Chapter VIII.

The Religion of Rome.

Sec. 1. Origin and essential Character of the Religion of Rome.
Sec. 2. The Gods of Rome.
Sec. 3. Worship and Ritual.
Sec. 4. The Decay of the Roman Religion.
Sec. 5. Relation of the Roman Religion to Christianity.

Sec. 1. Origin and essential Character of the Religion of Rome.

In the Roman state nothing grew, everything was made. The practical
understanding was the despotic faculty in the genius of this people.
Fancy, imagination, humor, seem to have been omitted in the character of
the Latin race. The only form of wit which appeared among them was satire,
that is, wit used for a serious purpose, to punish crimes not amenable to
other laws, to remove abuses not to be reached by the ordinary police. The
gay, light-hearted Greek must have felt in Rome very much as a Frenchman
feels in England. The Romans did not know how to amuse themselves; they
pursued their recreations with ferocious earnestness, making always a
labor of their pleasure. They said, indeed, that it was well _sometimes_
to unbend, _Dulce est desipere in locis_; but a Roman when unbent was like
an unbent bow, almost as stiff as before.

In other words, all spontaneity was absent from the Roman mind. Everything
done was done on purpose, with a deliberate intention. This also appears
in their religion. Their religion was not an inspiration, but an
intention. It was all regular, precise, exact. The Roman cultus, like the
Roman state, was a compact mass, in which all varieties were merged into a
stern unity. All forms of religion might come to Rome and take their
places in its pantheon, but they must come as servants and soldiers of
the state. Rome opened a hospitable asylum to them, just as Rome had
established a refuge on the Capitoline Hill to which all outlaws might
come and be safe, on the condition of serving the community.

As everything in Rome must serve the state, so the religion of Rome was a
state institution, an established church. But as the state can only
command and forbid outward actions, and has no control over the heart, so
the religion of Rome was essentially external. It was a system of worship,
a ritual, a ceremony. If the externals were properly attended to, it took
no notice of opinions or of sentiments. Thus we find in Cicero ("De Natura
Deorum") the chief pontiff arguing against the existence of the gods and
the use of divination. He claims to believe in rel