Envy, Old Age, Death, Darkness, Misery, Lamentation, Favor, Fraud,
Obstinacy," etc. He shows that there are many gods of the same name;
several Jupiters, Vulcans, Apollos, and Venuses. He then denies
providence, by showing that the wicked succeed and the good are
unfortunate. Finally, all was left in doubt, and the dialogue ends with a
tone of triumphant uncertainty. This was Cicero's contribution to
theology; and Cicero was far more religious than most men of his period.

Many writers, and more recently Merivale,[296] have referred to the
remarkable debate which took place in the Roman Senate, on the occasion of
Catiline's conspiracy. Caesar, at that time chief pontiff, the highest
religious authority in the state, gave his opinion against putting the
conspirators to death; for death, says he, "is the end of all suffering.
After death there is neither pain nor pleasure (_ultra neque curae, neque
gaudii locum_)." Cato, the Stoic, remarked that Caesar had spoken well
concerning life and death. "I take it," says he, "that he regards as false
what we are told about the sufferings of the wicked hereafter," but does
not object to that statement. These speeches are reported by Sallust, and
are confirmed by Cicero's fourth Catiline Oration. The remarkable fact is,
not that such things were said, but that they were heard with total
indifference. No one seemed to think it was of any consequence one way or
the other. Suppose that when the question of the execution of Charles I.
was before Parliament, it had been opposed by the Archbishop of Canterbury
(had he been there) on the ground that after death all pain and pleasure
ceased. The absurdity of the supposition shows the different position of
the human mind at the two epochs.

In fact, an impassable gulf yawned between the old Roman religion and
modern Roman thought. It was out of the question for an educated Roman,
who read Plato and Zeno, who listened to Cicero and Hortensius, to believe
in Janus and the Penates. "All very well for the people," said they. "The
people must be kept in order by these superstitions."[297] But the secret
could not be kept. Sincere men, like Lucretius, who saw all the evil of
these superstitions, and who had no strong religious sense, _would_ speak
out, and proclaim _all_ religion to be priestcraft and an unmitigated
evil. The poem of Lucretius, "De Rerum Natura," declares faith in the gods
to have been the curse of the human race, and immortality t