and it.

And it had been in vain that the old, grave [184] and discreet religion
of Rome had set itself, according to its proper genius, to prevent or
subdue all trouble and disturbance in men's souls. In religion, as in
other matters, plebeians, as such, had a taste for movement, for
revolution; and it had been ever in the most populous quarters that
religious changes began. To the apparatus of foreign religion, above
all, recourse had been made in times of public disquietude or sudden
terror; and in those great religious celebrations, before his
proceeding against the barbarians, Aurelius had even restored the
solemnities of Isis, prohibited in the capital since the time of
Augustus, making no secret of his worship of that goddess, though her
temple had been actually destroyed by authority in the reign of
Tiberius. Her singular and in many ways beautiful ritual was now
popular in Rome. And then--what the enthusiasm of the swarming
plebeian quarters had initiated, was sure to be adopted, sooner or
later, by women of fashion. A blending of all the religions of the
ancient world had been accomplished. The new gods had arrived, had
been welcomed, and found their places; though, certainly, with no real
security, in any adequate ideal of the divine nature itself in the
background of men's minds, that the presence of the new-comer should be
edifying, or even refining. High and low addressed themselves to all
deities alike without scruple; confusing them together when they
prayed, and in the old, [185] authorised, threefold veneration of their
visible images, by flowers, incense, and ceremonial lights--those
beautiful usages, which the church, in her way through the world, ever
making spoil of the world's goods for the better uses of the human
spirit, took up and sanctified in her service.

And certainly "the most religious city in the world" took no care to
veil its devotion, however fantastic. The humblest house had its
little chapel or shrine, its image and lamp; while almost every one
seemed to exercise some religious function and responsibility.
Colleges, composed for the most part of slaves and of the poor,
provided for the service of the Compitalian Lares--the gods who
presided, respectively, over the several quarters of the city. In one
street, Marius witnessed an incident of the festival of the patron
deity of that neighbourhood, the way being strewn with box, the houses
tricked out gaily in such poor fine