ter on the subject, I have a word to say
concerning myself; for I am greatly influenced by your authority, and
your exhortation at the conclusion of your discourse, when you desired
me to remember that I was Cotta and Pontifex; by which I presume you
intimated that I should defend the sacred rites and religion and
ceremonies which we received from our ancestors. Most undoubtedly I
always have, and always shall defend them, nor shall the arguments
either of the learned or unlearned ever remove the opinions which I
have imbibed from them concerning the worship of the immortal Gods. In
matters of religion I submit to the rules of the high-priests, T.
Coruncanius, P. Scipio, and P. Scaevola; not to the sentiments of Zeno,
Cleanthes, or Chrysippus; and I pay a greater regard to what C. Laelius,
one of our augurs and wise men, has written concerning religion, in
that noble oration of his, than to the most eminent of the Stoics: and
as the whole religion of the Romans at first consisted in sacrifices
and divination by birds, to which have since been added predictions, if
the interpreters[242] of the Sibylline oracle or the aruspices have
foretold any event from portents and prodigies, I have ever thought
that there was no point of all these holy things which deserved to be
despised. I have been even persuaded that Romulus, by instituting
divination, and Numa, by establishing sacrifices, laid the foundation
of Rome, which undoubtedly would never have risen to such a height of
grandeur if the Gods had not been made propitious by this worship.
These, Balbus, are my sentiments both as a priest and as Cotta. But you
must bring me to your opinion by the force of your reason: for I have a
right to demand from you, as a philosopher, a reason for the religion
which you would have me embrace. But I must believe the religion of our
ancestors without any proof.

III. What proof, says Balbus, do you require of me? You have proposed,
says Cotta, four articles. First of all, you undertook to prove that
there "are Gods;" secondly, "of what kind and character they are;"
thirdly, that "the universe is governed by them;" lastly, that "they
provide for the welfare of mankind in particular." Thus, if I remember
rightly, you divided your discourse. Exactly so, replies Balbus; but
let us see what you require.

Let us examine, says Cotta, every proposition. The first one--that
there are Gods--is never contested but by the most impious of men; nay,