ld," as one had said, but that Rome
was become the romantic home of the wildest superstition. Such
superstition presented itself almost as religious mania in many an
incident of his long ramble,--incidents to which he gave his full
attention, though contending in some measure with a reluctance on the
part of his companion, the motive of which he did not understand till
long afterwards. Marius certainly did not allow this reluctance to
deter his own curiosity. Had he not come to Rome partly under poetic
vocation, to receive all those things, the very impress of life itself,
upon the visual, the imaginative, organ, as upon a mirror; to reflect
them; to transmute them [181] into golden words? He must observe that
strange medley of superstition, that centuries' growth, layer upon
layer, of the curiosities of religion (one faith jostling another out
of place) at least for its picturesque interest, and as an indifferent
outsider might, not too deeply concerned in the question which, if any
of them, was to be the survivor.

Superficially, at least, the Roman religion, allying itself with much
diplomatic economy to possible rivals, was in possession, as a vast and
complex system of usage, intertwining itself with every detail of
public and private life, attractively enough for those who had but "the
historic temper," and a taste for the past, however much a Lucian might
depreciate it. Roman religion, as Marius knew, had, indeed, been
always something to be done, rather than something to be thought, or
believed, or loved; something to be done in minutely detailed manner,
at a particular time and place, correctness in which had long been a
matter of laborious learning with a whole school of ritualists--as
also, now and again, a matter of heroic sacrifice with certain
exceptionally devout souls, as when Caius Fabius Dorso, with his life
in his hand, succeeded in passing the sentinels of the invading Gauls
to perform a sacrifice on the Quirinal, and, thanks to the divine
protection, had returned in safety. So jealous was the distinction
between sacred and profane, that, in the matter [182] of the "regarding
of days," it had made more than half the year a holiday. Aurelius had,
indeed, ordained that there should be no more than a hundred and
thirty-five festival days in the year; but in other respects he had
followed in the steps of his predecessor, Antoninus Pius--commended
especially for his "religion," his conspicuous devo