inus-), were among
the oldest and most sacred of Roman divinities. Perhaps the most
peculiar of all the forms of deity in Rome, and probably the only
one for whose worship there was devised an effigy peculiarly Italian,
was the double-headed lanus; and yet it was simply suggestive of the
idea so characteristic of the scrupulous spirit of Roman religion,
that at the commencement of every act the "spirit of opening" should
first be invoked, while it above all betokened the deep conviction
that it was as indispensable to combine the Roman gods in sets as
it was necessary that the more personal gods of the Hellenes should
stand singly and apart.(4) Of all the worships of Rome that which
perhaps had the deepest hold was the worship of the tutelary spirits
that presided in and over the household and the storechamber: these
were in public worship Vesta and the Penates, in family worship
the gods of forest and field, the Silvani, and above all the gods
of the household in its strict sense, the Lases or Lares, to whom
their share of the family meal was regularly assigned, and before
whom it was, even in the time of Cato the Elder, the first duty
of the father of the household on returning home to perform his
devotions. In the ranking of the gods, however, these spirits
of the house and of the field occupied the lowest rather than the
highest place; it was--and it could not be otherwise with a religion
which renounced all attempts to idealize--not the broadest and
most general, but the simplest and most individual abstraction, in
which the pious heart found most nourishment.

This indifference to ideal elements in the Roman religion was
accompanied by a practical and utilitarian tendency, as is clearly
enough apparent in the table of festivals which has been already
explained. Increase of substance and of prosperity by husbandry
and the rearing of flocks and herds, by seafaring and commerce--this
was what the Roman desired from his gods; and it very well accords
with this view, that the god of good faith (-deus fidius-), the
goddess of chance and good luck (-fors fortuna-), and the god of
traffic (-mercurius-), all originating out of their daily dealings,
although not occurring in that ancient table of festivals, appear
very early as adored far and near by the Romans. Strict frugality
and mercantile speculation were rooted in the Roman character too
deeply not to find their thorough reflection in its divine counterpart.