e way to _decemviri_, five of whom
might be members of the plebs. I am myself inclined to conjecture that
this comparatively late date may be the real date of the origin of a
_permanent collection_ and a _permanent college of keepers_, and that
the earlier _duoviri_ were only temporary religious officers, _sacris
faciundis_, _i.e._ for the carrying out of the directions of Sibylline
utterances specially sought for at Cumae. They would thus be of the same
class as other special commissions appointed by the Senate for
administrative purposes;[543] while the decemviri, though retaining the
old title, were permanent religious officers appointed to collect and
take charge of a new and important set of regulations for the benefit of
the community, and one which concerned the plebs at least as much as the
patricians.

But I must turn to the more important question how far, down to the war
with Hannibal, when I shall take up the subject afresh, the Roman
religion was affected for good or harm by these utterances and their
keepers. They took effect in two ways: either by introducing new deities
and settling them in new temples, or by ordering and organising new
ceremonies such as Rome had never seen before.

The introduction of a new deity now and again was not of great account
from the point of view of religion, except in so far as it encouraged
the new ceremonies; the Romans had never taken much personal interest in
their deities, and the arrival (outside the pomoerium in each case) of
Hermes under the name of Mercurius, or Poseidon bearing the name of the
old Roman water _numen_ Neptunus, or even of Asclepios with a Romanised
name Aesculapius, would not be likely to affect greatly their ideas of
the divine. These facts have rather a historical than a religious
significance; Hermes Empolaios, for example, suggests trade with Greek
cities, perhaps in grain,[544] and belongs therefore to the same class
as Ceres, Liber, Libera, of whom I have already spoken. The arrival of
Poseidon-Neptune may mean, as Dr. Carter has suggested, a kind of
"marine insurance" for the vessels carrying the grain from Greek
ports.[545] The settling of Aesculapius in the Tiber island in 293, as
the result of a terrible pestilence, is interesting as being the first
fact known to us in the history of medicine at Rome; the temple became a
kind of hospital on the model of Epidaurus, where the god had been
brought in the form of a snake by an embassy sent f