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The religion of the Romans differed in some respects from that of the
Greeks, inasmuch as it was emphatically a state religion. It was more of
a ritual and a ceremony. It included most of the deities of the Greek
Pantheon, but was more comprehensive. It accepted the gods of all the
nations that composed the empire, and placed them in the Pantheon,--even
Mithra, the Persian sun-god, and the Isis and Osiris of the Egyptians,
to whom sacrifices were made by those who worshipped them at home. It
was also a purer mythology, and rejected many of the blasphemous myths
concerning the loves and quarrels of the Grecian deities. It was more
practical and less poetical. Every Roman god had something to do, some
useful office to perform. Several divinities presided over the birth and
nursing of an infant, and they were worshipped for some fancied good,
for the benefits which they were supposed to bestow. There was an
elaborate "division of labor" among them. A divinity presided over
bakers, another over ovens,--every vocation and every household
transaction had its presiding deities.

There were more superstitious rites practised by the Romans than by the
Greeks,--such as examining the entrails of beasts and birds for good or
bad omens. Great attention was given to dreams and rites of divination.
The Roman household gods were of great account, since there was a more
defined and general worship of ancestors than among the Greeks. These
were the _Penates_, or familiar household gods, the guardians of the
home, whose fire on the sacred hearth was perpetually burning, and to
whom every meal was esteemed a sacrifice. These included a _Lar_, or
ancestral family divinity, in each house. There were Vestal virgins to
guard the most sacred places. There was a college of pontiffs to
regulate worship and perform the higher ceremonies, which were