ies omitted, or merely a vague sense
of terror that suggested recourse to the supernatural. No wonder: for
though Italy had been invaded within the memory of living man, it was
not then invaded by one who had sworn to his father in infancy to
destroy the enemy root and branch. Instinctively both Romans and loyal
Italians knew that they were face to face with a struggle for life and
death. It is hard for us to realise the terror of the situation as it
must have been in those days of slow communication and doubtful news. It
is to Livy's credit that he recognised it fully, and all who look on
history as something more than wars and battles must be eternally
grateful to him for searching the records of the pontifices for evidence
of a people's emotion and the means taken to soothe it. Polybius has
nothing to tell us of this but a few generalisations, drawn from his own
experience a century later.[659] In all essential attributes of a Roman
historian Livy is far the better of the two. I propose to follow his
guidance in trying to gain some knowledge of the revived _religio_ of
the age and the way in which it was dealt with by the authorities.

It is in the winter of 218-17, when Hannibal was wintering in north
Italy after his victory at the Trebbia, that Livy first brings the
matter before us.[660] He uses the word I have just now and so often
used: men's minds were _moti in religionem_, and they reported many
_prodigia_ which were uncritically accepted by the vulgar. He begins
with Rome, and here it is worth noting that these portents issue from
the crowded haunts of the markets, the _forum olitorium_, and the _forum
boarium_, both close to the river and the quays. In the latter place,
for example, an ox was said to have climbed to the third story of a
house, whence it threw itself down, terrified by the panic of the
inhabitants--a story which incidentally throws light on the housing of
the lower population at the time.[661] Other wonders were announced from
various parts of Italy,[662] and the decemviri were directed to have
recourse to the Sibylline books, except for the _procuratio_ of one
miracle, common in a volcanic country, the fall of pebble-rain.[663]
This had a _procuratio_ to itself by settled custom, the _novendiale
sacrum_,[664] an expiation parallel with that which, in the religion of
the family, followed a birth or a death. For the rest, the whole city
was subjected to _lustratio_,[665] and, in fact, the whole