existence of God, the unity of the godhead, the supernatural order and governance of the world, divine providence, and the immortality of the soul.

Many, however, who had only a superficial acquaintance with the matter, rested in the belief that philosophy had somehow disproved religion; while, as for philosophy itself, it was a babel of conflicting opinions, and nothing certain. It was not religion only that suffered from this temper: as in the time of the sophists in Greece, the discussion of ethical questions acted as a solvent on customary morality. It was no longer enough to say of a course of conduct that it was mos majorum, the Roman way; the ancestors were allowed no presumption-why, indeed, should it be supposed that they were wiser than the young men of the day? What authority have the traditional notions of virtue? Let us have the reason of it! But in the schools there was much controversy over both the ends and the standards of the moral life, and interest always finds it easy to turn the scales of probability.

The denationalising effect of an alien culture and the mental and moral confusion wrought by an imported philosophy were not, however, the chief cause of the decadence of religion in the last century of the republic. For that we must look to the far-reaching economic and political changes which came over the Roman people in that age, disintegrating the social structure and destroying the moral fibre of all classes. Enormous wealth, gained often by extortion and usury, flowed from the provinces to Italy, and was lavished in insensate and corrupting luxury; the small free landholders were ruined by competition with imported grain and with slave labour, their farms were absorbed in vast latifundia, while they themselves thronged into the cities to swell the hungry and turbulent proletariat. The strife of classes and factions or the insatiate ambition of individuals over and over precipitated bloody civil wars, with their train of proscriptions and distributions, which fill chapter after chapter of Roman history from the Gracchi to the last triumvirate; demagogues reduced political corruption to a science. The

virtues that had made Rome great-integrity, frugality, justice, loyalty, piety-belonged to an order that had passed away; the Roman home, with its stern but just paternal discipline, the dignity of the mother, the fidelity of the wife, were part of that bygone order. Divorce was of every-day occurrence in high society, and was thought no shame; young libertines such as the associates of Catiline made open mock of virtue and honour.

"Italy," it has been said by a recent historian, "was living through the fever of moral disintegration and incoherence which assails all civilised societies that are rich in the manifold resources of culture and enjoyment, but tolerate few restraints on the feverish struggle of contending appetites." Religion was unable to stay this demoralisation, and itself fell more and more into decay. The cults of the Greek rite suffered less, at least outwardly, from this decay than the old national religion, for they not only possessed greater popular attractions in their showy festivals, but were in the hands of a professional temple priesthood who had a direct interest in the maintenance of worship. The old Roman gods, on the other hand, were not merely neglected, but in many instances forgotten; their priesthoods died out, and with them all knowledge of their functions and rites. Varro could only catalogue them as Di incerti-gods about whom he could learn nothing definite. The priestly colleges, the Pontifices and the Augures, were increased in the first century B. C. to fifteen members each, and vacancies were filled, not as before by the members of the college itself, but by a form of popular election from a list made up by the members of the college. The offices were thus drawn into the turbulent currents of politics, and doubtless men were often chosen who knew little about their duties and cared less. Under such circumstances, the traditional knowledge of the vast and complex body of ancient ritual and of the augural science which it was the business of these corporations to preserve and apply rapidly declined, and it shortly came to pass that the most diligent students of antiquity found no one who could answer their

questions. The pontifices, who had to keep the calendar in order, were so incompetent or so negligent that the agricultural festivals no longer fell in the proper seasons, and it was not until Cæsar's reform that the year was put to rights again.

The ancient offices of the Rex Sacrorum and the great flamines, which were restricted to the dwindling patrician families, were hedged about with so many prescriptions and restrictions that it became difficult or impossible to find any one willing to fill them, in spite of the many honours and privileges that attached to the position. The Rex Sacrorum could hold no political office; the Flamen Dialis, none outside the city. The latter had to wear at all times his priestly vestments, and might never go bareheaded; a table of oblations had to be always spread at the foot of his bed; he must have a wife to whom he was married in the ancient form of confarreatio, and whom he might not divorce; if she died, he had to lay down his office; he might not utter an oath, see armed men or mount a horse, leave the city for a single night (in late times, not over three nights), come in contact with a dead body or approach a grave, touch or even name things associated with death and the nether world (goats, dogs, beans, ivy), touch uncooked meat or leavened bread; he might neither wear nor look upon anything that resembled bonds-even his finger-ring must not be completely closed; he must not pass under a vine with long propagines; he could be shaved only with a bronze razor, his barber must be a free man, the trimmings of his beard must be buried at the foot of an arbor felix, and many more rules of a similar kind, for an infraction of which he was deposed. These restrictions were so vexatious that after 87 B. C. the post remained vacant for three-quarters of a century, until in 11 B. C. Augustus succeeded in filling it again.

The priestly associations, also, in whose hands certain particular ceremonies lay, like the Fratres Arvales and the Sodales Titii, died out, and when Augustus revived them the interrupted tradition could only be in part picked up again. A

more conspicuous witness to the general indifference to religion were the many ruinous temples and abandoned holy places. The one religious observance that showed no signs of waning interest was the games. The old Roman feric were, indeed, put quite into the background by the newfashioned games given under the direction and at the charges of the magistrates. Beginning with the Ludi Romani (probably in 366 B. C.) and the Ludi Plebeii (216 B. C.), these games multiplied as time went on, and were celebrated with increasing splendour, while their association with religion became looser and looser; the throngs who filled the circus were there to enjoy a great spectacle whose connection with religion was as external and nominal as that of a bull-fight on a saint's day. The ancient household religion was also much neglected-in part consequence, in part cause, of the relaxation of the family tie.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROMANS

RELIGION UNDER THE EMPIRE

The Reforms of Augustus-Innovations-Deification of Deceased Emperors-Worship of the Living Emperor-Foreign Deities-Syrian Gods-Cybele and Attis-The Mysteries-Taurobolium-Worship and Mysteries of Isis-Initiations-Mysteries of Mithras -The Spelaa-Degrees-Origin of the Religion-The Mithraic Myth-Christianity-Suppression of the Old Religions.

It would be a mistake to infer from the signs of decadence which are so conspicuous in the last century of the republic that religion itself had lost all hold on the hearts and lives of men. It must be remembered that the sources from which our knowledge of religious and moral conditions in that century is drawn disclose to us chiefly the state of things in the capital and among the classes upon which the demoralising influences described above worked with the greatest energy. That the Roman character was not irremediably corrupted, and that the vitality of religion was not wholly exhausted is, indeed, convincingly proved by the history of the following centuries.

Julius Cæsar, who had been a member of the pontifical college since 74 B. C. and became Pontifex Maximus in 63, made some reforms in the state religion, and planned others. Augustus showed his interest in the revival of forms long since fallen into desuetude by declaring war against Cleopatra in 32 B. C. with the ancient priestly rites of the fetiales -the first time they had been used, it is said, in a century. When the victory over Antonius at Actium made him master in the state he turned his hand to the filling of priesthoods