the +mask of a great man, though himself not great." This epigrammatic +statement is undoubtedly clever but it is not just, although it is the +opinion concerning Augustus which we would expect a man to hold who, +like Mommsen, had an almost unbounded admiration for Julius Caesar. +There have been scattered through the pages of history even down to our +own day men of whom we say that they were not great men, though they did +a great work. In certain cases doubtless we can separate the man from +his work and justify the assertion, but in other cases we are deceived +by the man himself just as his contemporaries were and as he wished them +to be. For it occasionally happens that a man who is called to rule over +men and to reorganise a disordered government is able best to accomplish +his end by a gentle diplomacy, a conciliatory manner, which is often +misunderstood by those who surround him and who interpret gentleness of +spirit as smallness of spirit and self-restraint as weakness. It would +be truer to describe Augustus as a man who wore most skilfully the mask +of an ordinary man though himself an extraordinary man. The more we +study the chaotic condition of Rome under the Second Triumvirate and the +more fully we realise not only the total disorganisation of the forms of +government but also the absolute demoralisation of the individual +citizen, the more we appreciate the almost impossible task which was set +for Augustus and which he successfully accomplished. For one hundred +years (B.C. 133-31), from Tiberius Gracchus to Actium, hardly a decade +had passed which had not brought forth some terrible revolution for +Rome. Even the great Caesar had failed, had not divined aright the only +treatment to which the disease of the age would yield, for although the +blows which actually killed Caesar may have been merely an accident in +history, the deed of irresponsible men, his fall was no accident but was +the inevitable logical outcome of his imperial policy. But Augustus +succeeded in establishing a form of government which enabled himself and +his connexion to occupy the throne for almost a hundred years, and even +then though revolutions came, his constitution was the main bulwark of +government in succeeding centuries. It would take us too far from our +present subject to answer in any completeness the question of how he +succeeded, but a word or two may be said in general, and the rest will +become clearer when we examine his reorganisation of religion. + +The secret of Augustus's success was the infinite tact and diplomacy by +which he managed to strengthen the throne and his own position on it +while apparently restoring the form of the republic and the manners of +the old days. It is open to question whether he was actuated by a +consideration of the good of the state, or by a regard for his own +selfish ends, but it is beyond question that he gave to Rome the only +form of government which could eradicate the habit of revolution, and +thus saved the state. He succeeded because he did not underestimate the +difficulty of the task, and accordingly brought to bear on it every +possible influence, emphasising especially the psychological element +and being willing to go a long way around in order to arrive at his +goal. He was not content with a mere temporary makeshift, which might +carry him to the end of his own life; he was laying foundations for the +future. Nowhere is this more clearly stated than in one of his edicts, +where he says:--"May it fall to my lot to establish the state firm and +strong and to obtain the wished-for fruit of my labours, that I may be +called the author of it and that when I die I may carry with me the hope +that the foundations which I have laid may abide." These abiding +foundations must be laid deep in the national psychology, and it was his +grasp of the psychological problem which explains his reorganisation of +religion. A century of civil war had totally destroyed the spirit of +unity and created an infinite number of petty hatreds between man and +man. Men had looked so long at their individual interests that they had +almost forgotten the existence of the state. But if the spirit of +patriotism could be quickened into a new life, then men would think of +the state and forget themselves, and united in their love of this one +universal object of devotion they would learn a lesson of union which +might gradually be extended to their whole life. But the state must be +presented not as it was in all its wretchedness, lacerated by civil +struggle; the sight of the present would serve only to start the quarrel +over again; instead it must be the ideal state, a state so far away, so +distant from all the citizens, that they all seemed equally near. If +this state were to be something more than a mere abstraction, it could +be clothed only in the reverential garments of the past, it must be the +Rome of the good old days. Yet if they were not for ever to mourn a +"Golden Age" in the past and a paradise that was lost, there must also +be a hope for the future, a paradise to be regained. In a word the +belief in the eternity of Rome must be instilled into men's hearts. Thus +was the idea of the "eternal city" born, and it is no mere coincidence +that the first instance of this phrase in literature occurs in Tibullus, +a poet of the Augustan age. Once convinced of the eternity of Rome men +could look at the past for inspiration in full confidence that the +beauties which had been could be obtained again. But Augustus was more +than a sentimental enthusiast, and he saw that it was not enough for men +to drop their swords at the epiphany of "Roma Aeterna," that their eyes +would grow weary and looking to earth would behold the swords again. +These swords must be beaten into ploughshares and pruning hooks; the +deserted farms of Italy must be filled again, and the stability of the +state must be increased by an enlargement of the agricultural community. +But for the accomplishment of these reforms something was needed which +was at once gentler and stronger than legal enactments. The poet must +make smooth the way of the law. It was the poet who could best interest +men in the past; and thus Augustan poetry was encouraged and directed by +the emperor, that by pointing out the glories of old Rome it might +inspire men to make a new Rome more glorious than the old. Practically +every poet of the age was directly or indirectly under the influence of +the ruler. It was the emperor's counsellor, Maecenas, who encouraged +Virgil to write his _Georgics_, and these glowing pictures of farm life +did quite as much to carry out the emperor's plans as the _Aeneid_ +later. And Virgil was not alone in writing of country life; Tibullus, +even more gentle than the gentle bard of Mantua, was telling the same +story in another form. + +By this time the myths which Greece had given to Rome or which Rome had +made for herself on Greek models were absolutely a part of the national +past. These too entered into Augustus's scheme. Thus another protege of +Maecenas, the poet Propertius, was gradually weaned from love poetry and +filled instead with a hunger for the myths of Roman temples and of old +Roman customs, so that Cynthia slowly gives way to Tarpeia and +Vertumnus, and the Rome of Augustus to the Rome of Romulus. Even the +irrepressible Ovid tried in his exuberant fashion to assist in this work +and started in his _Fasti_ to write a history of the religious +festivals of the Roman year. But above all these, and infinitely more +important in its influence, towers the _Aeneid_ of Virgil. All through +the varied incidents of the twelve books there runs the scarlet thread +of a great purpose, the glorification of Rome and of Augustus. From the +sack of Troy, through the long wanderings and the fierce wars in Latium, +down to the final conquest of the enemy, we see Aeneas led by the hand +of the gods whose will it was that Rome should be. The lesson is very +evident. The providence which guided us in the past still protects us; +we have no right to be discouraged, and our future is assured us under +the same gods who brought our fathers out of the land of the Trojans, +through the midst of the Greeks. But there is concealed in the _Aeneid_ +another lesson, much more directly useful to Augustus. Its hero, the +immaculate pious Aeneas, is the direct ancestor of the Julian house to +which Augustus belongs, and the founding of Rome shows not only the good +will of the gods toward the city, but in no less degree their special +appointment and protection of the leader. The descendants of the house +of Aeneas are therefore the divinely appointed rulers of Rome. + +There can be no question but that this poetry had an effect none the +less far reaching because its influence was difficult to estimate and +analyse. It was not necessary for the psychological result that men +should actually believe in these myths; much was gained if they allowed +their thoughts to dwell on the ideas presented in them. It was the +sedimentary deposit thus formed which was to fertilise the soil of +patriotism which had grown so barren in the civil wars. But while +Augustus was broad-minded enough to realise the value of the influence +of literature, he did not fail to recognise that men could not live by +myths alone, that they must be surrounded by visible cult acts and +tangible temples of the gods in order that their faith might be aided by +sight and their life filled with action. Literature was to encourage +patriotism, and patriotism was the foundation for the spiritual +restoration of the state religion, but the state itself must by legal +enactment prepare the outward form which the religious activity was to +take. The question of the sincerity of Augustus in these religious +reforms is a very difficult one to answer. If the essence of religion +consisted in acts and not in belief, in works and not in faith, Augustus +was a devoutly religious man. Beyond that we cannot go, for our judgment +is hampered not only by ignorance of the facts but by our inability to +free ourselves from the modern standpoint in the interpretation of the +few facts that we do know. There can be no question of the emperor's +fitness for the task so far as priestly learning went, for he was from a +very early age a member of three priesthoods: a pontiff, an augur, and +a guardian of the Sibylline books. With characteristic modesty however +he refrained from becoming Chief Pontiff until in B.C. 12 the death of +Lepidus, the discarded member of the Second Triumvirate, left the +position vacant. + +One who understands the political reforms of Augustus will have no +difficulty in understanding his reorganisation of religion, for they +were both undertaken with the same general underlying principles and +along similar lines. In both cases innovations and novelties were +strenuously avoided, except of course those of a merely administrative +character. In each case a successful effort was made to have it appear +as if the old institutions of the republic were being reinstated, +whereas as a matter of fact the form alone was old with its age +artificially emphasised occasionally by an archaistic touch, while the +content was quite new. The real result in each case was the +strengthening of the monarchy and the emphasising of the divine right of +the Julian house. In our study of Augustus's restoration of religion we +must not be content therefore with chronicling the old forms which were +re-established, but we must examine in each case the new content which +was put into them, even though the evidence of that content consists +oftentimes of a mere tendency. The fondness of Augustus for the archaic +is nowhere more clearly exhibited than in one of his earliest religious +acts: the formal declaration of war against Antony and Cleopatra, in +B.C. 32, by means of the Fetiales. The Fetiales were a very ancient +priestly college which acted, under the direction of the Senate, as the +representatives of international law. It was through them that all +treaties and all declarations of war had been made, but it seems +probable that this custom had fallen into desuetude after the Punic +wars, and that accordingly the college had lapsed into insignificance, +if it had not died out altogether. But now as the first step in the +rebuilding of the priesthoods Octavian restored the college to its old +rank and gained also the additional advantage that the people were +impressed with the moral righteousness of their cause against Antony and +Cleopatra, and also with the fact that it was a foreign, _i.e._ an +international war, and not a civil one, in which they were about to +engage. The effect of Octavian's restoration was a lasting one, for from +this time on this priesthood was held in high honour during the whole of +the empire, and the emperors themselves were members of it. + +This was a very characteristic beginning to Augustus's activity. It was +primarily the human element to which he was appealing in his religious +changes, and hence the priesthoods needed especial attention. It was not +long after the battle of Actium that he restored another very ancient +priesthood, that of the Arval brothers. This was a very old priesthood +consisting of twelve men who took part in the purification of the land, +the _Ambarvalia_, so called because the ceremony consisted of a solemn +procession around the boundaries of the fields. But as the Roman +territory grew and such a ceremony in the old fashion became impossible +and was carried out merely symbolically by sacrifices at various +boundary points, the Arval brothers lost all their importance, so that +even in these symbolic sacrifices their place was taken by the pontiffs. +Augustus however recognised in this priesthood an effectual means of +emphasising the agricultural side of Roman life, and of connecting the +imperial family with the farming population. The centre of this new +worship was the sanctuary in the sacred grove at the fifth milestone of +the Via Campana, and it is there that the wonderful discoveries have +been made of the inscriptions giving the "minutes" of the meetings of +this curious corporation, beginning with Augustus. But the pastoral side +of their worship was an insignificant matter, even in the age of +Augustus, compared with their prayers and supplications in behalf of the +imperial house, so that the records of this supposedly agricultural +priesthood form one of our best sources for the study of +emperor-worship. + +Three other priesthoods, the pontiffs, the augurs, and the guardians of +the Sibylline books (_XVviri_) did not need actual restoration, for +their ability to interfere in politics had kept them alive during the +closing centuries of the republic, when political usefulness was the +surest means of surviving in the struggle for existence. But the fact +that they had been politically powerful made the control of them all the +more necessary for an emperor who wished to have in his hands all the +possibilities of political influence. It was contrary to Augustus's +policy openly to crush any of the institutions which had really been or, +what was from his standpoint very much the same thing, had been thought +to be a bulwark of republicanism. As a matter of fact however these +priesthoods had been one of the chief means of bringing the republic +into the control of one man. Hence for Augustus the problem was easy to +solve; it was only necessary to appear to honour these priesthoods by +raising their dignity still higher and by making only men of senatorial +rank eligible, and then to take the chief position in them himself and +to fill them with his own supporters. Thus the republic was apparently +saved and the empire was really strengthened. + +But the priesthood to which Augustus devoted his most especial attention +was the priesthood of Vesta, the Vestal virgins. Here he was guided not +only by his desire to improve the condition of the priesthoods in +general but also by his especial interest in the cult of Vesta. The +reasons for this interest in Vesta will be explained in a moment when +we discuss the emperor's favourite cults; but a word about its effects +on the priestesses of Vesta may be said here. The Vestal virgins had +been relatively little contaminated by politics, but the priesthood had +suffered along with all the rest of the religion of the state because of +the general indifferentism and neglect of religious things which +characterised the closing centuries of the republic. The best families +in the state were not as ready as in the earlier days to devote their +daughters to the service, and thus the rank and consequently the +influence of the Vestals had to some extent declined. But now all this +was immediately changed, the outward honour and the insignia of the +Vestals were increased until they were allowed such privileges as not +even the emperors possessed. When they went through the street, they +were attended by a lictor as the higher officers of the state were, and +they were given special seats at the theatre. But the most +characteristic thing which Augustus did for them and that which helped +their cause the most was the emperor's declaration, made to be repeated +in public gossip, that if he had a grand-daughter of the proper age he +would unhesitatingly make her a Vestal virgin. + +Toward the close of his life Augustus prepared a statement of what he +had accomplished during his reign, a sort of _compte rendu_ of his +stewardship. In a roundabout way almost all of this has been preserved +to us and it naturally forms the greatest source of our knowledge of +his activity. After reciting a large number of his religious reforms he +adds:--"The spoils of war I have consecrated to the gods in the +Capitoline temple, in the temple of the god Julius, in the temple of +Apollo, in the temple of Vesta, in the temple of Mars the Avenger." +These words give us a clue to the more especial religious interests of +Augustus, a clue which is all the more needed because of his apparently +catholic spirit, and his seemingly general interest in all the forms of +old Roman religion. No man who restored and in some cases entirely +rebuilt eighty-two temples to various deities could be accused of undue +partiality in emphasising certain phases of religion to the total +exclusion of others. But as a matter of fact underneath this general +interest there were present certain very specific interests, and this +passage in his own writing adds great strength to the other evidence as +to what these gods were. Naturally in every list of pre-eminent deities +Juppiter must be present, hence the mention of the Capitoline temple +first; as a matter of fact however Augustus's worship of Juppiter was +much more a matter of form than of real interest. His attitude was one +of graceful acceptance of the inevitable rather than of enthusiastic +homage. Juppiter was not adapted to his purpose, because it was almost +impossible to connect Juppiter with a specific form of government other +than the republic, much less with a particular royal family like the +Julian house. Juppiter had come to mean republicanism. The Capitoline +temple had ushered in the republic in B.C. 509 and there was a halo of +republicanism about it which was too genuine to be used as a mask for +concealing imperial features. With the four other deities matters stood +very differently. The god Julius, Apollo, Vesta, and Mars the Avenger +were either already identical with the imperial family or could easily +be connected with it. + +The central feature of the religion of the empire was a thing altogether +unique and unknown in the republic: the worship of the emperors as gods. +From Augustus on this was the chief characteristic of the state +religion; its beginnings must be sought therefore under his reign and he +is largely accountable for it. According to our modern ideas it seems a +very strange thing to worship a living man as a god; it seems also +strange to worship a dead man as a god, but there we have at least the +analogy of the worship of the saints, and the inherent instinct of the +race toward ancestor-worship which unexpectedly crops out in all of us +at intervals. But we must rid ourselves of modern ideas and try to +appreciate the historical evolution of emperor-worship. This evolution +is perfectly clear and we can trace every step of it, though in doing so +we must remember that the various processes which we are compelled to +take up one after another in our explanation went on in nature side by +side, and exercised a sympathetic influence one upon the other, which we +have to eliminate from our explanation but make allowance for in our +finished concept. + +We have seen that from the very beginning of religious life in Rome the +idea was present that everything, each individual and each family, had +its divine double, the individual in the shape of his Genius, the family +in the shape of protecting spirits, Vesta, the Penates, and later the +Lar. In addition to this, under the influence of the Greek myths which +various families adopted, certain gods originally independent became +especially associated with these families. Each family was naturally +interested in the worship of its own gods, but this particular worship +was quite as naturally confined to the particular family or its +dependents. Now the first preliminary step toward emperor-worship was +taken when the gods of the imperial family began to be worshipped by +other families, then by all other families, and officially by the state. +But from the very beginning the gods of each family had included also +the deified ancestors, the _Di Manes_, at first thought of _en masse_ +and not as individuals, but toward the close of the republic they began +to be individualised, so that the next step in emperor-worship was when +the dead Julius, a particular ancestor therefore of Augustus, began to +be worshipped by the whole people and officially by the state. But also +from the beginning there had been still another element in family +worship, the cult paid to the Genius or divine double of the living +master of the house. There followed then correspondingly as another step +toward emperor-worship, the homage paid by the whole state to the Genius +of the living emperor. These three steps: the worship by the whole state +of the gods of the emperor's family, in its three forms, the gods of the +family in general, and in particular the deified ancestor, and the +Genius of the living representative, were all encouraged and officially +established by Augustus. Lastly there came from the Orient a habit of +thought in distinct contradiction to Roman ideas whereby not the Genius +of the living emperor but the very man himself was divine in life and in +death. Augustus fought against this concept but had to yield to it and +allow himself to be worshipped directly as a god in the Orient itself +and in certain coast towns of Italy which were under strong Oriental +influence, but he forbade it in Rome, and thus established a precedent +which was followed by all the better ones among the emperors who came +after him. + +This digression was necessary in order that we might appreciate the +reasons for Augustus's preferences in emphasising certain cults. +Unquestionably he did not foresee or plan for an emperor-worship such as +eventually grew up out of his arrangements; he was however deeply +interested in emphasising the worship of the special deities of his own +family. The four gods therefore whose names he couples with that of +Juppiter in the summary of his religious activity--Apollo, Vesta, Mars +the Avenger, and the god Julius--are all intimately connected with his +family; and if we add to this the worship of his own Genius, the Genius +Augusti, we shall have the real kernel of his religious restoration. It +remains for us to see in what way these deities are connected with his +family, and how he managed to emphasise their cult and at the same time +to bring them into close relationship to himself. + +From the time of his first introduction into Rome Apollo had stood in a +relation of contrast to Juppiter. Apollo's oracles, the Sibylline books, +had brought in a host of Greek gods whose presence tended inevitably to +lessen the unique position and the unparalleled prestige of Juppiter +Optimus Maximus, the great representative of nationalism in Roman +religion. At first this contrast was scarcely marked, and the very +oracles of Apollo which were destined to undermine Juppiter's +omnipotence were stored in Juppiter's temple and under his protection. +The difference was felt more strongly as the priesthood of the Sibylline +books began to grow in influence alongside of the pontiffs, the priests +of the Juppiter cults. This opposition was emphasised in B.C. 367, when +the priesthood of the oracles was opened to the plebeians, while the +pontiffs were still patricians. At first unquestionably the object of +the patricians was to keep for themselves the more sacred and the then +more important college and to open the lesser priesthood to the +plebeians. But in the struggle of the two orders those things which were +opened to the plebeians grew in importance and entirely overshadowed +those which were so scrupulously hedged about, and the elements which +strove to resist progress were crushed beneath it; and just as the old +assembly, the Comitia Curiata, which the patricians had kept for +themselves, was later of no account compared with the Comitia +Centuriata, which belonged to both orders, so the college of pontiffs +lost significance while the keepers of the oracles gained steadily in +power and influence. But it was not merely because Apollo was the great +leader of the Greek movement in Roman religion that Augustus chose to +honour him. A far more important consideration guided him, for Apollo +was especially attached to the Julian house in all its mythical and +historical fortunes. The first great public evidence of Apollo's favour +in Augustus's career was at the battle of Actium; but while this led to +the first proclamation of the emperor's devotion to Apollo, it was not +Actium which made him a worshipper of the god, but it was because he was +a worshipper of Apollo from the beginning that Actium and all subsequent +tokens of the god's favour were emphasised by him. However much or +little the people of the day may have known about Apollo's previous +relations to the Julian family, the legend of his assistance at Actium, +and the immortalisation of that legend in the great temple on the +Palatine were proofs enough. The moral effect of the Palatine temple +cannot be overestimated, especially when we realise one fact, which is +often neglected, that this temple gained infinitely in significance +because it was on private ground, attached to the emperor's own private +house, for we must not forget that the Palatine was only in process of +transition into the imperial residence, and though the house of +Augustus, when he left it, was the palace, during his lifetime it was +merely his private residence. The temple of Apollo was therefore in its +origin theoretically the private chapel of a Roman family rather than +the seat of a state cult. It was the Apollo of the Julian house who was +being worshipped there. And yet it was far more than a private worship, +for it began very soon to be a cult centre in distinct rivalry to +Juppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. The oracles of the Sibyl, +even though they were the words of Apollo, had never been preserved in +the old temple of Apollo on the Flaminian meadow, but instead they had +always been in the custody of Juppiter on the Capitoline. But now these +oracles, after being carefully revised by the emperor, were deposited in +the new Palatine temple, and by this act the centre of all the Greek +cults in Rome was transferred from Juppiter to Apollo, from the +Capitoline to the Palatine, and the rivalry between the two was publicly +declared. The temple was dedicated in B.C. 28 and Augustus allowed its +influence to permeate the Roman people for more than a decade before he +took the next step, a step which was virtually to parallel Apollo and +his sister Artemis-Diana with Juppiter and Juno. + +Among the Greek gods who came into Rome we saw the entrance in the +middle of the third century before Christ of a pair of deities of the +Lower World, Dis and Proserpina, and in connexion with the introduction +the establishment of certain games called "secular" because they were to +be repeated at the expiration of a century (_saeculum_). The initial +celebration was in B.C. 249, one hundred years later with a slight delay +they were celebrated again in B.C. 146, the next anniversary was omitted +because it fell in the midst of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey, +but now Augustus wished to celebrate them. There were chronological +difficulties, but they did not prove insurmountable. An oracle was set +in circulation, or one actually in circulation was made use of, wherein +it was declared that a great cycle of four times one hundred and ten +years had passed and that a new age was now beginning. The emperor, if +not responsible for this oracle, was very willing to accept it. It was +an essential part of his plan that all things should become new, and +that with the new age should come a new spirit. This new _saeculum_ must +be ushered in by games which should be at once like and unlike those of +past centuries. They were to be celebrated at least in part on the +hallowed spot, the _Tarentum_ in the Campus Martius, they were to extend +through three nights like the old games, but the three days were to be +added as well, and the deities worshipped in the night, while they were +no longer the old gods of the Lower World, Dis and Proserpina, were at +least mysterious deities of fate and fortune, while the gods of the day, +Apollo and Artemis, Juppiter and Juno, were as new to the games as the +day celebrations themselves were. But the equality of Apollo and +Juppiter was expressed not merely in the parallelisation of +Juppiter-Juno with Apollo-Diana. It was still more in evidence on the +third and greatest day of the festival, when the procession of three +times nine youths and three times nine maidens sang the song in honour +of Apollo and Diana, which Horace wrote and which has been preserved to +us among his writings, the _Carmen Saeculare_, and to which in addition +the recently found inscription giving an account of the games bears +witness in the words _carmen composuit Q. Horatius Flaccus_ (_C.I.L._ +vi. 32323). On this day the procession started from the Apollo temple on +the Palatine, and went over to the Juppiter temple on the Capitoline, +and then back again to Apollo on the Palatine, thus indicating not only +the equality of Apollo and Juppiter but even the superiority of the +former. A new age had indeed begun, an age in which the new associations +of the Palatine and the glamour of imperialism were to overcome the more +democratic associations of the Capitoline with its incorrigibly +republican Juppiter. Greek gods which had hitherto in theory at least +been subordinated to the gods of old Rome were now granted not only +equality but superiority. The specific cult of Apollo, to be sure, did +not always retain the exalted position to which Augustus had raised it, +but even it never entirely lost its prominence, whereas the general idea +of the supremacy of the imperial cult was now established for all time +to come. But this secular celebration of Augustus is interesting aside +from the relation of Juppiter and Apollo, for it affords another +illustration of the skilful combination of new and old in the Augustan +reorganisation. In form the festival is avowedly the old one, but in two +respects at least it introduces a new element. In the first place +participation in the old festival, as in all the old festivals, had been +confined to Roman citizens. Others might look on, but they could not +take part, nor were they the recipients of any of the blessings which +were to follow. But now every free member of the community, with wife +and child, might join in the celebration, and thus the note was struck +which was to be the keynote of all that was best in the changes +introduced by the empire whose "highest and most beautiful task," as +Professor Mommsen puts it, "and the one which she fulfilled most +perfectly, was gradually to reconcile and thus to put an end to the +contrast between the ruling city and the subordinate communities, and +thus to change the old Roman law of city-citizenship into a community of +the state which embraced all the members of the empire." But even this +was not all; under the guise of this restoration of an old republican +institution a blow was struck at the very foundation of all republican +institutions, namely the power of the Senate. It was _par excellence_ +Augustus's festival, arranged by him or by those to whom he had +committed the details. The Senate had little or nothing to say about it +and yet the control of such religious celebrations had hitherto formed +an inalienable part of the Senate's power. Even in the procession itself +the republican magistrates do not seem to have been officially present. +It was thus no longer the Senate inviting the magistrates and the +citizens in good and regular standing to perform a certain divine +function, but it was the emperor inviting all the members of the +community, citizens and non-citizens alike, to join with him in +worshipping the gods of the new state. + +A great part of Augustus's success was unquestionably due to a certain +form of moral courage. For all his diplomacy and his desire to feel the +pulse of the people he was never lacking in the courage of his own +convictions. This can be seen nowhere better than in his attitude toward +his adoptive father Julius Caesar. From the very beginning when he took +upon himself, even at the cost of temporary impoverishment, the payment +of Caesar's legacy, he was supremely true to the man whose successor he +was, and this faithfulness is especially apparent in the field of +religion. Here there are two cults, both relating to Julius Caesar, for +which Augustus was largely responsible, that of the god Julius himself, +and that of Mars the Avenger. + +In consideration of what Caesar had already done for the reorganisation +of the state, and in view of what he was planning to carry out, his +death was a national calamity, but his influence might still be rescued +and preserved by elevating him into the rank of the gods. For the +accomplishment of this it was necessary that the Senate should act, for +in the hands of the Senate alone lay the power to receive new gods into +the state. Thus the god Julius was created and the word _divus_ received +a new meaning. With that logic which was characteristic of Roman +religion from the very beginning, the elevation of Julius into the ranks +of the greater and more individual gods went side by side with his +exclusion from the ranks of the ordinary deified ancestors, so that +thereafter at the funeral processions of the Julian family his wax mask +was absent from the processions of ancestors to which he no longer +belonged, but in the parade of the circus he was present, drawn in a +waggon among the greater gods. Nothing was left undone to render his +cult both conspicuous and permanent. A special priest (_flamen_) was +appointed to look after it, and as the irony of fate would have it one +of the first incumbents of this position was Marc Antony after his +reconciliation with Augustus in B.C. 40. Then too a special festival day +was given him among the religious holidays of the year. It was intended +that this day should be July 13, his birthday, but as that day happened +to be already devoted to an important celebration in connexion with the +games of Apollo, the day preceding it, July 12, was chosen. But more was +needed than a priest and a holiday, there must be a cult centre as well, +a temple of the Divus Julius. The site of this temple was already given +in the associations connected with Caesar's death. There could be but +one place for it, and that was in the Forum near the Regia where his +body had been carried to be burned. There the temple was built and +dedicated August 18, B.C. 29. An altar had been erected on the spot +where Caesar's body had been burned, and the new temple was so placed +that the altar was included in its boundaries, occupying a niche in the +centre of the front line of the substructure. The temple had the usual +history of destruction and rebuilding in antiquity until in early +Christian times it was used for secular purposes, and the eyesore of the +pagan altar was removed by building a wall across the front, the +diameter of the semicircular niche, and by roofing the altar over on a +level with the existing platform. Thus the altar with its historical and +religious associations was entirely lost sight of, and though the temple +in its main outlines had long been excavated, the altar was not +discovered until 1898, when the wall was broken through and the whole +thing laid bare. Thus by the vote of the Senate, the appointment of a +priest, the setting apart of a holy day in the year, and the building of +a temple, the worship of the god Julius was established; but it was the +general irresistible tendency toward emperor-worship which kept it alive +and made it the model for a tremendous subsequent development. Augustus +had accomplished his desire. Men were looking on Caesar as a success +after all and not as a failure. The _Di Manes_ of a murdered emperor had +been profitably exchanged for the Divus Julius, and just as the gods had +founded the old Rome of Romulus, so again it was a god who had laid the +foundations of the empire over which his successor was ruling. + +But Augustus was not content with this; it was all very well for men to +look upon the god Caesar as an illustration of justification after +death, as an example of how heaven could right the wrongs of earthly +existence, but that was not sufficient; the punishment of those who +caused his earthly downfall must be emphasised, it must be shown that +the gods were quite as much interested in punishing the sinner as in +rewarding the righteous man who was sinned against. It was one thing to +transfer one's ancestors to the gods, it was quite another thing to take +measures to keep oneself from following in their footsteps, even though +their last estate was theoretically desirable. Hence side by side with +the cult of the Divus Julius went that of Mars Ultor, Mars the Avenger. +The circumstances of the beginning of the cult show that it was no mere +poetical title but a genuine cult-name born in an earnest moment: for +the great temple subsequently built to Mars under this cognomen was +vowed by Augustus "in behalf of vengeance for his father," in the war +against the slayers of Caesar, Brutus and Cassius. This temple, vowed at +Philippi in B.C. 42, was so slow in building that in the meantime +Augustus erected a small round temple to Mars Ultor on the Capitoline. +This was dedicated May 12, B.C. 20. In the years which followed Augustus +proceeded with the difficult and extremely expensive task of purchasing +property for his own Forum, and here was built and dedicated, August 1, +B.C. 2, the great temple of Mars Ultor. But aside from being a very +present reminder of the vengeance which the gods had in store for those +who killed a Caesar, it stood also for the Julian house, for Mars was +not alone in the temple but with him was Venus, the ancestral mother of +the family of Julius and Augustus; and thus was once more emphasised the +connexion between the ancestors of the ruling house and the great +ancestor Mars, from whom all Romans were sprung. + +A temple possessed of such strong associations with the imperial family +became instantly a centre of their family worship, and in this respect +produced another rival to the cult of Juppiter on the Capitoline. In +connexion namely with the putting on of the _toga virilis_ the members +of the imperial family went to the temple of Mars Ultor instead of +following the immemorial custom of ascending the Capitol to the shrine +of Juppiter Optimus Maximus. More important yet the insignia of the +triumph, which had always been in the keeping of the Capitoline Juppiter +even before he was Optimus Maximus and while he was only the "Striker," +Feretrius, were now preserved in the temple of Mars Ultor. + +With all the state worshipping Apollo, the god of the emperor's own +family, on the Palatine, celebrating the divinity of his ancestor the +god Julius in the Roman Forum, and acknowledging Mars as the avenger of +all those who did the emperor harm, in the emperor's own new Forum, it +might have seemed to a less far-seeing man that religion had been +sufficiently pressed into the service of the royal family. But so it did +not seem to Augustus. These cults were all three of them essentially +new, and new cults may, to be sure, easily become prominent; they +usually do, but the test comes with time whether there is external +pressure sufficiently continuous to give permanency to this prominence. +As a matter of fact not one of these three cults continued later to hold +the rank in importance which it had under Augustus. On the other hand if +one went low enough and looked sufficiently deep down certain elements +in the religious life of the community could be found which continued +almost unchanged from century to century. These were the simple elements +which were involved in family worship, the sacrifices at the hearth of +Vesta, and those to the Genius of the master of the house. Here simple +beliefs and elementary cult acts had continued virtually unchanged from +the very earliest period down to the present. These cults did not need +any formal restoration on the part of the emperor, for they had not +experienced the decline which the other cults had suffered, but by just +so much more they would afford a firm foundation for his empire and his +own rule if he could in some way succeed in connecting them with +himself. In the case of Vesta this was comparatively easy. The Pontifex +Maximus was the guardian of the Vestal virgins, and thus on March 6, +B.C. 12, when Augustus became Pontifex Maximus, it was quite natural +that there should be a festival to Vesta and that the day should +continue as a public holiday. The Pontifex Maximus however was supposed +to live in the Regia down in the Forum, where Julius Caesar as Pontifex +Maximus had actually lived. This Augustus did not desire to do, hence he +gracefully gave up the Regia to the Vestal virgins and made his official +residence in his own house on the Palatine, fulfilling the religious +requirements by consecrating a part of that house. On a portion of the +section thus consecrated a temple of Vesta was built and dedicated April +28, B.C. 12. This was strictly speaking his own "Vesta," the hearth of +his own house, but the prominence of the temple of Vesta there had an +effect similar to the prominence of the temple of Apollo on the +Palatine, and the whole state began thus to worship at the hearth of the +emperor, and in time the emperor was worshipped at each individual +hearth. + +But the crowning touch of Augustus's religious policy was yet to come; +this was the establishment of the worship of the Genius of the emperor. +After Actium and in the earlier years of his reign it is certain that +Augustus would not have thought of putting himself, even in the +spiritualised form of his Genius, before the people as an object of +worship. But the tendency to emperor-worship which Oriental influence +had brought with it was not without its effects on the emperor himself, +and perhaps these effects were all the stronger because of his valiant +struggle against it. Then too the state was already worshipping the gods +of his family, even Vesta Augusta, the goddess of his own hearth. He +had become in substance, even if not yet in name, the father of his +country. It had been an immemorial custom that the members of the +household should worship the Genius of the master of the house. In every +household in Rome that custom still existed. It was a very logical step, +and one therefore which a Roman could easily take, to carry out the +analogy of the family and to allow the whole state to worship the Genius +of the emperor, who was the head of the family of the state. The idea +therefore was not at all incongruous, nor was the way in which it was +carried out, though the latter was so ingenious as to deserve special +consideration. + +In the old days when Rome was a farming community, the guardianship of +the gods over the fields was one of the most important elements in +religious life. The gods were above all the protectors of the boundary +lines, and thus it came to pass that where two roads crossed and thus +the corners of four farms came together the deities protecting these +farms were worshipped together as the Lares Compitales, the Lares of the +_compita_ or cross-roads. Curiously enough this worship was later +extended to the crossing of city streets, and as was natural it became +more highly organised in the city than it had been in the country. +Regular associations, _collegia_, were formed to look after the details +of the worship, headed by the _magistri vicorum_, who were however not +public officials but merely the elected heads of these colleges, men +mainly from the lower ranks of society. The contagion of civil and +political strife affected these colleges as well as their more +aristocratic parallels, higher up in the social scale, and turned them +into local political clubs. The part played by these clubs in the civil +struggles which occupied the last century of the republic was such that +the Senate in B.C. 64 was compelled to dissolve them, though they were +restored again six years later and existed until Caesar destroyed them +entirely. But now Augustus was creating a new organisation for the city, +dividing it into fourteen regions, each region containing a certain +number of subdivisions called _vici_. The old "colleges of the +cross-roads" afforded him just the sort of opportunity which he never +failed to seize, that of seeming to restore a neglected republican +institution, and at the same time of making it into a support of the +monarchy. The colleges had antiquity in their favour, and their repeated +suppression was clear proof of their power. They must be recognised and +taken over by the state, their officials must be made into officials of +the state, but, most important, their worship must be permeated with the +imperial idea. This was where Augustus's skill showed itself. At every +shrine of the cross-roads where of old the two Lares had been worshipped +alone, a third image now took its place between them. This was the +Genius Augusti, who thus formed henceforth an integral part of the +local worship of every part of the city. Under the presiding Genius +Augusti the Lares themselves began to be known as the Lares Augusti and +the cult grew in popularity so that it began to extend through all of +Italy and even through the provinces of the empire, and wherever the +Lares went, along with them went the worship of the Genius of the +emperor. + +Now that we have seen what Augustus did, the question arises +irresistibly as to the measure of his success. There can be no question +but that he was successful in obtaining the immediate object which he +was seeking after. A formal religious life was unquestionably brought +into being, and such strength as that life had was exerted in behalf of +the empire. This is only in part true of the city but it is absolutely +true of the provinces, where after all in the long run the balance of +power was bound to lie. In every case the religious reform, begun in the +city, spread rapidly through the rest of Italy and out into the +provinces. There the negative elements, which hindered its growth in +Rome itself, were absent. For the provinces the empire was all gain, and +even a bad emperor was far better than none at all. + +The politics of Augustus had recreated the religion which the politics +of the last century of the republic had destroyed, had recreated it in +as far as political considerations could. But the spirit of scepticism +which had made possible the political abuse of religion could not be +driven out by any further application of politics. A form might be +created, both the paraphernalia of temples and the hierarchy of priests +whose business it was to perform certain cult acts, but there the power +of enactment ceased. In the main the religious life of the people went +on for good or for ill entirely independent of these things. All that +was alive and real in the simple domestic cult went on down into the +empire, and those who were faithful were faithful still. The cults of +the Orient, against which Augustus had done all that he dared, still +captured the minds of the vast majority of the people, and a Mithras or +an Isis meant infinitely more than a Mars or a Vesta, even if Mars were +the avenger of a Caesar, and Vesta the goddess of the living emperor's +own hearth. Among the more intellectual classes the folly of the one set +of gods, the darlings of the common people, was felt as keenly as the +folly of the others, those who had been worshipped by the men of former +days. Philosophy, which had had its share in the breakdown of faith, +beginning in the days of the Punic wars, was now offering out of itself +a substitute for the faith which it had taken away. It no longer +contented itself with a destructive criticism which resulted in a +negative view of life, but in Stoicism at least it strove to provide +something sufficiently constructive to afford not only a rule of living +but also an inspiration to live. + +With the death of Augustus the last chapter in the history of old Roman +religion was closed. His was the last attempt to fill the spiritual need +of the people with the old forms and the old ideas; for what he offered +was in the main old though certain new ideas were mixed with it. From +now on the lifeless platitudes of philosophy and the orgiastic excesses +of the Oriental cults divided the field between them, and it was with +them rather than with the gods of Numa or even with the deities of the +Sibylline books that Christianity fought its battles. That too is a +fascinating study, but it is quite another story and with the death of +Augustus our present tale is told. And when we look back over the whole +of it the main outlines become perhaps even clearer because of the +details into which we have been compelled to go. + +We see at the start the simple religion of an agricultural people still +strongly tinged with animism and inheriting from an animistic past a +certain formalism which is so great that it almost becomes a content. +Toward the close of the kingdom we see this religion developing through +Italic influences so that it takes into itself a certain number of +elements which were absent from the older religion because they had no +concomitants in daily life, but whose presence is now rendered +necessary. These elements are especially the ideas of politics, trade, +commerce, and the liberal arts. Then for a moment under Servius an +equilibrium seems to have been reached, and a religion to have been +brought into being which was simple enough for the old lovers of +simplicity and varied enough to satisfy the new demands of the +community. But this was not for long, for the spiritual conquest of Rome +by Greece began then, three centuries before the physical conquest of +Greece by Rome. The hosts of Greek deities invaded and captured Rome +under the leadership of the Sibylline books, and though at first they +had been kept outside the _pomerium_, even this iron barrier was melted +in the heat of the Second Punic War, and the new Greek gods swarmed into +the city proper. At the same time as a last heritage from the baleful +books an Oriental goddess, the Magna Mater, was taken into the cult and +into the hearts of the people, and the elements of decay were thus all +present. These elements were threefold: the natural spiritual reaction +resulting from the excesses of the period of the Second Punic War; the +fascination of the Orient, exhibited to Rome in the cult of the Magna +Mater; and the new gift which Greece now made to Rome, the knowledge of +her literature, especially of her philosophy. In the last two centuries +of the republic then these forces alone would have been sufficient to +cause the downfall of religion, but they were aided by politics, which +fastened itself upon the formalism of the state religion and sucked the +little life-blood that was left. Rome's scholars and wise men could +deplore the result and point out the causes, but they could not cure +the state of affairs. What politics had done, politics alone could undo, +hence only the reforms of an autocrat could restore something of the +outward structure of the old state religion. But beyond this politics +and the autocrat were alike powerless. Against philosophy and Oriental +ecstasy they were of no avail. Hence the spirit had left the religion +which Augustus had restored even before the marble temples which he had +built in its honour had fallen into decay. + +The age of formalism had passed, the religious demands of the individual +could no longer be satisfied by a mere ritual. For good or for evil +something more personal, more subjective, was needed. Men sought for it +in various ways and with varying success, but except in the simple forms +of family worship old Roman religion was dead. + + + + +INDEX + + +References to the more recent literature on the subject of Roman +religion have been given in connection with the appropriate topics in +this index. + +The following abbreviations have been employed:--_R.F._ = Warde Fowler, +_Roman Festivals_, London, 1899; _R.R._ = Wissowa, _Religion und Cultus +der Roemer_, Muenchen, 1902; P.W. = Pauly-Wissowa, _Encyclopaedie der +Altertumswissenschaft_, Stuttgart, 1894--; _Lex._ = Roscher, _Lexikon +der Griechischen und Roemischen Mythologie_, Leipzig, 1884--. + + +Actium, 81, 165 + +_Aeneid_, as a political treatise, 153 + +Aesculapius, 84. + Cp. _R.R._ 253 ff.; + _R.F._ 278; + Thraemer, P.W. _s.v._; + Asklepios + +Agricultural character of early Roman religion, 18. + Cp. _R.F._ 335; + _R.R._ 20 ff.; + Mommsen, _C.I.L._ 1, ed. 2, p. 298. + +Agrippa, erects Temple of Neptune, 81; + Richter, _Topographic der Stadt Rom._ 242; + Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 357 + +Alba Longa and the Latin League, 52. + Cp. Beloch, _Italische Bund_, 177; + Huelsen, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Altar of Caesar, 173. + Cp. Huelsen, _Forum Romanum_, ed. 2, p. 139; + Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 180 + +Animism, 5. + Cp. Tylor, _Primitive Culture_, i. 377 ff., ii. 1-327; + Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 170 ff. + +Anna Perenna, 115. + Cp. _R.F._ 50-54; + _R.R._ 194; + Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._; + Usener, _Rheinisches Museum_, xxx. 206; + Meltzer, _Lex._ _s.v._ + +Anthropological method, criticism of, 4, 5 + +Antony and the cult of Isis, 137. + Cp. _R.R._ 293 + +Apollo, 57, 66. + Cp. _R.F._ 180; + _R.R._ 239; + Wernicke, P.W. _s.v._; + Apollo and Augustus, 164. + Cp. Gardthausen, _Augustus_, 873, 961; + _R.R._ 67; + Apollo Medicus, 83. + Cp. _R.F._ 180; + _R.R._ 240 + +Aricia, 53. + Cp. Beloch, _Italische Bund_, 187; + Huelsen, P.W. _s.v._ + +Artemis, 53 ff. + Cp. Wernicke, P.W. _s.v._ + +Arval Brotherhood, restored by Augustus, 156. + Cp. _R.R._ 485; + Wissowa, P.W. _s.v._; + Henzen, _Acta Fratrum Arvalium_, Berlin, 1874; + _C.I.L._ vi. 2023-2119, 32338-32398 + +Asklepios, 84. + Cp. Aesculapius + +Atargatis, 138. + Cp. _R.R._ 300 ff.; + Cumont, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Athena, contrasted with Minerva, 46 + +Attalus of Pergamon, 97 + +Augustus: his character and motives, 147-152 + + +Bacchanalian scandal, 118, 119. + Cp. Livy, 39, 8 ff.; + _C.I.L._ 196, x. 104; + _R.R._ 58, 248 + +Bellona, 134. + Cp. Aust, in P.W. _s.v._; + _R.R._ 289 ff. + +Bona Dea-Damia, 111. + Cp. _R.F._ 105-106; + _R.R._ 177 ff.; + Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._; + Kern, in P.W. _s.v._; + Damia + + +Caesar, altar of, 173; + religious reforms of, 146, 147 + +Calendars, as sources for early Roman religion, 10. + Cp. Mommsen, _C.I.L._ 1, ed. 2; + _R.F._ 336; + _R.R._ 15 ff.; + disorder of, owing to ignorance of priests, 132 + +Cannae, 96 + +Carmen Saeculare, 168. + Cp. Wissowa, _Die Saecular-feier des Augustus_, Marburg, 1894; + Mommsen, _Ephem. Epigraph._ viii. 225 ff. + +Carmentalis Porta, 82. + Cp. Richter, _Topographie der Stadt Rom._ 44; + Platner, _Ancient Rome_, 48 + +Castor, 37 ff. + Cp. Helbig, _Hermes_, xl. 1905, 101 ff.; + _R.F._ 296-297; + _R.R._ 216 ff.; + Albert, _Le Culte de Castor et Pollux en Italie_ + +Ceres-Demeter, 72. + Cp. _R.F._ 72-79, 105; + _R.R._ 242 ff.; + Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Chaldaeans, 119. + Cp. _R.R._ 58; + Baumstark, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Circus Flaminius, 41 + +Clodius, 88 + +Cognomina, 24. + Cp. Carter, _De deorum Romanorum cognominibus_, Leipzig, 1898 + +Collegia, 47. + Cp. Waltzing, _Les Corporations chez les Romains_, Louvain, 1895-1900 + +Collegium mercatorum, 78 + +Colonia Neptunia, 80 + +Comitia Centuriata, 165 + +Comitia Curiata, 165 + +Commercial spirit in Rome, 107 + +Comparative philology, 2 + +Consus, 114. + Cp. _R.F._ 206-209, 212-213, 267-268; + _R.R._ 166 ff.; + Aust, P.W. _s.v._ + +Cumae, source of Sibylline books, 66 + + +Damia, 111, 112. + Cp. Ceres + +Dead, worship of, 14-15. + Cp. _R.R._, 187; + _R.F._. 300, 306 ff. + +Demeter, 72. + Cp. Ceres + +Diana, 53 ff. + Cp. _R.F._ 198 ff.; + _R.R._ 198 ff.; + Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Di Indigetes, 9. + Cp. _R.R._ 15 ff.; + _R.F._ 192; + Wissowa, _De dis Romanorum indigetibus_, Marburg, 1892 + +Di Manes, 14, 90. + Cp. _R.R._ 192; + _R.F._ 108; + Peter, _Lex._ _s.v._ + +Di Novensides, 9. + Cp. _R.R._ 15 ff. + +Dionysos, 72. + Cp. Liber + +Dios-kouroi, 38, 39. + Cp. Castor + +Di Penates, 13, 113. + Cp. _R.R._ 145 ff.; + _R.F._ 337; + De Marchi, _Culto Privato_, i. 55 ff.; + Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._ + +Divus Julius, 171. + Cp. _R.R._ 284 ff. + +Drepana, 88 + + +Emperor-worship, 161, 162, 163. + Cp. _R.R._ 284; + Boissier, _La religion romaine_ + +Ennius, 121, 122. + Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), 3, 112-113; + Teuffel, _Roem. Lit._ 100-104; + Skutsch, in P.W. _s.v._ + +Epidauros, 84 + +Eros of Thespiae, 46. + Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 501 ff. + +Etruscans, problem of, 42 ff. + +Euhemerism, 122. + Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), 4, 200 + +Euhemerus, 17. + Cp. Rohde, _Griech. Roman._ 220 ff. + + +Falerii, 44. + Cp. _C.I.L._ xi. p. 464 ff.; + Deecke, _Die Falisker_, Strassburg, 1888, p. 89 ff. + +Family as original social unit, 11 + +Fanatici, 135. + Cp. _R.R._ 291 + +Fauna, 111. + Cp. Bona Dea + +Faunus, 111. + Cp. _R.F._ 256-265; + _R.R._ 172 ff. + +Female deities, absence of, in early Roman religion, 21 + +Fetiales, 156. + Cp. _R.F._ 230, 231; + _R.R._ 475 ff. + +Fides, 25. + Cp. _R.F._ 237; + _R.R._ 103 + +Flaccus, Granius, 147 + +Formalism in Roman religion, 7. + Cp. _R.F._ 348 + +Fors Fortuna, 51. + Cp. _R.F._ 161-172; + _R.R._ 206 ff. + +Fortuna, 50 ff. + Cp. _R.F._ 161-172, 223-225; + _R.R._ 206 ff. + +Forum Boarium, 33, 36 + +Frazer, _Golden Bough_, 16 + + +Genius, 12. + Cp. _R.R._ 154 ff. + +Genius Augusti, 179. + Cp. _R.R._ 72, 73, 179 + +Great Mother of the gods, 96. + Cp. _R.F._ 69-70; + _R.R._ 263 + +Greek influence in Rome, 99, 100, 104 + +Guilds in relation to Minerva, 47 + + +Hannibal, 93, 94 + +Harrison: _Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion_, 22 + +Haruspicina, 43. + Cp. _R.R._ 469 ff. + +Hasdrubal, 96 + +Hebe-Juventas, 110. + Cp. Juventas + +Hercules, 32. + Cp. _R.R._ 219 ff. + +Hereditas sine sacris, 17 + +Hermes Empolaios, 77. + Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 414 + +Hesiod, 46 + +Horace, 168 + + +Indo-Germanic religion, 3 + +Isis, 136. + Cp. _R.R._ 292 ff.; + Drexler, _Lex._ _s.v._ + + +Janus, 13. + Cp. _R.F._ 282 ff.; + _R.R._ 91 ff. + +Juno, 12. + Cp. _R.F._ _passim._; + _R.R._ 113 ff. + +Juppiter as symbol of republic, 160 + +Juppiter Feretrius, 21, 58. + Cp. _R.F._ 229, 230; + _R.R._ 103 + +Juppiter Fidius, 25. + Cp. _R.F._ 138; + _R.R._ 120 + +Juppiter Latiaris, 55. + Cp. _R.F._ 95 ff.; + _R.R._ 34 ff. + +Juppiter Optimus Maximus, 21, 58. + Cp. _R.R._ 110 ff. + +Jus divinum, 8 + +Jus humanum, 8 + +Juventas, 109. + Cp. _R.R._ 125 ff. + + +Kore, 72. + Cp. Libera + + +Lar Familiaris, 13. + Cp. _R.R._ 149 ff.; + Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._; + Rohde, _Psyche_, ed. 2, 254; + De Marchi, i. 38 ff. + +Latin League, 52 ff. + Cp. Alba Longa + +Lemuria, 16. + Cp. _R.F._ 106-110; + De Marchi, 36, 37, 39; + _R.R._ 189 + +Lepidus, 137 + +Liber, 74, 75. + Cp. _R.F._ 54, 55; + _R.R._ 126 ff., 243 ff. + +Libera, 75. + Cp. _R.F._ 74; + _R.R._ 243 ff. + +Livius Andronicus, 48 + +Lucretius, 144 + +Ludi Saeculares, 93. + Cp. _R.R._ 364 ff.; + Mommsen, in _Ephem. Epigraph._ viii. 225 ff. + +Lupercalia, 111, 114. + Cp. _R.F._ 298, 299, 310-321; + _R.R._ 172 ff. + + +Ma-Bellona, 134. + Cp. Bellona + +Maecenas, 152 + +Magna Mater. + Cp. Great Mother of the gods + +Marius the Epicurean, 20 + +Mars, 19. + Cp. _R.F._ 34 ff.; + _R.R._ 129 ff. + +Mars-Ares, 110, 111 + +Mars Ultor, 174. + Cp. _R.R._ 70, 133 + +Megalesia, 99 + +Mercury, 77. + Cp. _R.F._ 121, 186; + _R.R._ 248 ff. + +Metaurus, 96 + +Minerva, 44 ff. + Cp. Wissowa, in P.W. _s.v._; + _R.R._ 203 ff. + +Mithradates, 127 + +Mithras, 138. + Cp. _R.R._ 307 ff.; + Cumont, _Textes et monuments_, etc. (2 vols.), Brussels, 1896 + +Mommsen, 18 + +Mundus, 15. + Cp. _R.F._ 211; + De Marchi, i. 184; + _R.R._ 188 + +Mythology, absence of, in Rome, 8. + Cp. _R.R._ 20 ff. + + +Name, importance of, 6. + Cp. Frazer, _Golden Bough_, i. 403 ff. + +Nemi, 54 + +Neptune, 80. + Cp. _R.F._ 185-187; + _R.R._ 250 ff.; + Wissowa, in _Lex._ _s.v._ + +Numa, apocryphal books of, 120, 121. + Cp. Schwegler, _Roem. Gesch._ i. 564 ff.; + _R.R._ 62 + + +Ocean commerce, beginnings of, 77 + +Octavian, 137 + +Octavius Mamilius, 40 + + +Paestum--Poseidonia, 80 + +Parentalia, 16. + Cp. _R.R._ 187 ff.; + _R.F._ 306-310; + De Marchi, i. 199 + +Parilia, 114. + Cp. _R.F._ 79-85; + _R.R._ 165 ff. + +Pater, Walter, 20 + +Persephone, 75. + Cp. Proserpina + +Philosophers expelled from Rome, 122, 123. + Cp. _Athen._ xii, 547a; + Aul. Gell. 15, II, I; + Sueton. _Grammat._ 25 + +Pinarii, 35 + +Plebeian aediles, 74. + Cp. _R.R._ 245; + Mommsen, _Staatsrecht_, ii. 471 + +Plutarch, _Moralia_, 50 + +Pollux, 37. + Cp. Castor + +Pomerium, 33, 34, 35 + +Poseidon, 79. + Cp. Neptune + +Poseidonia-Paestum, 80 + +Potitii, 35 + +Priesthood of Sibylline books, 66. + Cp. Quindecemviri + +Priesthoods, political value of, 129. + Cp. _R.R._ 64; + unpopularity of, in last century of republic, 131. + Cp. Marquardt, _Staatsverw._ iii. 64 ff. + +Propertius, 152 + +Proserpina, 76. + Cp. _R.F._ 212; + _R.R._ 255 ff.; + Carter, in _Lex._ _s.v._ + +Puteoli, 136 + +Pythagorianism, 120 + + +Quindecemviri, 68. + Cp. _R.R._ 461 ff. + + +Regillus, 40 + +Republic, character of the last century of, 125, 126 + +_Res Gestae of Augustus_, 147. + Cp. Mommsen's edition, Berlin, 1883 + +Roma Aeterna, 151 + + +S. Bartolommeo, 87 + +Scaevola, theology of, 140. + Cp. _R.R._ 62; + Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), iv. 205 + +Scipio Aemilianus and his circle, 124 + +Secular games, 93, 167. + Cp. Ludi Saeculares + +Servius Tullius, 27, 50 + +Sextus Pompeius, 81 + +Sibyl, coming of, 62 ff. + Cp. Diels, _Sibyllinische Blaetter_, Berlin, 1890 + +Sibylline oracles, 64 ff. + +Spencer, Herbert, 17. + Cp. _Principles of Sociology_ + +Stoicism, the official state philosophy of Rome, 123. + Cp. Mommsen, _Roman History_ (Engl. transl.), iv. 201 ff. + +Sulla increases the priesthood of the Sibylline books, 67; + his influence on religion, 128 + +Syria dea, 138. + Cp. _R.R._ 300 + + +Tarentum-Colonia Neptunia, 80 + +Tarentum in Campus Martius, 89. + Cp. Richter, 224 _ff._; + Platner, 322 + +Tarquin and the old woman, 65 + +Tarracina, 98 + +Templum, 43. + Cp. _R.R._ 403 ff. + +Terra Mater, 90. + Cp. _R.F._, 294-296; + _R.R._ 162 + +Tiber, island in, 86 + +Tibullus, 152 + +Tibur (Tivoli), 35 + +Tifata, 54 + +Tusculum, 39, 40 + +Tyche, 50. + Cp. Preller-Robert, _Griech. Myth._ 50 + + +Varro, theology of, 142. + Cp. _R.R._ 62 + +Vesta, 13. + Cp. _R.R._ 141 ff.; + De Marchi, _Culto Privato_, i. 64 ff.; + _R.F._ 146 ff. + +Vesta and Augustus, 176, 177. + Cp. Gardthausen, _Augustus_, 868 + +Vestal Virgins, 158 + +Victoria, temple of, on Palatine, 101 + +Virgil, 152 + +Vulcan, 21. + Cp. _R.F._ 209-211; + _R.R._ 184 ff. + + +THE END. + +_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + + + +HANDBOOKS OF + +ARCHAEOLOGY & ANTIQUITIES + +EDITED BY + +Professor PERCY GARDNER, Litt. D. of the University + of Oxford, and Professor FRANCIS W. KELSEY, + of the University of Michigan. + +_Extra Crown 8vo._ + + +GREEK SCULPTURE. By Prof. ERNEST A. 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