republic, that is the "Decline of Faith"; and finally the early empire
and the "Augustan Renaissance." Like all attempts to cut history into
sections these divisions are more or less arbitrary, but their
convenience sufficiently justifies their creation. They must be thought
of however not as representing independent blocks, arbitrarily arranged
in a certain consecutive order, not as five successive religious
consciousnesses, but merely as marking the entrance of certain new ideas
into the continuous religious consciousness of the Roman people. The
history of each of these periods is simply the record of the change
which new social conditions produced in that great barometer of society,
the religious consciousness of the community. It is in the period of the
old kingdom that our story begins.

At first sight it may seem a foolish thing to try to draw a picture of
the religious condition of a time about the political history of which
we know so little, and it is only right therefore that we should inquire
what sources of knowledge we possess.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when under the banner of the
new-born science of "Comparative Philology" there gathered together a
group of men who thought they held the key to prehistoric history, and
that words themselves would tell the story where ancient monuments and
literature were silent. It was a great and beautiful thought, and the
science which encouraged it has taken its place as a useful and
reputable member of the community of sciences, but its pretensions to
the throne of the revealer of mysteries have been withdrawn by those who
are its most ardent followers, and the "Indo-Germanic religion" which is
brought into being is a pleasant thought for an idle hour rather than a
foundation and starting-point for the study of ancient religion in
general. Altogether aside from the fact that although primitive religion