VII. WORSHIP OF THE STATE 75

VIII. AUGURIES AND AUSPICES 96

IX. RELIGION AND MORALITY--CONCLUSION 103




THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT ROME


CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION--SOURCES AND SCOPE


The conditions of our knowledge of the native religion of early Rome
may perhaps be best illustrated by a parallel from Roman archæology.
The visitor to the Roman Forum at the present day, if he wishes to
reconstruct in imagination the Forum of the early Republic, must not
merely 'think away' many strata of later buildings, but, we are told,
must picture to himself a totally different orientation of the whole:
the upper layer of remains, which he sees before him, is for his
purpose in most cases not merely useless, but positively misleading.
In the same way, if we wish to form a picture of the genuine Roman
religion, we cannot find it immediately in classical literature; we
must banish from our minds all that is due to the contact with the
East and Egypt, and even with the other races of Italy, and we must
imagine, so to speak, a totally different mental orientation before