cundity to
the women whom they touched. [80] The altar of Pan was erected, perhaps
by Evander the Arcadian, in a dark recess in the side of the Palantine
hill, watered by a perpetual fountain, and shaded by a hanging grove.
A tradition, that, in the same place, Romulus and Remus were suckled by
the wolf, rendered it still more sacred and venerable in the eyes of
the Romans; and this sylvan spot was gradually surrounded by the stately
edifices of the Forum. [81] After the conversion of the Imperial city,
the Christians still continued, in the month of February, the annual
celebration of the Lupercalia; to which they ascribed a secret and
mysterious influence on the genial powers of the animal and vegetable
world.

The bishops of Rome were solicitous to abolish a profane custom,
so repugnant to the spirit of Christianity; but their zeal was not
supported by the authority of the civil magistrate: the inveterate abuse
subsisted till the end of the fifth century, and Pope Gelasius, who
purified the capital from the last stain of idolatry, appeased by a
formal apology, the murmurs of the senate and people. [82]

[Footnote 76: The palace of Anthemius stood on the banks of the
Propontis. In the ninth century, Alexius, the son-in-law of the emperor
Theophilus, obtained permission to purchase the ground; and ended his
days in a monastery which he founded on that delightful spot. Ducange
Constantinopolis Christiana, p. 117, 152.]

[Footnote 77: Papa Hilarius... apud beatum Petrum Apostolum, palam ne
id fieret, clara voce constrinxit, in tantum ut non ea facienda cum
interpositione juramenti idem promitteret Imperator. Gelasius Epistol ad
Andronicum, apud Baron. A.D. 467, No. 3. The cardinal observes, with
some complacency, that it was much easier to plant heresies at
Constantinople, than at Rome.]

[Footnote 78: Damascius, in the life of the philosopher Isidore, apud
Photium, p. 1049. Damascius, who lived under Justinian, composed another
work, consisting of 570 praeternatural stories of souls, daemons,
apparitions, the dotage of Platonic Paganism.]

[Footnote 79: In the poetical works of Sidonius, which he afterwards
condemned, (l. ix. epist. 16, p. 285,) the fabulous deities are the
principal actors. If Jerom was scourged by the angels for only reading
Virgil, the bishop of Clermont, for such a vile imitation, deserved an
additional whipping from the Muses.]

[Footnote 80: Ovid (Fast. l. ii. 267-452) has given an amusing