nother, but able to
bring good or ill to men, localised usually in their habitations, but
requiring no artificial dwelling or elaborate adornment of their abode;
becoming gradually more and more specialised in function, yet gaining
thereby no more real protective care for their worshippers--a cold and
heartless hierarchy, ready to exact their due, but incapable of
inspiring devotion or enthusiasm. Let us ask next how the Romans
conceived of their own relations towards them.

=2. The Relation of Gods and Men.=--The character of the Roman was
essentially practical and his natural mental attitude that of the
lawyer. And so in his relation towards the divine beings whom he
worshipped there was little of sentiment or affection: all must be
regulated by clearly understood principles and carried out with formal
exactness. Hence the _ius sacrum_, the body of rights and duties in the
matter of religion, is regarded as a department of the _ius publicum_,
the fundamental constitution of the state, and it is significant, as
Marquardt has observed, that it was Numa, a king and lawgiver, and not
a prophet or a poet, who was looked upon as the founder of the Roman
religion. Starting from the simple general feeling of a dependence on a
higher power (_religio_), which is common to all religions, the Roman
gives it his own characteristic colour when he conceives of that
dependence as analogous to a civil contract between man and god. Both
sides are under obligation to fulfil their part: if a god answers a
man's prayer, he must be repaid by a thank-offering: if the man has
fulfilled 'his bounden duty and service,' the god must make his return:
if he does not, either the cause lies in an unconscious failure on the
human side to carry out the exact letter of the law, or else, if the
god has really broken his contract, he has, as it were, put himself out
of court and the man may seek aid elsewhere. In this notion we have the
secret of Rome's readiness under stress of circumstances, when all
appeals to the old gods have failed, to adopt foreign deities and cults
in the hope of a greater measure of success.

The contract-notion may perhaps appear more clearly if we consider one
or two of the normal religious acts of the Roman individual or state.
Take first of all the performance of the regular sacrifices or acts of
worship ordained by the state-calendar or the celebration of the
household _sacra_. The _pietas_ of man consists in their due
f