tory of the Romans cannot doubt the
psychological reality of their religion, no matter what his personal
metaphysics may be. It is the author's hope that these essays may have a
human interest because he has tried to emphasise this reality and to
present the Romans as men of like passions to ourselves, in spite of all
differences of time and race.

Hearty thanks are due to Mr. W. Warde Fowler and to Mr. Albert W. Van
Buren for their great kindness in reading the proofs; and the dedication
of the book is at best a poor return for the help which my wife has
given me.

J.B.C.
ROME, _November, 1905_.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE RELIGION OF NUMA 1

THE REORGANISATION OF SERVIUS 27

THE COMING OF THE SIBYL 62

THE DECLINE OF FAITH 104

THE AUGUSTAN RENAISSANCE 146

THE RELIGION OF NUMA

Rome forms no exception to the general rule that nations, like
individuals, grow by contact with the outside world. In the middle of
the five centuries of her republic came the Punic wars and the intimate
association with Greece which made the last half of her history as a
republic so different from the first half; and in the kingdom, which
preceded the republic, there was a similar coming of foreign influence,
which made the later kingdom with its semi-historical names of the
Tarquins and Servius Tullius so different from the earlier kingdom with
its altogether legendary Romulus, Numa, Tullus Hostilius and Ancus
Martius. We have thus four distinct phases in the history of Roman
society, and a corresponding phase of religion in each period; and if we
add to this that new social structure which came into being by the
reforms of Augustus at the beginning of the empire, together with the
religious changes which accompanied it, we shall have the five periods
which these five essays try to describe: the period before the
Tarquins, that is the "Religion of Numa"; the later kingdom, that is the
"Reorganisation of Servius"; the first three centuries of the republic,
that is the "Coming of the Sibyl"; the closing centuries of the
republic, that is the "Decline of Faith"; and finally the early empire
and the "Augustan Renaissance." Like all attempts to cut history into
sections these divisions are more or less arbitrary, but their
convenience sufficiently justifies their creation. They must be thought
of how