ntually arouse rebellion in certain minds.
Already there are a few signs that the regulations of the _ius divinum_
are not invariably treated with respect.

As long ago as 293 B.C. and the last struggle with the Samnites, we find
a trace of this neglect or carelessness. One of the chicken-keepers
(_pullarii_) reported falsely to the consul Papirius that the sacred
chickens had given good omen in their eating: this was discovered by a
young nephew of Papirius, "iuvenis ante doctrinam deos spernentem
natus," as Livy calls him, and came to the consul's ears. Papirius'
reception of the news was characteristic of the way in which a Roman
could combine practical common-sense with the formal respect claimed by
his _ius divinum_; he declared that the omen had been reported to him as
good, and therefore "populo Romano exercituique egregium auspicium est."
The umpire had decided favourably for him, and there was an end of the
matter, except indeed that that umpire was placed in the forefront of
the battle that the gods might punish him themselves, and there of
course he died.[655] A generation later we have a case of far more
pronounced contempt in the familiar story of P. Claudius Pulcher and his
colleague Junius, each of whom lost a Roman fleet after neglecting the
warning of the _pullarius_: of Claudius it is told that he had the
sacred chickens thrown into the sea.[656] Another well-known story is
that of Flaminius, the democrat consul who, as we shall learn directly,
was defeated and killed at Trasimene after leaving Rome with none of
his religious duties performed.[657] The famous Marcellus of this second
Punic war, though himself an "augur optimus," according to Cicero,
declined to act upon an _auspicium ex acuminibus_--electric sparks seen
at the end of the soldiers' spears--and was accustomed to ride in his
litter with blinds drawn, so that he should not see any evil omen.[658]
Assuredly the transition from superstition to reason had its ludicrous
side even in public life.

But it is not the gradual approach of rationalism that is the subject of
this lecture. For years after the death of Flaminius we have no trace of
it: that was no time for speculating, and it would have been dangerous.
The religious history of the time, as recorded by Livy, shows on the
contrary that _religio_ in the old sense of the word is once more
occupying the Roman mind--the sense of awe in the presence of the
Unknown, the sense of sin or of dut