ogue.

The state possessed its old-established calendar of days sacred to a
number of deities, and its code of ritual to be performed in their
honour. There were ancient prescriptions as to what certain priests
should wear, what they should do or avoid in their priestly character,
what victims--ox, sheep, or pig--they should sacrifice, what
instruments they should use for the purpose, and in what formula of
words they should pray in particular connections. There was a standing
commission, with the Pontifex Maximus--at this date that excellent
religious authority, the emperor Nero--at its head, to safeguard the
state religion, to see that its requirements were carried out, and
that no one ventured to commit an outrage towards it. But the state
could not have told you with any precision that you must believe in
just so many deities and no others; it could not have told you
precisely what notions to entertain concerning those deities whom it
did officially recognise; it dictated no theological doctrines;
neither did it dictate any moral doctrines beyond those which you
would find in the secular law. It reserved the right to prevent the
introduction of foreign or new divinities if it found sufficient
cause; but so long as the temples, the rites and ceremonies, the
cardinal moral axioms of the Roman "religion," and the basic
principles of Roman society were respected, the state practised no
sort of inquisition into your beliefs or non-beliefs, and in no way
interfered with your particular selection of favourite deities.

Polytheism in an advanced community is always tolerant, because it is
necessarily always indefinite. What it does not readily endure is an
organised attack upon the entire system, whether openly avowed or
manifestly implied. Even undisguised unbelief in any deity at all it
is often willing to tolerate, so long as the unbelief is rather a
matter of dialectics than anything else, and makes no attempt at a
crusade. When a state so disposed is found to interfere with a novel
religion, it will generally be easy to perceive that the jealousy is
not on behalf of the deities nor of a creed, but on behalf of the
community in its political, economic, or social aspect. This, however,
is perhaps to anticipate. Let us endeavour to realise as best we can
the religious situation among the Roman or romanized portion of the
population.

Though we are not here directly concerned with the steps by which the
Roman religion