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. Th