me.

So far it was good, and well had it been for Rome if she could have shut
the gate of her Olympus now. What the old religion had not provided was
now present. Politics, trade, and art were now represented. With these
she was abundantly supplied for all her future career. But that was not
to be, the gate was still open, and the destructive influence of Greece
was soon to send in a host of new deities, who were destined not only to
overwhelm the old Roman gods--which in itself we might forgive--but to
sap away the old Roman virtues, to the maintenance of which the
atmosphere of these old gods was essential. The forerunner of this
influence was in himself innocent enough, it was Apollo, and it is to
his coming and the subsequent developments which set him in distinct
opposition to Juppiter Optimus Maximus that we now turn.

THE COMING OF THE SIBYL

The Rome of the first consuls was a very different Rome from that of the
earlier kings. Not only was the population larger but it was divided
socially into different classes. The simple patriarchal one-class
community had been transformed into the complex structure of a society
which had in it virtually all those elements and interests, except the
more strictly intellectual ones, which go to make up what we call
society in the modern sense. The world of the gods also had increased in
population, and there too there was present a slight social distinction
between the old gods (_Indigetes_) and the new-comers (_Novensides_),
though it is open to question how strongly this distinction was felt.
The new gods thus far were not incommensurable with the old ones. They
formed a tolerably harmonious circle, and there was not felt to be any
need of new priesthoods; the old priests were sufficient to look after
them all. There were a few new names, and a few new temples or altars,
but everything was in the old spirit, and there was no rivalry between
the old and the new. None of the old gods was crowded into the
background by the new-comers. This was on the face of it impossible as
yet, because the new gods all represented new ideas which had not been
provided for under the old scheme. Even Diana, who afterwards usurped
somewhat the functions of Juno, stood at present pre-eminently for the
political idea pure and simple, so far as Rome was concerned. This
period of equipoise did not continue very long, but while it lasted it
was beyond doubt the best and strongest period in t