early date, the great
improbability of the senate taking any such step, and the absence of any
mention of the priesthoods, makes it difficult to believe that these
assertions are based on any genuine record. We must be content to mark
the first _lectisternia_ in 399 as the earliest authentic example of the
emotional tendency of the Roman plebs.[550]

If we can judge of this period of Roman religious history by the general
tendency of the policy of the Roman government, we may see here a
deliberate attempt to include the new population in worship of a kind
that would calm its fears, engage its attention, and satisfy its
emotion, while leaving uncontaminated the old ritual that had served the
State so long. If this conclusion be a right one, then we must allow
that the new ceremonial had its use. Dr. Frazer has lately told us in
his eloquent and persuasive way, of how much value superstition has been
in building up moral habits and the instinct of submission to civil
order. His thesis might be illustrated adequately from the history of
Rome alone. But from a purely religious point of view the story of the
_lectisternia_ is a sad one. The old Roman invisible _numen_, working
with force in a particular department of human life and its environment,
was a far nobler mental conception, and far more likely to grow into a
power for good, than the miserable images of Graeco-Roman full-blown
gods and goddesses reclining on their couches and appearing to partake
of dinner like a human citizen. Such ideas of the divine must have
forced men's religious ideas clean away from the Power manifesting
itself in the universe, and must have dragged down the Roman _numina_
with them in their corrupting degradation. According to our definition
of it, religion was now in a fair way to disappear altogether; what was
destined to take its place was not really religion at all. Nor did it in
any way assist the growth of an individual conscience, as perhaps did
some of the later religious forms introduced from without. It was of
value for the moment to the State, in satisfying a population greatly
disturbed by untoward events; and that was all.

Closely connected with the _lectisternia_, and following close upon them
in chronological order, were the processional ceremonies called
_supplicationes_. The historical relation between the two is by no means
clear; but if we conclude, as I am fairly sure we may, that the
_lectisternia_ were shows of a joyf