tice, annually recurring on certain fixed days, of demanding
penny-collections from house to house (-stipem cogere-). Lastly, the
subordinate class of priests and soothsayers, as was reasonable,
rendered no service without being paid for it; and beyond doubt the
Roman dramatist sketched from life, when in the curtain-conversation
between husband and wife he represents the account for pious services
as ranking with the accounts for the cook, the nurse, and other
customary presents:--

-Da mihi, vir,--quod dem Quinquatribus
Praecantrici, conjectrici, hariolae atquc haruspicae;
Tum piatricem clementer non potest quin munerem.
Flagitium est, si nil mittetur, quo supercilio spicit.-

The Romans did not create a "God of gold," as they had formerly
created a "God of silver";(2) nevertheless he reigned in reality alike
over the highest and lowest spheres of religious life. The old pride
of the Latin national religion--the moderation of its economic
demands--was irrevocably gone.

Theology

At the same time its ancient simplicity also departed. Theology, the
spurious offspring of reason and faith, was already occupied in
introducing its own tedious prolixity and solemn inanity into the old
homely national faith, and thereby expelling the true spirit of that
faith. The catalogue of the duties and privileges of the priest of
Jupiter, for instance, might well have a place in the Talmud. They
pushed the natural rule--that no religious service can be acceptable
to the gods unless it is free from flaw--to such an extent in
practice, that a single sacrifice had to be repeated thirty times in
succession on account of mistakes again and again committed, and that
the games, which also formed a part of divine service, were regarded
as undone if the presiding magistrate had committed any slip in word
or deed or if the music even had paused at a wrong time, and so had to
be begun afresh, frequently for several, even as many as seven, times
in succession.

Irreligious Spirit

This exaggeration of conscientiousness was already a symptom of its
incipient torpor; and the reaction against it--indifference and
unbelief--failed not soon to appear. Even in the first Punic war
(505) an instance occurred in which the consul himself made an open
jest of consulting the auspices before battle--a consul, it is true,
belonging to the peculiar clan of the Claudii, which alike in good and
evil was ahead of its age. Towards the end of this epo