the religious oath was still powerful, and continued to be
so, though there are some signs that its binding force was less strong
than of yore, especially in the army.[755] But in a society so complex
as that of Rome in the last two centuries B.C. much more was wanted than
a bond sanctioned by civil and religious law; there was needed a sense
of duty to the family, the slave, the provincials, the poor and
unfortunate. There was no spring of moral action, no religious
consecration of morality, no stimulus to moral endeavour. The individual
was rapidly developing, emancipating himself from the State and the
group-system of society; but he was developing in a wrong direction. The
importance of self, when realised in high and low alike, was becoming
self-seeking, indifference to all but self. We have now to see whether
philosophy could do anything to relieve this destitution of the Romans
in regard both to God and duty.

The first system of philosophy actually to make its appearance at Rome
was that of Epicurus[756]; but it speedily disappeared for the time, and
only became popular in the last century B.C., and then in its most
repulsive form. It was indeed destined to inspire the noblest mind among
all Roman thinkers with some of the greatest poetry ever written; but I
need say little of it, for it was never really a part of Roman religious
experience. Though capable of doing men much good in a turbulent and
individualistic age, it did not and could not do this by establishing a
religious sanction for conduct. The Epicurean gods were altogether out
of reach of the conscience of the individual. They were superfluous even
for the atomic theory on which the whole system was pivoted;[757] and
what Epicurus himself understood by them, or any of his followers down
to Lucretius, is matter of subtle and perplexing disputation.[758] One
point is clear, that they had no interest in human beings;[759] and the
natural inference would be that human beings had no call to worship
them; yet, strange to say, Epicurus himself took part in worship, and in
the worship of the national religion of his native city. Philodemus, the
contemporary of Lucretius, expressly asserts this,[760] and even insists
that Epicurism gave a religious sanction to morality which was absent in
Stoicism.[761] Lucretius himself clearly thought that worship was
natural and possible. "If you do not clear your mind of false notions,"
he says, "nec delubra deum placido c