Topic: OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF RELIGION 1877 C.Tiele

[Prometheus]

RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

a Sanskr. ahand, tlie “ dawning,” and Athenaia to ahania,
the “ day-bright,” as Max Muller supposes, we should
have to regard her also as an Indo-Germanic goddess.
The adoption of foreign elements into the conception of
her becomes probable when it is considered that a Pheni-
cian Atbenl was worshipped on the Isthmus, and that she
came from Salamis to Attica, and it is made further evi-
dent by a comparison of her attributes and cultus with
those of the Phenician Tanith.

On the whole subject of this section compare the very
interesting essay of E. Curtius, “ Die Griechische Gotter-
lehre vom Geschiclitlichen Standpunkt,” in the Preuss.
Jahrbb., July 1875, though some of the conclusions must
be accepted with reserve.

124.   The poetic and philosophical feeling of this richly-
endowed people, the creative power of the Greek mind, is
displayed, for instance, in their treatment of the myth of
Prometheus, which became in their hands the vehicle for
profound and elevated thoughts, or in the manner in
which they raised the nature-myths of Demeter and
Persephone to be the expression of a genuine human
feeling, and ennobled the mystic significance which had
already been attached to it in other lands. But it no-
where comes more clearly into view than in a comparison
of deities such as Hermes or Aphrodite with the divine
beings of Indo-Germanic or Semitic origin, from which
they have sprung. Hermes or Hermeias, once the hound
of the gods, the god of the wind and the changes of light
and darkness which it produces, the great enchanter and
conductor of souls, becomes among the Greeks the mes-
senger and right hand of Zeus, the mediator between him
and men, the ideal herald, the god of graceful speed, of
TREATMENT OF NATURE-MYTHS.

-II

music, of eloquence, and philosophy. Aphrodite is no
other than the Plienician and Mesopotamian AstartS
('Aslitoreth, Istar), but while it was the aim of philo-
sophy to infuse a deeper meaning into the naturalistic
myths of her birth out of the waters, her sovereignty
over the monsters of the ocean, and her intercourse wTith
Adonis, they were transformed by Greek poetry and art
into the loveliest of images, and she herself, though
retaining many features which recalled her origin, was
raised to be the goddess of beauty and grace, of spring
and flowers, of family peace and social harmony.

Hermeias is identical with S&ranieyas, the name of the
two dogs of Yama, the god of death, the mythic watch-
dogs in the Veda. Max Muller doubts whether Saramd,
their mother, the messenger of Indra, who goes to fetch
back the stolen cows, was a dog. But the Sdrameyau
certainly were so. Hermes possesses no Semitic trait.
His original physical significance as a god of wind
perfectly explains all the myths about him, such as the
stealing of Apollo’s cows, the slaying of Argus, his combat
with Stentor, and all his attributes, as guardian of the
flocks (the clouds), guide of the shades, herald of the gods,
god of music and eloquence, his magic power, his swift-
footedhess, &c. As god of eloquence, he naturally became
in Greece the god of philosophy as well.

That the Greeks originally possessed a goddess of
spring, beauty, and love, of their own, whose name,
however, disappeared, is highly probable; indeed, the
Latin Venus may be said to prove it. Aphrodite, how-
ever, whose name is perhaps a corruption of 'Atliar atha,
is certainly the Phenician goddess of Cyprus and Cythera,
who passed from there to the Greeks, bringing with her
Kinyras, Adonis, and Pygmalion. But all these myths,
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RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

which were once coarsely sensual, and for the most part
cosmogonic, were touched with the magic wand of their
poetry.

125.   The first-fruits of this mingling of the Phenician,
Phrygian, and Hellenic elements was the brilliant civili-
sation which preceded that of Greece proper, and spread
over the whole of the west coast of Asia Minor and Crete.
It was the era when the old Lydian supremacy flourished,
together with Troas and Lycia, and the powerful kingdom
in Crete named after Minos. There it was, and then,
that the Greek mind first gave signs of possessing sufficient
strength to appropriate the Semitic elements independently,
and endow them with a new form. Then it was that the
myth of Zeus received its shape in Crete, and his cultus
was established, in the mode which soon became the pro-
perty of all Hellenes, and supplanted that of the Pelasgian
Zeus. Then it was that the Greek Herakles arose, pro-
bably in Lydia, out of the Assyrian Samdan, brought
thither by conquest. Then it was that the knightly
people of the Lycians, kinsmen of the Greeks, and their
forerunners in civilisation, after coming under the influence
of the Semitic spirit, wrought out the noble figure of
Apollo, the god of light, the son and prophet of the most
high Zeus, saviour, purifier, and redeemer, whose cultus,
lifted high above all nature-worship, spread thence over
all the lands of Greece, and exerted on the religious, moral,
and social life of their inhabitants so profound and salutary
an influence.

In Crete, several forms of Phenician cultus still pre-
vailed. This is the scene of the chief myths of Zeus,
DIFFUSION OF FOREIGN ELEMENTS.

213

which have a Semitic origin. This does not prove that
Crete was also the place of their rise, hut simply that
they there attained the form which became dominant
among the Hellenes.

The mingling of various elements may still be very
clearly traced in the Trojan tradition. By the side of
the Assyrian names Ilos (Ilv) and Assarakos stand Phry-
gian, like Kapys, Dymas, Askanios, and Kasandra, and
pure Greek names such as Andromache, Astyanax, and
others. Some heroes even bear double names—Paris-
Alexandros, Dareios-Hektor—of which only the second
are Greek. The first have a pure Eranian form (Paris,
from par, “ deserter ”), but they are doubtless really
Phrygian, as this language was connected alike with
Er&nian and with Greek. On this subject see further
Curtius, History of Greece, vol. i. pp. 47-68.

126.   Last of all, the higher civilisation made its way
to Hellas, Greece proper, both by direct colonisation on
the part of the Phenicians, and to a greater extent by
Greek settlements from Asia Minor and Crete. The point
attained by the religious development of the Acheans,
before the supremacy of the Dorians, is shown by the
Homeric poems. The gods are no longer half-conscious
nature-powers; they are beings possessing moral liberty
and freedom of action like men—they are in the same
way subject to pain and grief, and they are obliged to
support life by food. But their food is of a heavenly
kind, which secures them immortality; in theory, at least,
all things are known and possible to them, and the chief
of them rule no more over a limited realm. Although
they are not themselves raised above passions and selfish
desires, they are nevertheless the guardians and avengers
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RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

of the moral order of the world, the violation of which
excites their wrath more than an injury offered to them-
selves. The world of the gods is arranged after the
pattern of the households of earth. To the council
(/3o\IKy\) of the kings, mustered round their leader, corre-
sponds the assembly of the high Olympian gods, under the
presidency of Zeus, their superior, not by privilege of birth,
but, like the chief of the princes of the earth, by his greater
power and ability. The popular assembly (dyopd) has its
heavenly counterpart in the convocation of all divine
beings on certain occasions to learn the will of the
king. Their supremacy is established; the contest
with the rude powers of nature has long been finished,
and they have been subdued for ever. In this respect
they have advanced beyond the Yedic and Germanic gods.

On this and the following sections compare. Nagelsbach,

Homerische Theologie.

Between the religion of the Acheans and their adver-
saries, the Dardanians, there is no essential difference.
But the gods which protect the latter stand, like their
heroes, at a perceptibly higher level than those of the
former, which correctly commemorates the fact that the
inhabitants of Hellas were still behind those of Asia
Minor in civilisation.

The difference between gods and men is very naively
indicated, among other signs, by the doctrine that it is
no human blood, but a peculiar fluid   which runs in

the divine veins.

127.   High above all the other gods stands Zeus, whose
power is unlimited, who is not bound by any recognised
restraint, and is alone not subject to the will of the
THE HOMERIC THEOLOGY.

majority. Even his consort Hera, who generally opposes
him, can effect nothing but by and with him. Vainly
does his brother Poseidon strive to establish similar pre-
rogatives. Most closely connected with him are Athena
and Apollo, who constitute with him a supreme triad.

As Atheua is the personified Metis, the “ reason,” the
wisdom of the divine Father, who withstands him, yet
to whom he always yields, Apollo, no less beloved of
Zeus, is his mouth, the revealer of his counsel, the son,
who, ever and in all things, is of one will with him. For
it is one of the features which distinguishes Zeus from
the other gods, that he never communicates directly with
men, but only through his messengers, Iris or Hermes.
In reality, all the gods are little else than representa-
tives of Zeus, each in his own realm which he has
received from him. Thus, monarchism has touched the
borders of monotheism.

The dependence of the gods and of the whole world
on Zeus is finely described in the well-known passage,
____   *~27-

The circumstance that Dionysos and Dem6t6r have but
little significance in the Homeric poems does not war-
rant the conclusion that their worship was not yet
generally diffused. But they were chiefly popular 'gods,
worshipped by the tillers of the soil, and they did not,
therefore, figure in the aristocratic Homeric society.

128.   The conviction that the world was not ruled
merely by an arbitrary will, was expressed by the doc-
trine of destiny (atcra, fioipa), though the representation of it
was deficient in clearness, and the question whether the
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supreme god determined the course of destiny, or whether
lie, like all the other gods, was subject to it, so that he had
only to consult and to execute it, was answered now in
one way and now in another. The deity makes known
his will to men by personal revelation, by miracles and
signs, or by inspiration and dreams, but most clearly
of all by his works. Yet the trustworthiness of signs
is already called in question, and once even the noble
sentiment is uttered that they are insignificant compared
with the divine voice in the heart of man, which com-
mands him to do right without thought of the conse-
quences. Morality and religion are already in intimate
connection, but psychology and the belief in immortality
still stand on the animistic level.

Zeus and Moira frequently coalesce in the description
of the poet; what she does is also ascribed to him and
to the other gods; good and evil gifts are allotted by
him. On the other hand, he is represented as knowing
nothing of the will of destiny by himself; he is obliged
to consult it with his scales, and is bound to fulfil it com-
pletely.

In the Homeric psychology a noteworthy separation
is made between the understanding   and the soul

the former of which dies with the body; an idea
which we also meet with among the Ilindhs.

Eetribution after death is as yet scarcely mentioned.
The shades continue the occupations which they dis-
charged during their lifetime: in the kingdom of the
departed, Teiresias is still a soothsayer, Minos a judge,
Orion a huntsman.

129.   The rise of Delphi marks a new and important
era in the history of the Greek religion. Dodona con-
INFLUENCE OF DELPHI.

217

tinued to be spoken of with reverence, but its influence
had long been limited to a small and backward portion
of the country. The other religious centre, also, the
Thessalian Olympus, was gradually abandoned by the
more gifted tribes which had surrounded it, and lay in
the midst of a land of barbarians. At Delphi, lying at
the foot of Parnassus, there was in existence already
before Homer a famous oracle, first of the Earth-goddess,
afterwards of the Pythian Apollo ; and it was located
in a temple where Zeus and Dionysos were worshipped
together with the deities already named. When the
Dorians had quitted Thessaly to seek new homes, they
attached themselves as ardent worshippers of Apollo to
the Delphic sanctuary, and wherever they settled they
established the cultus of the Pythian deity. Delphi
became the chief seat of a new Amphiktyonic league,
and was, in fact, for a considerable time, the centre of the
nationality of the Hellenes. The power exercised by the
Delphic priesthood in the centuries between the Doric
migration and the Persian wars was very great Ho new
political institutions, no fresh cultus, no additional games,
were established without the sanction of the Pythian
oracle, and it was carefully on the watch against the
neglect of the old and the introduction of new gods,
while it strove to maintain peace between the different
Hellenic states. It had its representatives and exponents
in the chief cities of the principal states, and foreign
princes or states which sought to enter into relations with
Greece applied to the Delphic Apollo, who spoke all
languages. The colonies, whose despatch was always
determined and directed by him, spread his worship far
2iS   RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

and near. It was not a new religion, destined to replace
the worship of Zens, for Apollo was simply the revealer
of his holy will; it was a higher stage Of the development
of this same religion, by which some bounds were set to
polytheism, and the ethical took the place of the physi-
cal. It accepted no outward actions as satisfactory; only
with a pure heart might the deity be approached, and
self-examination and self-knowledge were the first and
loftiest of his demands. The false and double-minded
gained no light from Apollo, the evil-doer no help; but
/ on the weak he bestowed protection, and on the repentant
' grace. Truth and self-control, without self-mortification
or renunciation of nature, a steady equilibrium between
the sensible and the spiritual, moral earnestness com-
bined with an open eye for the happiness and the beauty
of life, such were the characteristic features of the Del-
phic Apollo-worship, in which the Greek religion almost
reached the climax of its development.

Other places besides Delphi served as the centres of
these leagues of states; for example, the sanctuary of
the Ephesian Artemis.

The legislation bearing the name of Lycurgus originated
in Delphi, and received its sanction from there. "When
the sanctuary at Olympia in Elis had acquired a higher
significance by the protection of Sparta, it was consecrated
by the Delphic oracle, and Apollo was placed beside Zeus
as the guardian of the Olympic games and institutions.

No Hellenic state might consult the oracle with hostile
intentions against another Hellenic state. The memory
of a civil war might not be perpetuated at Delphi by any
permanent trophies. It was not till the period of decline
after the Persian wars that this principle was infringed.
INFLUENCE OF DELPHI.

219

It is well known that the Pythian oracle was consulted
by Phrygian and Lydian princes, and by Italian peoples,
amongst others, even by the Komans. Foreign nations
were regarded at Delphi as guests.

For him who approached 'with a pure heart, so it was
said, a single drop of the consecrated water of the well of
Castalia sufficed; but he who came with an evil mind
could not wash away with a whole ocean the pollution of
his sin. It was a mark of the ethical character of the
Delphic religion that the doctrine of retribution after
death accompanied it. This doctrine never, it is true,
became really a matter of popular belief among the
Greeks, but it was promoted by men of earnest views,
and it was proclaimed by poets and sages connected with
Delphi, such as Hesiod, Solon, Pythagoras, and Pindar.

130.   The general diffusion of civilisation and knowledge
among the Greeks, which resulted from their splendid
gifts, their love of freedom, and other accessory causes,
prevented the rise of a dominant class of priests or literati,
like that which existed among the Brahmans. Moreover,
the priesthoods were generally in the hands of the nobles,
and were not mutually dependent on each other. Priests
and prophets (jiavreii), however, received high honour, for
it was they who expounded the signs of the divine will,
interpreted the utterances of the deity, and bestowed for-
giveness of sins. Above all, however, the Delphic priests
contrived to maintain their position at the head of civili-
sation, and of everything which went on in Greece and
the neighbouring states. The form of the ancient oracle
uttered by the Pythia in ecstasy was retained, but the
real answer was given by them, and as their decisions
were as a rule wise and practical, they were largely
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invoked. This in itself secured them great power over
the actual course of affairs. But they also contrived to
give a definite direction to literature, philosophy, and art,
though they did not themselves take part in them. They
formed an intellectual aristocracy, which stood in relation
with all the foremost men of different countries, which
pointed out who were the best and the wisest of their
time, which led the way in a certain edifying style of
history and in the composition of sacred songs, which
encouraged the authors of didactic and lyric poetry, and
thus proved itself the active ready representative of the god
who led the band of the Muses. The system of Pytha-
goras, who founded a real religious community in a
thoroughly Delphic spirit, the poetic school of Hesiod,
whose Theogony was even regarded as a book of revela-
tion and a rule of belief, were called into existence by
the influence of the priesthood of Delphi. The festive
games, also, which were of so much importance in this
period for the national life of the Hellenes, were regulated
by them, and the Pythian games were favourably distin-
guished from the others by the prominence given in them
not to bodily exercises, but to the musical contest.

The real cause which prevented the rise of a hierarchy
in Greece was not its polytheism, for that proved no
obstacle in India, but chiefly the general civilisation of
the whole people, which made theology in the hands of
priests and philosophers not an obstacle, but a means of
development, and was in its turn a result of the active
intercourse which the position of their country enabled
the Greeks to maintain.

It was by Delphi that the seven famous Sages were
INFLUENCE OF DELPHI.

22 1

enumerated, whose teachings were framed, like the He-
brew, in short maxims. It is well known that at a much
later time still the oracle, in reply to a question by his
disciple Cherephon, declared Socrates to be the wisest of
all mortals.

The festival games at Olympia were at first solely
gymnastic. The Nemean and Isthmian were founded
with the sanction of the Delphic oracle, on condition that
they should be open to all Hellenes. This specification
was characteristic of the Delphic policy.

131.   About the end of the sixth century B.C., the
influence exercised for three hundred years by Delphi
began to decline. This was in part to be ascribed to
circumstances, especially to the lessening interest of
Sparta, which found a new religious centre in Olympia,
and to the rivalry between this state and Athens, which,
together with Sikyon, now attached itself more closely to
Delphi. But it was to a still larger extent their own
fault that the priests of Apollo lost their power. They
ceased to be faithful to their own principles; they exchanged
their sound statesmanship for a narrow-minded and tem-
porising policy; they no longer followed the pure moral
aims of earlier days, but pursued particular interests ;
they strove to maintain their position by craft and
intrigue; and they even sold themselves for Asiatic
gold. In the great conflict with Persia, Delphi no longer
represented the national spirit; it wavered, and led others
to waver, and thus injured the common cause. The great
god was still an object of reverence, but the people began
to despise the oracle. The aristocratic spirit of the Delphic
priesthood, also, was no longer in harmony with the pre-
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RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

vailing spirit of the time. The era of the democratic
Dionysos-worship, which at Delphi only occupied the
second place, had begun.

The contest with the Persians had not only a national,
but a religious character as well In spite of the vacil-
lating attitude of the oracle, the allies resolved to dedicate
a tenth part of the spoil to the Delphic god.

132.   The national religion of the Hellenes, however,
was not to succumb without breaking forth into a splendour
hitherto unknown. Involved in a struggle for very life
with the increasing unbelief, it put forth all its powers,
and then, even when decline had already set in, it attained
the fulness of its glorious stature. It was at Athens
that this last conflict was fought out. The Doric migra-
tion had brought together in Attica a number of Achean
and Ionic tribes, and had fused together several religions,
with that mingling of elements which is always productive
of rich development. The teacher of Athens was Delphi,
to which it was faithfully attached, and it was by Apollo-
worship, which became the popular religion under Solon,
that the foundations of a higher civilisation were laid, but
the special contributions made by Athens itself were called
forth under the impulse of the cultus of Dionysos and the
worship of Athena. The first of these was favoured by
the tyrants, Peisistratos and his successors, owing to their
readiness as demagogues to promote a cultus which had
proved more acceptable than any other to the masses of
the people. To the myth of the Thracian god, who was
worshipped at Eleusis by the side of Demeter, Onomakritos,
by a new mystic system, imparted a higher significance.
THE WORSHIP OF DIONYSOS.

223

The Bacchic choric-song, the dithyramb, was developed
into a separate art by Lasos and his disciple Pindar, who
was initiated into the Eleusinian mysteries, and made it
the vehicle of the most elevated religious thoughts. These
choric songs and dances grew into dialogues and perform-
ances, which were in their turn the source of tragedy and
comedy. By slow degrees a greater freedom was attained
in the choice of dramatic subjects, and tragedy, in the
hands of Eschylus and Sophokles, became the means of
bringing forth in living forms to general view the kernel
of religious truth hidden in the mytliologic shell. Both
were men of their time, with an open eye for all advance,
but at the same time earnestly devoted to their ancestral
religion. The deep religious feeling which characterised
the Dionysos-worship—the fruit of the Semitic spirit, and
the genuinely human element contributed by the Hellenic
—were fused by them into a noble unity.

Curtius, History of Greece, i. p. 304, has called attention
to the number of great men in Athens who were descended
on the father’s or mother’s side from noble Messenian
families who had emigrated thither. Such were Kodros,
Solon, Peisistratos, Ivleisthenes, Perikles, Plato, Alki-
biades.

The most ancient local deity of Attika was Zeus
Herkeios. Eleusis was the seat of the worship of Posei-
don and Demeter, with which that of Dionysos was
united. The contest between Athena and Poseidon at
Athens is well known. Apollo was early worshipped at
several places on the coast.

When the chief families at Athens were burdened with
blood-guiltiness, Solon sent for the prophet Epimenides,
a man of impressive character, from Crete. He puri-
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RELIGION AMONG THE GREEKS.

fied and atoned for everything in the name of Apollo,
who then, under his influence, became the national
god.

Eschylus was himself born at Eleusis, and belonged to
a family which was very closely connected with the sanc-
tuary. He grew up beneath the influence of the grave
rites performed there. The union of the religious and
humanist elements is nowhere more strikingly displayed
than in the Titan Prometheus, as he is represented by
Eschylus—proud and noble, unwearied in thought and
endeavour, unsubdued in conflict and humiliation, but
the victim of his own self-exaltation and wantonness,
which made him forget that the only true wisdom has its
source in Zeus, and in the heart of genuine piety.

133.   The spirit which was promoted by poetry was
fostered also at Athens by sculpture. It was most closely
connected with the worship of Athena, the goddess of art,
the “ workmistress ” (Ergane), and shed most glory on her
cultus and that of her father Zeus. Its greatest genius,
Pheidias, flourished in the time of Kimon and Perikles.
While the more advanced no longer found in the ugly old
images to which the people continued to pay a supersti-
tious reverence, the deity whom they mentally conceived,
and many a philosopher ridiculed the worship of images,
Pheidias wrought statues which were not intended to be
worshipped, but were designed to furnish a purer idea of
the deity, and to be dedicated to it as worthy offerings.
This was especially the case with his two masterpieces,
the virgin Athena of the Parthenon and the Zeus of

Olympia. In these two works of art, and in the ancient
*

Tragedy, the religion of the Hellenes reached the climax
of its development. The ideal humanisation of deity, for
ITS CONNECTION WITH ART.

225

which the way was prepared by the cultus of the Delphic
Apollo, was perfected at Athens by Eschylus, Sophokles,
and Pheidias.

The family of Pheidias was hereditarily devoted not
only to art, but also to the worship of Athena Ergane.

In the Athena Parthenos Pheidias succeeded in com-
bining chastity with gentleness, victorious strength with
calm peace, profound wisdom with clearness; while the
Zeus of Olympia united the greatest and most impressive
sublimity with clemency, supreme dominion and power
with graciousness. Both works, the productions of the
highest art, were at the same time the expression of a
profound religious idea.

134.   But not even the miracles of art, which always
hastens to the aid of a dying form of religion, can save it
from ruin, when it no longer answers to the wants of a
new generation. It was impossible for poets and sculptors
to arrest the increasing decline of the Hellenic religion.
The causes of that decline lay in the triumph of democracy,
which weakened the reverence for lawful authority, the
great disasters which befell the state and excited doubts
of the power of the protecting deities, the boldness of
philosophical speculation which questioned the personality
of the gods, the genuineness of their signs, the validity of
their tradition, and set unintelligent powers in the place
of the living gods of Olympus, while sophistic, the bastard-
daughter of philosophy, undermined both faith and morals.
The proof of this is furnished by the constant increase of
superstition. Men sought satisfaction for their religious
cravings in all kinds of foreign worships, from dirty

mendicant priests, who promised atonement for money,

p
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and ventriloquists who professed to be inspired. Secret
associations replaced the state mysteries. Vainly did a
poet like Euripides strive to unite the religious aspirations
which filled his mind, with the claims of thought. He
himself was too much affected by doubt to be able to
harmonise the traditional belief with the ideas of his time,
and he died, gloomy and dissatisfied, far from his native
land. Had it been possible for any one to reconcile these
conflicting elements, it would have been effected by a
man of prophetic nature, like Sokrates, the opponent of
the Sophists, an acute inquirer into existing systems, a
profound and original thinker, but at the same time
endowed with a heart of childlike piety, and a lofty moral
character, which wrought his faith, his doctrine, and his
life into complete accord. In him the reconciliation of
religion and philosophy was accomplished. But the
authorised representatives of religion rejected his aid,
' like that of all the noble thinkers of their days. Their
fanatical zeal, a new sign of decline, was not directed
only against the philosophers and the sophists, including
even the religious Anaxagoras; it pursued Alkibiades, it
did not spare Perikles and Pheidias, and it endeavoured
to establish a regular inquisition. Sokrates, also, became
their victim. Condemned for apostasy from the ancestral
religion, for introducing new religions, and for corrupting
youth, he was forced to drink the poisoned cup. A religion
which thus murders its noblest thinker, who has been
declared by deity itself to be the wisest of all mortals,
has closed the path to all further advance, and has no
other future before it than lingering petrifaction or
death.
, ITS DECLINE.

227

The rich activity of religious art, just at the period of
a religion’s decline, is a common phenomenon. Instances
abound in the splendid temples of Nebukadrezar in
Babylon, in the revival of sacred art in Egypt under the
Saitic princes, and even under the Ptolemies, in Rome
under the early emperors, and in the Italy of the Renais-
sance.

Among the foreign religions which now found great
acceptance in Greece may be named the Phrygian worship
of Sabazios and the Mother of the gods, the Thracian
cultus of Kotytto, and the Syrian of Adonis, which was
already widely diffused in the East. Between the adop-
tion of these foreign forms of worship in a state of decay,
and the independent working of lofty religious ideas and
conceptions, to which the Hellenic religion was indebted
in the period of its growth for its advanced development,
there is a vast difference.

Sokrates was diligent in sacrificing; he revered the
oracles, and loyally held fast to the religion of his fathers.
The Apollo-worship won his greatest sympathy; the guid-
ing principle of each was the same. He gained his belief
in deity by the path of inward experience, and he heard
within him the voice of his good spirit, which was with
him no figure of speech, but an intense conviction. The
miserable nature of the charges brought against him is
clearly indicated by the description of this as the intro-
duction of new gods. The close affinity between the
persecutors of Sokrates and the Sadducees who put Jesus
to death is well illustrated by their hypocrisy in postpon-
ing his execution for thirty days, to prevent the desecration
of the city while the Athenian festival-ship was on its
voyage to Delos.

The persecution of Pheidias, who died broken-hearted
in prison, was also inspired by religious zeal: he was
2 2 8

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

accused of having perpetuated his own likeness and that
of Perikles on the shield of the Parthenos. Alkibiades
was perhaps not so innocent of ridiculing the Eleusinian
mysteries, which was the charge brought against him.
His guilt, however, was never proved, and the mutilation
of the Hermse, which was also laid at his door, was
probably the work of his enemies themselves. The fury
of the zealots knew no bounds. Every honest man was
in danger of being accused of atheism. Open liars were
praised and honoured; noble citizens were laid on the
rack. So untrue is it that intolerance was alien to the
Greek religion.

II.

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

Literature.—T. Mommsen, History of Borne, translated
from the German by W. P. Dickson, 4 vols., London,
1867 (6th Germ. ed. 1874). A. Schwegler, Romische
Gesehichte in Zeitalter der Konige, Tubingen, 1853. I.
A. Hartung, Die Religion der Rimer, 2 vols., Erlangen,
1836. L. Preller, Romische Mythologie, Berlin, 1858
(2d ed. 1865). For the earlier literature comp. Preller,
ibid., pp. 41-43-

135.   The religions of the Greeks and Eomans were
originally, like their languages, very closely connected, as
the names of some of the chief gods prove. The traces
of agreement would certainly he still more numerous,
had not the difference in national character and in out-
ward circumstances led each of the two religions to
develop itself for a considerable time in exactly opposite
directions, till the nations came once more into contact
DIFFERENCES FROM THE GREEK.

229

?with each other, and their religions blended together.
The aim of the Greek was towards a more and more com-
plete anthropomorphism, which Attic sculpture wrought
out to perfection; but to this the Eoman felt an instinc-
tive aversion. He was too little of an artist, and had
also too deep a reverence for the higher powers to repre-
sent them as beings resembling men. The powers of
nature, so far as they had not yet in an earlier period
become personal deities, remained spirits to his view, or
became personifications of abstract ideas. Tins is the
character likewise of the new gods whom they created,
beings who only possess a nebulous existence, rarely
uniting in marriage or forming amorous connections, and
remaining for the most part childless. The remains of
the old Eoman mythology are therefore extremely scanty.
But the ideas which were elevated to the rank of spirits
are innumerable. Not only has every man his Genius,
and every woman her Juno, but every deity, also, to-
gether with every being, every object, every action or
function, every moral quality even, has its own spirit,
which is limited to its own province. If the dominant
elements in Greek mythology are personality, freedom,
and the richest diversity, the Eoman theology is charac-
terised by the abstract idea, by necessity, by the severest
order and monotony. The difference between the two
corresponds exactly to that between the Hindu and Per-
sian religions, to the latter of which the character of the
Eoman affords a complete parallel.

Identity of name subsists between Jupiter (Dims) and
Zeus, Zeus pater, Vesta and Hestia, and probably between
Juno and Dione. Janus, it has been suggested, is con-
230

[Prometheus]

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

nected with the Greek form Zen. Mars and Ares are
regarded by recent investigators as entirely different
deities. I am not only of the opposite opinion, but I
even believe the names have originally the same signifi-
cance. Neptunus, a name which disappeared among the
Greeks, is certainly the Aparn napaf of the ancient
Aryans.

The intercourse with Eastern nations, which can be
traced back among the Greeks to the earliest times, did
not begin among the Romans till after their national life
had developed, and it consequently produced a much
deeper impression on the religious ideas of the former
than on those of the latter.

There is a characteristic difference between the Greeks
and Romans in prayer. The Greek looked towards the
deity with uncovered head, the Roman veiled his face.

The nebulous character of many Roman deities also
appears from the formulae: “ Sive Deo, Sire Deae,” “ Sive
Mas, Sive Femina,” “Sive quo alio nomine te appellari
volueris,” employed concerning the gods or addressed to
them.

It appears that the marriages of the gods, and their
children likewise, were much more numerous in the
earliest times, but that such representations were after-
wards rejected by the strict Romans. One of the most
important survivals of genuine Roman or rather of Italian
mythology, is the myth of Hercules and Cacus, the old
Indo-Germanic conflict between the god of light and the
cloud demon; but it is noteworthy that the Greek Herakles
has already stepped into the place of the national god, and
that Cacus (the “ burning”! or the “blind ”1) was brought
into connection with the Greek word xaxoi.

The term Genius is employed for the spirits of female
beings also, Genius Junonis Sospitce, Genius Famce, Genius
ITS ABSTRACT CONCEPTIONS.

231

Forinarum. The fertility in the creation of special genii
which distinguished the Roman religion particularly,
may he estimated from the fact that not only every con-
dition of social life, but every operation of agriculture,
ploughing, sowing, harvesting, down to the opening of
the barns,—hay, even the annual supply of corn in the
market (Annona), and the healthy flesh of the human
body (Carnia, properly speaking a demon who kept off
blood-sucking vampires), had their special representatives
in the world of spirits.

The peculiarity here indicated as attaching to the
Roman religion is connected with the Roman national
character, which Mommsen finds in the profound sense
of the existence of the general in the particular, in the
devotion and self-sacrifice of the individual to the whole,
and which he regards as the basis also of the political
unity and the universal dominion of the Roman Empire.

The resemblance of the Roman and Persian religions
is indeed striking. In both the ethical rises above the
mythological elements ; in I'arsism abstract ideas become
in like manner immortal saints (amesha sphita) and mini-
sters of Ahuramazda, and there also, just as among the
Romans, everything, including even the gods, has its
own spirit or Fravashi, a word which does not differ very
widely in meaning from Genius (connected with genus,
gigno).

136.   In spite of the complete modification of the
Roman religion subsequently by the adoption of foreign
elements, particularly those of Greek and Oriental origin,
it remained true to this character during every period of
its existence, and continued to develop itself in this
direction until the end. When silver coinage was intro-
duced, about the middle of the third century B.c., Aescu-
232

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

lanus, tbe ancient genius of coppeT money, immediately
begot a son, Argentinus. The first Greek gods whom tbe
Romans made their own received new and intelligible
names in place of their former Greek designations, which
had ceased to he understood, or they were modified so as
to represent some abstract conception. Thus Mercurius,
the god of trade, was imitated from the Greek Hermes;
Minerva, the “ thinking,” from the Greek Athena; while
Proserpina was the Greek Persephone. The number of
genii who were mere abstractions continued to increase.
Terror and pallor in battle, peace and freedom, hope and
good fortune, became the objects, as spirits of dread and
blessing, of a real worship; and if in ancient times only
Fides, “ good faith,” was venerated as a separate deity,
altars and sanctuaries were soon erected for several other
virtues, divine or moral attributes, such as Concordia,
Pudicitia, Mens, Pietas, and Aequitas; at a later date to
Constantia, Idberalitas, Providentia; and finally even to
the Indulgentia and Clementia Ccesaris. From this last
phenomenon to the deification of the emperors themselves,
which also, indeed, originated under the influence of the
East, there was but a step.

The designation of Greek gods by Latin names, so that
the Romans could better understand their meaning, has
nothing to do with the fusion of Greek with old Italic
deities, like that of Aphrodite with Yenus, of Bakchos with
Liber, of Demeter with Ceres, and of Artemis with Diana.

The Virtutes, which were the earliest to become Genii,
were originally attributes of distinct deities, as Fides of
Jupiter (comp. Dius Fidius), Concordia of Yenus, Pudicitia
of Juno, Mens of Fortuna.
ITS EARLY CHARACTER.

233

A most remarkable example of personification is found
also in that of the divine voice, as Aius Locutius.

137.   The religion of the Romans stands at first at
about the same point of development as the Pelasgic.
The number of spirits or genii is unlimited, and they are
worshipped with more zeal than any others. Among
them may be named the lares, or Lords, who were at
first, at any rate, only worshipped in private; the Penates,
or hearth-spirits, to whom, together with Vesta, public
adoration was paid; the Manes, the Larvae, and the
Lcniures, all of whom were souls of the dead, the first
being good and pure, properly spirits of light, while the
two last wandered about as ghosts, not having as yet
come to their rest, and at a later period were regarded
definitely as evil spirits. No sharp lines were drawn to
distinguish these spirits, to whom other groups might be
added from one another, for they were in fact only different
representations of the same idea. Nevertheless, it is
incorrect to name even the oldest Roman religion poly-
daemonism. The decisive step which leads to polytheism
had been already taken. The term Pei, Pivi, was no
longer applied exclusively to the spirits of the sky; it
became, just as among the Greeks, the generic name for
personal and intelligent beings belonging to the earth and
the under-world as well as to the sky, and ruling nature
by their will (as numina).   The transition was still in

progress. The evil deities who were dreaded, such as
Vediovis, were still worshipped equally with the good.
Their number, moreover, was still small. Some, like
Robigo, the god of the corn-rust, Consus, probably the god
234

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

of the hidden germs, Carmentis, the deity of the magic
incantation, and others, were not yet much more than
spirits; hut others, such as the good shepherd’s god,
Faunus, the god of sowing, Saturnus (Saetumus), with his
joyous festival, the fire-gods, Vulcan and Vesta, and espe-
cially the three most eminent of all, Jupiter, Janus, and
Mars, were personal deities in the fullest sense, possessing
supreme power not only over the realm of nature, hut
also over society and morals.

The genius was also called Cerus or Kerus, a word con-
nected with the Sanskrit root hi, “ to make,” “ to do.”

The Lares do not differ much in character from the''
Greek heroes. If their name is identical with the well-
known Etrurian word Lars (which is, however, declined
differently), they must be the “lords,” the “potentates.”
The term Fenates is derived from perms, the domestic
“ hearth,” connected with penes and penitus. The name
Manes, allied with mane, “ early in the morning,” denotes
the “bright ones,” the “pure.” The Silvans and Fauns
bear more resemblance to the hands of Hindh deitie3.
They are the spirits of the forest and the field.

Besides the deities specified in the text, the oldest
Roman festival calendar also mentions Tellus, the nourish-
ing earth; Ceres, the goddess of growth; Pales, the deity
who gave fruitfulness to the flocks; Ops, the goddess of
the harvest; Terminus, the boundary-stone of the land;
Neptunus, Tiber, Mater (matuta), the morning goddess, a
sort of dawn; and Liber and Libera, regarded by some as
the “deliverers” from bondage and sorrow, by others as
the gods of the blessing of children. It is noteworthy
that Juno, Minerva, and Diana, though they were very
early worshipped in Rome, the two first on the Capitol,
the last on the Aventine, have not as yet appeared.
FUSION OF DIFFERENT ELEMENTS. 235

138.   Here, as elsewhere, it is hy a fusion of different
elements that a higher development has heen reached.
The religion of the earliest inhabitants of Eome had not
advanced beyond that of shepherds and tillers of the soil;
it was from the Sabines that higher religious conceptions,
together with a certain patriarchal-hierarchic polity, were
first introduced. As Eome became more of an Italian
centre, the number of gods who received its citizenship
increased, and if this caused a loss of the old simplicity,
the horizon was at the same time enlarged. After the
union of Latins and Sabines, three gods were raised far
above the others; Jupiter was the highest, Mars the most
worshipped, and Janus the most characteristic of the
people. Jupiter, the good father, source of blessings and of
creation, sustainer of good faith and honesty, was still, as
the severe requirements imposed on his priest evince, and
as results from his whole character, pre-eminently the god
of purity and holiness. Whatever Mars may have been
in an earlier period, whether sun-god or spring-god, lie
had certainly by this time become, par excellence, the god
of war, protector of the flocks of his people, champion of
the citizens, who received as his spring-harvest the Ver
Sacrum, the young men sent forth to conquer for them-
selves a new abode, and whose priests, from their magic
war-dance, were called the Salii. Janus {Dianus, the
“ light one,” the “ bright”), with his two faces, the god of
the summer, who opened the day, and afterwards also the
year, gave his name to the month which succeeded the
winter month, was the opener of all life, the beginner of
all movement, and almost became the Creator, but the
soldierly Eomans connected him likewise with war.
236 RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

Even the Palatine Mars, before the coming of the
Sabines, was still more of a nature-god than of a god of
war, and only acquired this latter significance by his
union with Quirinus, the war-god of the Sabines. Diffe-
rent derivations are assigned to his name, which would
make him either the god of death (Mavors, Maun, Mors,
so Mommsen), or a sun-god (from mar, to “shine,” to
“ sparkle,” Roscher). The proposal of Roscher to identify
him with Apollo, on the ground of some external corre-
spondences, seems to me to ignore the vast difference
between the character of the two deities. In the opinion
of Preller, Mars is the same as Mas, “ the male power ”
(comp. Maspiter, Marmar, and his marriage with Nerio,
whose name is connected with the Sabine Nero, “ strong,”
and with the root nri, nar, “ the male element”), and in
this capacity he would be the god of new life, of re-awak-
ening fruitfulness, and the genius of war. Mommsen and
Preller may at bottom be both right, for mors and mas
probably both have the same root (Sanskr. mri) signifying
death (comp. Sanskr. marya, “man,” “warrior,” maria,
mariya, “ man,” and the Maruts, the Yedic gods of storm
and war). The Ver Sacrum was a sacrifice of men and
cattle to the god of war, in the hope that this propitiation
would induce him to spare during the year the rest of the
warriors and the flocks of the community. The practice
of opening the temple of Janus Quirinus at Rome at the
outbreak of war, and closing it again when peace was,
established, has been variously, but not yet satisfactorily,
explained. I look for its origin in the old animistic
notion that it was needful to give the deity an oppor-
tunity of accompanying the troops.

139.   Much greater weight was attached by the prac-
tical Roman to the cultus than to the doctrines of religion.
ITS CULTUS.

237

[Prometheus]

This was the one point of supreme importance; in his /
view the truly devout man was he who punctually per-
formed his religious obligations, who was pious according
to law. There was a debt to be paid to the gods which
must he discharged, hut it was settled if the letter of the
contract was fulfilled, and the symbol was given in place of
the reality. The animistic conception that the gods might
he employed as instruments for securing practical advan-
tages, lies at the basis of the whole Roman cultus. In
the earliest times, therefore, it was quite simple, so far as
regards the absence of images or temples, hut it was at
the same time exceedingly complicated and burdened
with all kinds of ceremonies and symbolic actions, and
the least neglect destroyed the efficacy of the sacrifice.
This necessitated the assistance of priests acquainted
with the whole ritual, not to serve as mediators, for the
approach to the deity was open to all, but to see that the
pious action failed in no essential element. Each god
had his Flamen or “fire-kindler” (literally “blower”).

Of these there were twelve, the three principal ones
(majorcs) being the priest of Jupiter, the Flamen dialis,
who was hound by rigid obligations, and the two priests
of Mars, the Flamines Jfartialis and Quirinalis, the heads
of the two Salian-Colleges. The wives of these Flamines
performed the cultus of the corresponding goddesses. No
special deity claimed the services of the Pontifices, the
bridge- or road-makers, a priesthood whose head, the
Ponli/ex Maximus, was rising higher and higher in
authority, though at this period, at any rate, the three
Flamines majorcs were still his superiors; the Augurs,
also, who discerned the will of the gods from the flight
233 RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

of birds, and otter sacred orders, were likewise uncon-
nected with any particular deity. Everything was regu-
lated with precision by the government; and the fact
that the highest of the priests was always under the
control of the state prevented the rise of a priestly
supremacy, the absence of which in Greece was due to
other causes; but the consequence was that the Roman
religion remained dry and formal, and was external rather
than inward. Even the purity (castitas), on which such
great stress was laid, was only sacerdotal, and was attained
by lustration, sprinkling, and fumigation, and the great
value attached to prayer, so that a single error had to be
atoned for as a neglect, had its basis in the superstitious
belief that it possessed a high magic power. Such a
religion was certainly intelligible to all; it was not with-
out a favourable influence on political and social life,
and it was admirably adapted to form a well-organised
army of conquerors, a nation that could rule the world,
but to spiritual life it contributed nothing, and it did
little for the advancement of speculation, poetry, or
art.

It was not necessary to offer to the thundering lieaven-
god or to the river-god of the Tiber any human sacrifices,
but to the former onions and poppy-heads were offered
for his lightning to strike, instead of human heads, while
thirty puppets made of rushes were annually cast into
the latter.

Yarro regrets the days when the gods were worshipped
“ sine simulacro.” In fact the little “ houses of the gods ”
(iaedicula), which came into use in early times, were re-
garded as departures from the law of Numa. It is
ITS CULTUS.

239

erroneous to quote this circumstance in proof of the
purity of the primitive cultus; it only indicates the
low stage at which that cultus stood. The sacred trees,
stones (Jupiter lapis), and animals (the wolf of Mars, and
his woodpecker, Pieus, who even becomes in tradition a
pre-historic king, Picumnus), prove that it was originally
nothing more than fetishism.

The Flamen dialis might not touch anything unclean,
nor hear the lamentations for the dead, nor tread upon
a grave. He might not put away his wife, nor marry a
second time, and the thoroughly patriarchal character of
his priestly functions is revealed in the rule that on the
death of his wife he must lay down his office.

Human sacrifices were not uncommon among the
Romans also in early times. It was said that they were
abolished by Numa. But even down to the days of the
emperors a human victim, though he was a condemned
criminal, was put to death, and slaughtered enemies and
those who suffered capital punishment were regarded as
offerings to tlie gods. The self-sacrifice of individuals
(devovere se) on occasion of plagues or disasters was also
prompted by the same idea.

It was an instance of the favourable influence exerted
by the Roman religion upon social life that certain crimes
which were not dealt with by any law, such as the sale
of a wife or of a married son, the beating of a father, or
the violation of hospitality, were subject to the curse of
the gods, that is, involved a kind of excommunication, of
which men stood in great dread.

The anxious care for purity, and the belief in the magic
power of prayer, are further points of concord between
the Roman and the Paxsee religions. Scrupulous ad-
herence to forms, which frequently led among the Romans
to a repetition of the sacrifices, on some occasions even
240

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

as many as thirty times, was common to all ancient
priestly religions, but was seldom so strongly developed
as in the case before us.

140.   The Tarquinii and Servius Tullius gave an
entirely new direction to the state religion, which was
pursued without interruption after their fall, and in fact
until the decline of pre-Christian Eome. They founded
a splendid temple on the Capitol for Jupiter, as the
mightiest and greatest of the gods, Optimus Maximus;
others placed Juno and Minerva by his side. With this
temple splendid games and a brilliant cultus were
associated. The ancient patriarchal god of light and
purity thus became the powerful ruler, of whose citadel
it was said that it should become the head of the whole
world; he was the divine personification of the conquer-
ing Boman state. Such he continued to be. Into his
temple the great Scipio Africanus the elder, went every
morning to prepare himself by quiet prayer for his daily
work, and all his triumphs he ascribed solely to the
protection and aid of this great god. Jupiter 0. M. is
the expression of the belief of the Bomans, to which
they remained faithful even in that age of decline when
they ridiculed the rest of their ancestral religion. While
the Boman empire continued to extend over the world,
it was impossible to doubt his power. The nations
trembled before him more than they had ever done be-
fore Asur or Maruduk. Even a stranger, like Antiochus
Epiphanes, founded a sanctuary to him in his capital,
and endeavoured to spread his worship with fanatical
zeal. The Jewish people alone claimed for their deity
JUPITER OPTIMUS MAXIMUS.

241

the same sovereignty, and accordingly offered the most
steadfast resistance to the attempts of Antiochns and of
the Bomans. But the Jews were conquered, and a
temple of the Capitoline god was erected under Hadrian
on the ruins of the temple of Yahveh, until at last
Christendom, which issued from this same Jewish people,
drove Jupiter 0. M. out of his Capitol for good.

Optimus, in the formula Jupiter 0. M., possesses no
ethical significance, at any rate in the earliest times, hut
simply denotes the “ mightiest,” the “ strongest.”

The changes brought about by the Tarquinii affected
both the representation of the god and the mode of his
worship. Temples and images of the gods in human
form, hitherto scarcely known among the ltomans, were
now introduced.

141.   It soon became evident that a cold formal state
religion of this kind, though it was now surrounded with
great pomp, and was raised to be a symbol of a bold
political idea, while it might satisfy a few statesmen and
patricians, could not meet the wants of a whole people.
This deficiency was perceived by the same kings who
modified the native cultus, and they endeavoured to meet
it by the introduction of foreign deities and usages. A
sanctuary was erected on the Aventine for Diana, who
was here really identical with the Artemis of Massilia,
and consequently with the Ephesian goddess; while the
books containing the records of the oracular utterances of
the Sibyl of Cumae, were brought to Borne, and intrusted
to the care of two officers and two interpreters. These
were the first traces of Greek religion at Borne. But they

Q
242

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

were not left to stand alone. One Hellenic god after
another, at first with the substitution of a Latin name, at
last even without that, received citizenship at Eome.
What the last kings had done voluntarily, though cer-
tainly with the view of meeting the wishes of the people,
the Senate was afterwards obliged to permit, in conse-
quence of the demands of public opinion, though it rarely
resolved to do so without hesitation. The Greek deities
were followed by the Asiatic, such as the Great Mother of
the gods, whose image, consisting of an unhewn stone, was
brought at the expense of the State from Pessinus to Eome.
On the whole, it was not the best and loftiest features of
the foreign religions that were adopted, but rather their
lower and sensual elements, and these, too, in their most
corrupt form. An accidental accusation brought to light,
in the year 186 B.C., a secret worship of Bacchus which
was accompanied by all kinds of abominations, and had
already made its way among thousands. Five years later
an attempt was made, by the aid of some supposititious
books of Hum a, to substitute a certain semi-Greek theo-
sophy for the State religion, but this proved too much for
the sober sense of the Eomans.

For the guardianship of the Sibylline books duoviri
sacris faciundis were appointed.

It has been conjectured that even the Capitoline
triad, especially Minerva, shows an imitation of Greek
models, and in the institution of the Ludi Romani this
influence cannot be mistaken. The novelty lies in the
introduction of Greek deities; Latin and Sabine gods
had been admitted long before. The worship of the
Massilian Artemis was quickly followed by the rites of
INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN DEITIES.

243

Dem6t6r, of Persephone, and of Dionysus, which were
amalgamated with the native worship of Ceres, Liber, and
Libera; then came Castor and Pollox, Apollo, Esculapius;
with the garden-goddess Venus, the Greek Aphrodite
was identified, and the luxurious cultus of the Erycinian
Venus, the mother of Eneas, soon rose to be the national
worship.

The Bacchic mysteries, introduced at Eome by a couple
of Campanian priests, were not the pure Eleusinian rites,
but the fanatical and immoral performances which pre-
vailed in Greece after the Peloponnesian wars. They
afforded the Bomans a welcome means of secretly prac-
tising unchastity, poisoning, falsification of wills, and
other crimes, as well as of forming political conspiracies.
P. Ebutius, who very nearly became their victim, brought
the scandal to light.

The supposititious books of Numa consisted of seven
Greek books on theosophy, and seven Latin on the jus
pontificium; the fabrication, however, was so clumsy that
the fraud was detected immediately, and the Senate gave
orders that they should be burnt.

142.   The current of the age was, however, too powerful
to be turned even by any Koman authority. It was in
vain that the philosophers, the soothsayers, and the priests
of foreign gods were from time to time expelled; the first
had become indispensable for the higher classes, many
of these being also equally devoted to the last, who were,
however, in especial request among women and among
the lower classes. The state religion, undermined by
philosophy, fell more and more into decline. As early as
the first Punic war, a general ventured to ridicule the
auspices, and the augurs soon did the same. Priestly
244

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

offices were no longer secured to the worthiest occupants,
hut were sold to the wealthiest, and-the highest of all
sometimes remained vacant for years. Incredulity was
followed by the usual result—the rank growth of super-
stition. Astrology and necromancy made their way even
among the cultured and the learned, and went hand in
hand with the grossest abuses. The eyes of the multitude
were always turned towards the East, from which deliver-
ance was expected to come forth, and secret rites brought
from there to Eome were sure of a number of devotees.
But they were only bastard children, or, at any rate, the
late misshapen offspring of the lofty religions which once
flourished in the East, an un-Persian Mithra-worship,
an un-Egyptian Serapis-worship, an Isis-worship which
only flattered the senses and was eagerly pursued by the
fine ladies, to say nothing of more loathsome practices.
Yet even these aberrations were the expression of a real
and deep-seated need of the human mind which could find
no satisfaction in the state religion. Men longed for a
God whom they could worship heart and soul, and with
this God they longed to he reconciled. Their own deities
they had outgrown, and they listened eagerly, therefore, to
the priests of Serapis and of Mithra, who each proclaimed
their god as the sole-existing, the almighty, and all-good,
and they felt especially attracted by the earnestness and
strictness of the latter cultus. And in order to be secure
of the eradication of all guilt, men lay down in a pit
where the blood of the sacrificial animal flowed all over
them, in the conviction that they would then arise entirely
new-born.
INTRODUCTION OF FOREIGN DEITIES. 245

After the death of L. Merula, in the time of Marius,
the office of Flamen dialis remained vacant for seventy
years, as no one was willing to submit to the great self-
denial which it demanded.

The practice of astrology and magic was a return to the
ancient civilisation of the proto-Babylonians. The astro-
logers at Borne were always called Chaldeans. They
found credit even with learned persons, like Varro and
Nigidius Figulus; under Sept. Severus they were publicly
recognised, and under Alexander Severus they even re-
ceived a sort of professorial chair at Borne. Magic had a
more mixed character, for the aid of northern priests,
especially of the Druids, was also invoked. As early as
97 B.c., it was found necessary to prohibit human sacrifices
instituted in accordance with magical dogmas. Emperors,
like Nero, and even Hadrian, were not disinclined to it.

Besides the deities named in the text, a number of
others were also introduced into the Boman Empire,
especially from Syria, such as Atergatis, Maiuma, the
goddess of Gaza, Deus Sol Elagabal (the god of Byblus
[Gebal] worshipped at Emesa), &c. On Serapis, see
above, § 37. The most interesting of all these deities
was the old-Aryan Mithra, whose worship had attained a
high ascendency as early as Artaxerxes Mnemon, and, in
conjunction with all kinds of un-Parsee usages, had spread
through the East. His cultus, which always remained
relatively pure, was brought to the West by pirates. By
the Bomans he was identified with their Sol invktus, to
whom not only Julian, but also Constantine, even after
his conversion to Christianity, is said to have been devoted.
How far this Mithra was, moreover, from being the pure
Zarathustrian god of light may be inferred from the fact
that the highest—and, properly speaking, the only—god
of the system, compared with whom Mithra is nothing
246

[Prometheus]

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

more than a genius, remained entirely unknown in the
West.

The Taurobolia and Kriobolia must also have been
derived from the East, though their origin is unknown.

143.   It was natural that the policy of Augustus should
include the restoration of the national worship, but it was
only the outward institutions which he re-organised; he
could breathe no life into its dead forms. Two important
religious innovations characterise the age of the empire
—the deification of the emperors, and the growing power
of universalism. Not only was the emperor on the
Capitol made the centre of worship, which was to be ex-
pected in a state religion, but men now began to follow
also at Eome the example set centuries before by the
Egyptian princes, and in later days by the Ptolemies and
Seleucid.se, for which the worship of genii afforded the-
means of transition, and the prevailing Euhemerism which
explained the gods themselves as princes deified in ancient
times, supplied the justification. Even during his lifetime
Csesar was honoured as a deity, and after his death he was
enrolled among the gods by the Senate with great forma-
lity. All the emperors, with a few exceptions, followed
him in turn, although Augustus and Tiberius still offered
some resistance to the practice, and a Vespasian ridiculed
it. Men talked of their majesty and eternity; their head
was surrounded with a crown of rays and a nimbus;
sacrifice was offered to their images, and they had the
sacred fire carried before them. They were designated hy
the names of the gods—Hadrian was the Olympian, Nero
Zeus, the liberator, and even the saviour of the world. Em-
presses thought it not beneath them to serve as priestesses
WORSHIP OF THE EMPERORS.

247

in the temples of their dead consorts, in expectation that
they themselves would he deified, and cities esteemed
it an honour to be temple-guardians (properly “ temple-
sweepers,” veu/copoi) of the Imperator. Thus this new
cultus became a regular instrument of propaganda among’
the non-Boman nations, alike of the religion and of the
supremacy of Eome. For Augustus and Eoma were
placed side by side as symbols of the restored empire
with all its civilisation and its belief.

The second innovation was that Jupiter 0. M. was now
not only raised with the loftiest titles to be the chief of
all the deities in the world, but was also identified with
all the highest gods of other nations, and the provinces
witnessed everywhere the rise of imitations of the Capitol.
The relation was thus reversed. Men had begun by
honouring the foreign gods, as mysterious powers, above
their own; now that they knew them better, they saw
that they stood no higher, and were essentially the same;
each chief god was in fact a Jupiter, and the cultus of
this Jupiter in different forms, combined with that of his
incarnation upon earth—the emperor—now became the
universal religion for the great universal empire.

The deification of Caesar under the name divus Julius
had proceeded so far that his image was not allowed to be
carried in procession at family obsequies among the images
of the ancestors of the house. The cultus of the emperors
was pursued with such zeal that games were actually
instituted in their honour, temples were built, and spe-
cial priesthoods appointed; the Greek usage in the first
case, and the Egyptian in the second, supplying the
model. Even by the Christian Tertullian the emperors
243

RELIGION AMONG THE ROMANS.

were called, though in a modified sense, a Deo secundi, solo
Deo minores.

Jupiter now received the splendid titles of summus
excellentissimus, or exsuperantissimus, pacator or praeses orbis,
and others of the same kind. The inscriptions of the
period speak of a Jupiter 0. M. Heliopolitanus (Baalbek),
Damascenus, Dolichenus, and even of a Pceninus on the St.
Bernard, and a Culminalis in Styria. See Orell. Inscript,
lat. Collectio, No. 228 foil., and Henzen (vol. iii. Collect.
Orellianae), No. 5642. Cf. Grimm, Deutsche Myth. p. 154.

144.   The Greco-Roman civilisation was the most com-
posite, and consequently the highest, of antiquity. It
soon far outgrew the ancestral religion, and men sought
anxiously for the satisfaction of their religious wants.
Fresh elements, therefore, were constantly being added to
those which had already coalesced from Greece and Rome,
and the whole mass continued to seethe and ferment.
But an inspiring idea was necessary to draw forth from
this confusion a new form of religion which should answer
the needs of the civilised world. This idea was brought
by the Gospel, the latest and most precious gift of the
East to the West. But the West contributed its share,
for it was here that the Gospel found its way prepared;
here alone was it possible for it, though after long struggles,
to prevail. The Eastern nations had retrograded; the
Slavic and Germanic peoples were still backward. It
was not till later that the era of the Germans dawned.
The first form which Christianity assumed as an established
religion was Roman. The Roman Catholic Church is
simply the Roman universal empire modified and conse-
crated by Christian ideas. It left the old forms for the
RISE OF CHRISTIANITY.

249

most part standing, but it ennobled and elevated them by
tlie new spirit; its organisation and its efforts after unity
which controlled all its development were inherited from
the Romans, and it was by their means that it was
enabled to become the teacher of the still rude popula-
tions of the North, to preserve rather than to diffuse
the treasures which it had received from the Ancients
and from Jesus.

THE END.