pes, from the indifference,
or partiality, of Anthemius; and his singular friendship for the
philosopher Severus, whom he promoted to the consulship, was ascribed
to a secret project, of reviving the ancient worship of the gods. These
idols were crumbled into dust: and the mythology which had once been
the creed of nations, was so universally disbelieved, that it might be
employed without scandal, or at least without suspicion, by Christian
poets. Yet the vestiges of superstition were not absolutely obliterated,
and the festival of the Lupercalia, whose origin had preceded the
foundation of Rome, was still celebrated under the reign of Anthemius.
The savage and simple rites were expressive of an early state of society
before the invention of arts and agriculture. The rustic deities who
presided over the toils and pleasures of the pastoral life, Pan, Faunus,
and their train of satyrs, were such as the fancy of shepherds might
create, sportive, petulant, and lascivious; whose power was limited, and
whose malice was inoffensive. A goat was the offering the best adapted
to their character and attributes; the flesh of the victim was roasted
on willow spits; and the riotous youths, who crowded to the feast,
ran naked about the fields, with leather thongs in their hands,
communicating, as it was supposed, the blessing of fecundity to the
women whom they touched. The altar of Pan was erected, perhaps by
Evander the Arcadian, in a dark recess in the side of the Palantine
hill, watered by a perpetual fountain, and shaded by a hanging grove.
A tradition, that, in the same place, Romulus and Remus were suckled by
the wolf, rendered it still more sacred and venerable in the eyes of
the Romans; and this sylvan spot was gradually surrounded by the stately
edifices of the Forum. After the conversion of the Imperial city,
the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual
celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and
mysterious influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable
world. The bishops of Rome were solicitous to abolish a profane custom,
so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; but their zeal was not
supported by the authority of the civil magistrate: the inveterate abuse
subsisted till the end of the fifth century, and Pope Gelasius, who
purified the capital from the last stain of idolatry, appeased by a
formal apology, the murmurs of the senate and people.

Chapter XXX