The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire Part 4

[58] Ovid, _Fasti_, v, 490.

[59] _De Divinatione_, i, 1, 2.

[60] _ib._ i, 3, 5.

[61] _ib._ i, 39, 84.

[62] _De Divinatione_, i, 38, 82, 83. Cf. Tertullian, _de Anima_, 46.

_Sed et Stoici deum malunt providentissimum humanae inst.i.tutioni inter cetera praesidia divinatric.u.m artium et disciplinarum somnia quoque n.o.bis indidisse, peculiare solatium naturalis oraculi_.

[63] Panaetius and Seneca should be excepted from this charge.

[64] Cic. _de Div._ ii, 72, 149, 150. Cf. _de Legg._ ii, 13, 32.

Plutarch also has the same remark about sleep and superst.i.tion.

[65] Cf. _Odes_, iii, 27.

[66] _Tusculans_, i, 21, 48.

[67] Hor. _Ep._ ii, 2, 208; Howes.

[68] Tertullian, de _Idol._ 9, _seimus magiae et astrologiae inter se societatem_.

[69] Pliny the elder on Magic, _N.H._ x.x.x, opening sections; _N.H._ xxviii, 10, on incantations, _polleantne aliquid verba et incantamenta carminum_.

[70] Livy, xxix, 11, 14; Ovid, fasti, iv, 179 f. The G.o.ddess was embodied in a big stone.

[71] Lucretius, ii, 608 f.

[72] Cf. Strabo, c. 470; Juvenal, vi, 511 f.

[73] See Ramsay, _Church in the Roman Empire_, p. 397. The Latins used the word _divinus_ in this way--Seneca, _de teata vita_, 26, 8.

[74] (Lucian) Asinus, 37. The same tale is amplified in Apuleius'

_Golden a.s.s_, where the episode of these priests is given with more detail, in the eighth book. Seneca hints that a little blood might make a fair show; see his picture of the same, _de beata vita_, 26, 8.

[75] Tertullian, _ad Natt._ i, 10; Apel. 6. He has the strange fancy that Serapis was originally the Joseph of the book of Genesis, _ad Natt._ ii, 8.

[76] Valerius Maximus, i, 3, 4.

[77] Dio C. xlvii, 15.

[78] Tibullus, i, 3, 23 f. Cf. Propertius, ii, 28, 45; Ovid, _A.A._ iii, 635.

[79] Juvenal, vi, 522 f.

[80] Lucan, viii, 831, _Isin semideosque canes_.

[81] Ovid, _Am._ ii, 13, 7.

[82] Unless _Isiaci coniectores_ is Cicero's own phrase, _de Div._ i, 58, 132.

[83] Cicero, _Div._ ii, 59, 121. For _egkolmesis_ or _incubatio_ see Mary Hamilton, _Incubation_ (1906)

[84] Clem. Alex. Paedag. iii, 28, to the same effect. Tertullian on the temples, _de Pud._ c. 5. Reference may be made to the hierodules of the temples in ancient Asia and in modern India.

[85] _Corp. Inscr. Lai._ ii, 3386. The enumeration of the jewels was a safeguard against theft.

[86] Flinders Petrie, _Religion of Ancient Egypt_, p. 44; Hamilton, _Incubation_, pp. 174, 182 f.

[87] Julian, _Or._ iv, 136 B.

[88] Lucr. v, 1194.

[89] Lucr. i, 62-79.

[90] See Patin, _La Poesie Latine_, i, 120.

[91] Lucr. iii, 60 f.

[92] Pliny, _N.H._ x.x.x, 12, 13. Warde Fowler, _Roman Festivals_, pp.

111 f. on the _Argei_ and the whole question of human sacrifice. For Plutarch's explanation of it as due not to G.o.ds but to evil demons who enforced it, see p. 107.

[93] Pliny, _N.H._ xxviii, 12; Plutarch, _Marcellus_, 3, where, however, the meaning may only be that the rites are done in symbol; he refers to the actual sacrifice of human beings in the past. See Tertullian, _Apol._ 9 on sacrifice of children in Africa in the reign of Tiberius.

[94] Strabo, c. 239. Strabo was a contemporary of Augustus. Cf. J. G.

Frazer, _Adonis Attis Osiris_, p. 63, for another instance in this period.

[95] Lucr. v, 1204-1240. We may compare Browning's _Bp. Blougram_ on the instability of unbelief:--

Just when we are safest, there's a sunset-touch, A fancy from a flower-bell, some one's death, A chorus-ending from Euripides-- And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears As old and new at once as nature's self, To rap and knock and enter in our soul, Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring, Round the ancient idol, on his base again,-- The grand Perhaps! We look on helplessly.

[96] Lucr. iii, 53.

[97] Seneca, _Ep._ 95, 33.

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CHAPTER II

THE STOICS

"I am entering," writes Tacitus,[1] "upon the history of a period, rich in disasters, gloomy with wars, rent with seditions, nay, savage in its very hours of peace. Four Emperors perished by the sword; there were three civil wars; there were more with foreigners--and some had both characters at once.... Rome was wasted by fires, its oldest temples burnt, the very Capitol set in flames by Roman hands. There was defilement of sacred rites; adulteries in high places; the sea crowded with exiles; island rocks drenched with murder. Yet wilder was the frenzy in Rome; n.o.bility, wealth, the refusal of office, its acceptance--everything was a crime, and virtue the surest ruin. Nor were the rewards of informers less odious than their deeds; one found his spoils in a priesthood or a consulate; another in a provincial governors.h.i.+p; another behind the throne; and all was one delirium of hate and terror; slaves were bribed to betray their masters, freedmen their patrons. He who had no foe was destroyed by his friend."

It was to this that Virgil's hope of a new Golden Age had come--_Redeunt Saturnia regna_. Augustus had restored the Republic; he had restored religion; and after a hundred years here is the outcome.