must not forget the well-known character of the Roman State in its
dealings with its subjects. It had had from the first an extreme
jealousy of secret societies; it was prepared to grant a large
toleration and a broad comprehension, but, as is the case with modern
governments, it wished to have jurisdiction and the ultimate authority
in every movement of the body politic and social, and its civil
institutions were based, or essentially depended, on its religion.
Accordingly, every innovation upon the established paganism, except it
was allowed by the law, was rigidly repressed. Hence the professors of
low superstitions, of mysteries, of magic, of astrology, were the
outlaws of society, and were in a condition analogous, if the comparison
may be allowed, to smugglers or poachers among ourselves, or perhaps to
burglars and highwaymen; for the Romans had ever burnt the sorcerer and
banished his consulters for life. It was an ancient custom. And at
mysteries they looked with especial suspicion, because, since the
established religion did not include them in its provisions, they really
did supply what may be called a demand of the age.

We know what opposition had been made in Rome even to the philosophy of
Greece; much greater would be the aversion of constitutional statesmen
and lawyers to the ritual of barbarians. Religion was the Roman point of
honor. "Spaniards might rival them in numbers," says Cicero, "Gauls in
bodily strength, Carthaginians in address, Greeks in the arts, Italians
and Latins in native talent, but the Romans surpassed all nations in
piety and devotion." It was one of their laws, "Let no one have gods by
himself, nor worship in private new gods nor adventitious, unless added
on public authority." Maecenas in _Dio_ advises Augustus to honor the
gods according to the national custom, because the contempt of the
country's deities leads to civil insubordination, reception of foreign
laws, conspiracies, and secret meetings. "Suffer no one," he adds, "to
deny the gods or to practise sorcery." The civilian Julius Paulus lays
it down as one of the leading principles of Roman law, that those who
introduce new or untried religions should be degraded, and if in the
lower orders put to death. In like manner, it is enacted in one of
Constantine's laws that the haruspices should not exercise their art in
private; and there is a law of Valentinian's against nocturnal
sacrifices or magic. It is more immediately to our