The Latins and the Sabines were more alike, and also more like the
Greeks. There were a great many settlements of Greeks in the southern
parts of Italy, and they learnt something from them. They had a great
many gods. Every house had its own guardian. These were called Lares, or
Penates, and were generally represented as little figures of dogs lying
by the hearth, or as brass bars with dogs' heads. This is the reason
that the bars which close in an open hearth are still called dogs.
Whenever there was a meal in the house the master began by pouring out
wine to the Lares, and also to his own ancestors, of whom he kept
figures; for these natives thought much of their families, and all one
family had the same name, like our surname, such as Tullius or Appius,
the daughters only changing it by making it end in _a_ instead of
_us_, and the men having separate names standing first, such as
Marcus or Lucius, though their sisters were only numbered to distinguish
them.

[Illustration: JUPITER]

Each city had a guardian spirit, each stream its nymph, each wood its
faun; also there were gods to whom the boundary stones of estates were
dedicated. There was a goddess of fruits called Pomona, and a god of
fruits named Vertumnus. In their names the fields and the crops were
solemnly blest, and all were sacred to Saturn. He, according to the old
legends, had first taught husbandry, and when he reigned in Italy there
was a golden age, when every one had his own field, lived by his own
handiwork, and kept no slaves. There was a feast in honor of this time
every year called the Saturnalia, when for a few days the slaves were
all allowed to act as if they were free, and have all kinds of wild
sports and merriment. Afterwards, when Greek learning came in, Saturn
was mixed up with the Greek Kronos, or Time, who devours his offspring,