he did not know whether the
gods existed or not; and as to such a process against Carneades, tradition
would not have remained silent. Instead, we learn that he was employed as
the trusted representative of the State on most important diplomatic
missions. It is evident that Athens had arrived at the point of view that
the theoretical denial of the gods might be tolerated, whereas the law, of
course, continued to protect public worship.

In Rome they did not possess, as in Athens, a general statute against
religious offences; there were only special provisions, and they were,
moreover, few and insufficient. This defect, however, was remedied by the
vigorous police authority with which the Roman magistrates were invested.
In Rome severe measures were often taken against movements which
threatened the Roman official worship, but it was done at the discretion
of the administration and not according to hard-and-fast rules; hence the
practice was somewhat varying, and a certain arbitrariness inevitable.

No example is known from Rome of action taken against theoretical denial
of the gods corresponding to the trials of the philosophers in Athens. The
main cause of this was, no doubt, that free-thinking in the fifth century
B.C. invaded Hellas, and specially Athens, like a flood which threatened
to overthrow everything; in Rome, on the other hand, Greek philosophy made
its way in slowly and gradually, and this took place at a time when in the
country of its origin it had long ago found a _modus vivendi_ with popular
religion and was acknowledged as harmless to the established worship. The
more practical outlook of the Romans may perhaps also have had something
to say in the matter: they were rather indifferent to theoretical
speculations, whereas they were not to be trifled with when their national
institutions were concerned.

In consequence of this point of view the Roman government first came to
deal with denial of the gods as a breach of law when confronted with the
two monotheistic religions which invaded the Empire from the East. That
which distinguished Jews and Christians from Pagans was not that they
denied the existence of the Pagan gods--the Christians, at any rate, did
not do this as a rule--but that they denied that they were gods, and
therefore refused to worship them. They were practical, not theoretical
deniers. The tolerance which the Roman government showed towards all
foreign creeds and the result of which i