nservatives for the pure
national religion, it was of course quite compatible that the
circles of the highest rank should openly make a jest of it.
The practical side of the Roman priesthood was the priestly cuisine;
the augural and pontifical banquets were as it were the official
gala-days in the life of a Roman epicure, and several of them
formed epochs in the history of gastronomy: the banquet on the
accession of the augur Quintus Hortensius for instance brought
roast peacocks into vogue. Religion was also found very useful
in giving greater zest to scandal. It was a favourite recreation
of the youth of quality to disfigure or mutilate the images of the
gods in the streets by night.(15) Ordinary love affairs had for
long been common, and intrigues with married women began to become
so; but an amour with a Vestal virgin was as piquant as the
intrigues with nuns and the cloister-adventures in the world of
the Decamerone. The scandalous affair of 640 seq. is well known,
in which three Vestals, daughters of the noblest families, and their
paramours, young men likewise of the best houses, were brought to
trial for unchastity first before the pontifical college, and then,
when it sought to hush up the matter, before an extraordinary court
instituted by special decree of the people, and were all condemned
to death. Such scandals, it is true, sedate people could not
approve; but there was no objection to men finding positive
religion to be a folly in their familiar circle; the augurs might,
when one saw another performing his functions, smile in each
other's face without detriment to their religious duties. We learn
to look favourably on the modest hypocrisy of kindred tendencies,
when we compare with it the coarse shamelessness of the Roman
priests and Levites. The official religion was quite candidly
treated as a hollow framework, now serviceable only for political
machinists; in this respect with its numerous recesses and trapdoors
it might and did serve either party, as it happened. Most of
all certainly the oligarchy recognized its palladium in the state-
religion, and particularly in the augural discipline; but the
opposite party also made no resistance in point of principle to
an institute, which had now merely a semblance of life; they rather
regarded it, on the whole, as a bulwark which might pass from the
possession of the enemy into their own.

Oriental Religions in Italy

In sharp contrast to this gho