have known about Apollo's previous
relations to the Julian family, the legend of his assistance at Actium,
and the immortalisation of that legend in the great temple on the
Palatine were proofs enough. The moral effect of the Palatine temple
cannot be overestimated, especially when we realise one fact, which is
often neglected, that this temple gained infinitely in significance
because it was on private ground, attached to the emperor's own private
house, for we must not forget that the Palatine was only in process of
transition into the imperial residence, and though the house of
Augustus, when he left it, was the palace, during his lifetime it was
merely his private residence. The temple of Apollo was therefore in its
origin theoretically the private chapel of a Roman family rather than
the seat of a state cult. It was the Apollo of the Julian house who was
being worshipped there. And yet it was far more than a private worship,
for it began very soon to be a cult centre in distinct rivalry to
Juppiter Optimus Maximus on the Capitoline. The oracles of the Sibyl,
even though they were the words of Apollo, had never been preserved in
the old temple of Apollo on the Flaminian meadow, but instead they had
always been in the custody of Juppiter on the Capitoline. But now these
oracles, after being carefully revised by the emperor, were deposited in
the new Palatine temple, and by this act the centre of all the Greek
cults in Rome was transferred from Juppiter to Apollo, from the
Capitoline to the Palatine, and the rivalry between the two was publicly
declared. The temple was dedicated in B.C. 28 and Augustus allowed its
influence to permeate the Roman people for more than a decade before he
took the next step, a step which was virtually to parallel Apollo and
his sister Artemis-Diana with Juppiter and Juno.

Among the Greek gods who came into Rome we saw the entrance in the
middle of the third century before Christ of a pair of deities of the
Lower World, Dis and Proserpina, and in connexion with the introduction
the establishment of certain games called "secular" because they were to
be repeated at the expiration of a century (_saeculum_). The initial
celebration was in B.C. 249, one hundred years later with a slight delay
they were celebrated again in B.C. 146, the next anniversary was omitted
because it fell in the midst of the civil war between Caesar and Pompey,
but now Augustus wished to celebrate them. There were chro