them until the close of the republic. However, during the first two
centuries of the principate they gradually made their way over the western
parts of the empire.

The expansion of the Oriental cults followed the lines of the much
frequented trade routes along which they were carried by travelers,
merchants and colonies of oriental traders. The army cantonments were also
centers for their diffusion, not only through the agency of troops
recruited in the East but also through detachments which had seen service
there in the course of the numerous wars on the eastern frontiers.
Likewise the oriental slaves were active propagandists of their native
faiths.

The explanation of the ready reception of these cults among all classes of
society is that they guaranteed their adherents a satisfaction which the
official religions were unable to offer. The state and municipal cults
were mainly political in character, and with the disappearance of
independent political life they lost their hold upon men who began to seek
a refuge from the miseries of the present world in the world of the spirit
and the promise of a future life. This want the Oriental cults were able
to meet with the doctrines of a personal religion far different from the
formal worship of the Graeco-Roman deities.

Certain characteristics of doctrine and ritual were common to the majority
of the Oriental cults. They had an elaborate ritual which appealed both to
the senses and to the emotions of the worshippers. By witnessing certain
symbolic ceremonies the believer was roused to a state of spiritual
ecstasy in which he felt himself in communion with the deity, while by the
performance of sacramental rites he felt himself cleansed from the
defilements of his earthly life and fitted for a purer spiritual
existence. A professional priesthood had charge of the worship, ministered
to the needs of individuals, and conducted missionary work. To an age of
declining intellectual vigor, when men gave over the attempt to solve by
scientific methods the riddle of the universe, they spoke with the
authority of revelation, giving a comforting theological interpretation of
life. And they appealed to the conscience by imposing a rigid rule of
conduct, the observance of which would fit the believer for a happier
existence in a future life.

The most important of these oriental divinities were the Great Mother of
Pessinus, otherwise known as Cybele, worshipped in company with the