were perhaps afraid of going to hell and yet may have
been equally afraid of not going anywhere, Egypt held passports to a
land of light. Then too, the gods of Egypt were friendly and
accessible. They mingled familiarly with those of Rome, complaisantly
with the deified Caesars, as already they had with the pharaohs, a
condescension, parenthetically, that did not protect them from
Tiberius, who, for reasons with which religion had nothing whatever to
do, persecuted the Egyptians, as he persecuted also the Jews. None the
less, Rome, weary of local fictions, might have become converted to
foreign ideas. In default of Syrian or Copt, she might have become
Persian as already she was Greek.

Augustus had other views. Divinities, made not merely after the image
of man but in symbols of sin, he saluted. With a hand usually small,
but in this instance tolerably large, he re-established them on their
pedestals. A relapse to spiritual infancy resulted. It was what he
sought. He wanted to be a god himself and he became one. His power
and, after him, that of his successors, had no earthly limit, no
restraint human or divine. It was the same omnipotence here that
elsewhere Jupiter wielded.

Jupiter had flamens who told him the time of day. He had others that
read to him. For his amusement there were mimes. For his delectation,
matrons established themselves in the Capitol and affected to be his
loves. But then he was superb. Made of ivory, painted vermillion,
seated colossally on a colossal throne, a sceptre in one hand, a
thunderbolt in the other, a radiating gold crown on his august head,
and, about his limbs, a shawl of Tyrian purple, he looked every inch
the god.

The Caesars, if less imposing, were more potent. Their hands, in which
there was nothing symbolic, held life and death, absolute dominion
over everything, over every one. Jupiter was but a statue. They alone
were real, alone divine. To them incense ascended. At their feet
libations poured. The nectar fumes confused. Rome, mad as they, built
them temples, raised them shrines, creating for them a worship that
they accepted, as only their due perhaps, but in which their reason
fled. In accounts of the epoch there is much mention of citizens,
senators, patricians. Nominally there were such people. Actually there
were but slaves. The slaves had a succession of masters. Among them
was a lunatic, Caligula, and an imbecile, Claud. There were others.
There was Terror, ther