tation of the Greek Uranos--were, while Hellenistic, of no great
importance. But the diffusion of the doctrines of Epichar and
Euhemerus in Rome was fraught with momentous consequences. The
poetical philosophy, which the later Pythagoreans had extracted from
the writings of the old Sicilian comedian Epicharmus of Megara (about
280), or rather had, at least for the most part, circulated under
cover of his name, saw in the Greek gods natural substances, in Zeus
the atmosphere, in the soul a particle of sun-dust, and so forth. In
so far as this philosophy of nature, like the Stoic doctrine in later
times, had in its most general outlines a certain affinity with the
Roman religion, it was calculated to undermine the national religion
by resolving it into allegory. A quasi-historical analysis of
religion was given in the "Sacred Memoirs" of Euhemerus of Messene
(about 450), which, under the form of reports on the travels of the
author among the marvels of foreign lands, subjected to thorough and
documentary sifting the accounts current as to the so-called gods, and
resulted in the conclusion that there neither were nor are gods at
all. To indicate the character of the book, it may suffice to mention
the one fact, that the story of Kronos devouring his children is
explained as arising out of the existence of cannibalism in the
earliest times and its abolition by king Zeus. Notwithstanding, or
even by virtue of, its insipidity and of its very obvious purpose, the
production had an undeserved success in Greece, and helped, in concert
with the current philosophies there, to bury the dead religion. It is
a remarkable indication of the expressed and conscious antagonism
between religion and the new philosophy that Ennius already translated
into Latin those notoriously destructive writings of Epicharmus and
Euhemerus. The translators may have justified themselves at the bar
of Roman police by pleading that the attacks were directed only
against the Greek, and not against the Latin, gods; but the evasion
was tolerably transparent. Cato was, from his own point of view,
quite right in assailing these tendencies indiscriminately, wherever
they met him, with his own peculiar bitterness, and in calling even
Socrates a corrupter of morals and offender against religion.

Home and Foreign Superstition

Thus the old national religion was visibly on the decline; and, as
the great trees of the primeval forest were uprooted the soil b