33) we have accurate knowledge of the
dedication of no less than nineteen state temples, and there were
undoubtedly many others of which we have no record. Another apparently
good sign is the fact that the Sibylline books are silent, so far as the
introduction of new deities is concerned. Yet these surface indications
are deceptive. As for the Sibylline books, now that the _pomerium_ line
had been broken down, and the temples of Greek gods might be placed
anywhere in the city, it was a very simple matter for the state to bring
in any Greek god that it pleased, and likening him to a more or less
similar Roman god and calling him by the Roman name, to put up a temple
to him anywhere. It was also true that, as Roman theology was now based
on the principle that every Roman god had his Greek parallel and _vice
versa_, there were no gods left, whose names would have occurred at all
in the Sibylline books, who could not be brought in now without them.
And as for the vowing of new temples, this represented at best merely
the habit formed during more devout days; religion was moving by the
momentum acquired during the Second Punic War, and the gods to whom
these temples were erected were really Greek gods under Roman names. In
a word, not only was the state religion becoming more and more of a form
day by day, but the form was that of Greece and not of Rome. It is
extremely interesting to trace this movement in detail, to look behind
the outward appearance and see the remarkable changes that were really
taking place.

If we look at the temples which were built in the years following the
Second Punic War, we shall have no difficulty in finding examples of the
introduction of Greek gods under Roman names. During the war itself in
the year B.C. 207 a Roman general had vowed a temple to Juventas on the
occasion of a battle near Siena. Juventas was an old Roman goddess, one
of those abstract deities which had been produced by the breaking off
and becoming independent of a cult-title. She was intimately associated
with Juppiter, and had a special shrine in the Capitoline temple.
Juventas was the divine representative of the putting away of childish
things and the assumption of the responsibilities and privileges of
young manhood. This act was symbolised by the Romans in the beautiful
ceremony of putting on the toga of manhood (_toga virilis_), when the
lad was led by his father to the Capitoline temple to make sacrifices to
Juppiter,