iven to
Fabius Pictor at Delphi. Possibly also he is to be regarded here as the
Greek deity of healing, though we do not hear of any pestilence at the
time; but four years later it was in consequence of an epidemic that
these _ludi_ were renewed and made permanent. The main object of the
moment was no doubt to amuse the people and occupy their minds. The
whole population took part in the games, wearing wreaths as partakers in
a sacred rite; the matrons were not left out; and every one kept his
house door open and feasted before the eyes of his fellow-citizens.[695]

If it be asked why these games in honour of a Greek god should have been
suggested by a Latin oracle, the answer is, I think, that the latter was
used rather as a pretext for a pre-conceived plan; if it be true that
the Marcian verses had won some prestige among the vulgar, it was an
adroit stroke to invent one that might be used in this way. This is the
only way in which we can satisfactorily account for the direction to the
decemviri to undertake the necessary sacrifices. The government seizes a
chance of taking the material of _religio_ out of the hands of the
vulgar and utilising it for its own purposes. It was clever too to give
the alleged Latin oracles the sanction of the _Graecus ritus_;
"decemviri Graeco ritu hostiis sacra faciant," says the oracle. The
keepers consulted the sacred books as to the projected _ludi_, and
henceforward, as it would seem, these Latin oracles were placed in their
keeping to be added to the Sibylline books in the collection on the
Capitol. The amalgamation of Roman and Greek religion is complete. If
there were any doubt of it after the _lectisternia_ to the twelve gods
which we noticed just now, all such doubt is removed by the religious
events of this year 212--that famous year in which Hannibal came within
sight of Rome, and fell away again, never to return.

The student of Roman religious history, and of all religious psychology,
as he follows carefully the extracts from the priestly records which
Livy has embodied in his story of the last years of the great struggle,
will find much to interest him. Even little things have here their
significance. He will still find relics of the scruple about the
minutiae of the _ius divinum_ to which the Romans had become habituated
under priestly rule--_religio_ in that sense in which it is least really
religious. He will find a Flamen Dialis resigning his priesthood because
he had