n of his
countrymen to the political usefulness of this piety, and admonishes
them that a state cannot consist of wise men alone, and that such
ceremonies are very convenient for the sake of the multitude.

Religious Economy

But if Italy still possessed--what had long been a mere antiquarian
curiosity in Hellas--a national religion, it was already visibly
beginning to be ossified into theology. The torpor creeping over
faith is nowhere perhaps so distinctly apparent as in the alterations
in the economy of divine service and of the priesthood. The public
service of the gods became not only more tedious, but above all more
and more costly. In 558 there was added to the three old colleges of
the augurs, pontifices, and keepers of oracles, a fourth consisting of
three "banquet-masters" (-tres viri epulones-), solely for the
important purpose of superintending the banquets of the gods. The
priests, as well as the gods, were in fairness entitled to feast; new
institutions, however, were not needed with that view, as every
college applied itself with zeal and devotion to its convivial
affairs. The clerical banquets were accompanied by the claim of
clerical immunities. The priests even in times of grave embarrassment
claimed the right of exemption from public burdens, and only after
very troublesome controversy submitted to make payment of the taxes in
arrear (558). To the individual, as well as to the community, piety
became a more and more costly article. The custom of instituting
endowments, and generally of undertaking permanent pecuniary
obligations, for religious objects prevailed among the Romans in a
manner similar to that of its prevalence in Roman Catholic countries
at the present day. These endowments--particularly after they came to
be regarded by the supreme spiritual and at the same time the supreme
juristic authority in the state, the pontifices, as a real burden
devolving -de jure- on every heir or other person acquiring the
estate--began to form an extremely oppressive charge on property;
"inheritance without sacrificial obligation" was a proverbial saying
among the Romans somewhat similar to our "rose without a thorn." The
dedication of a tenth of their substance became so common, that twice
every month a public entertainment was given from the proceeds in the
Forum Boarium at Rome. With the Oriental worship of the Mother of the
Gods there was imported to Rome among other pious nuisances the
prac