or the purpose, and
the priests who served it were probably Greeks skilled in the healing
art.[546] This last case is a curious example of new Roman religious
experience, but it can hardly be said to have any deep significance in
the religious history of Rome. Of the obliteration of the old _numen_
Neptunus by the Greek god who took his name we know nothing for good or
ill; we are ignorant of the real meaning of the old _numen_, and cannot
tell whether the loss of him was compensated by the usefulness of his
name in Roman literature to represent the Greek god of the sea.

Let us turn to the much more important subject of the new ceremonies
ordered by the Sibylline "books." The first authentic case of such
innovation occurred in 399 B.C., during the long and troublesome siege
of the dangerous neighbour city Veii; I call it authentic because all
the best modern authorities so reckon it, though it occurred before the
destruction of old records during the capture of the city by the Gauls.
The circumstances were such as to fix themselves in the memory of the
people, and in one way or another they found their way into the earliest
annals, probably those of Fabius Pictor, composed during the Second
Punic War.[547]

The previous winter, Livy tells us,[548] was one of extraordinary
severity; the roads were blocked with snow, and navigation on the Tiber
stopped by the ice. This miserable winter was followed too suddenly by a
hot season, in which a plague broke out which consumed both man and
beast, and continued so persistently that the Senate ordered the
Sibylline books to be consulted. This persistence is the first point we
should notice; "Cuius insanabili pernicie quando nec causa nec finis
inveniebatur,"--so wrote Livy, evidently meaning to express an extremity
of trouble which would not give way to ordinary religious remedies. We
may compare his account of the next recorded consultation of the books
(Livy vii. 2), when neither the old rites nor even the new ones were
sufficient to secure the _pax deorum_ and abate another pestilence, and
recourse was had to yet another remedy in the form of _ludi scenici_.
The times were out of joint,--the peace of the gods was broken, and thus
the community was no longer in right relation to the Power manifesting
itself in the universe. The result was a revival of _religio_, of the
feeling of alarm and anxiety out of which the whole religious system had
grown. The old deities might seem to