ersephone became converted at once by change of
the initial sound and by transference of the idea into the Roman
Proserpina, that is, "germinatrix." Even the goddess of the
Romano-Latin league, Diana of the Aventine, seems to have been
copied from the federal goddess of the lonians of Asia Minor, the
Ephesian Artemis; at least her carved image in the Roman temple
was formed after the Ephesian type.(17) It was in this way alone,
through the myths of Apollo, Dionysus, Pluto, Herakles, and Artemis,
which were early pervaded by Oriental ideas, that the Aramaic
religion exercised at this period a remote and indirect influence
on Italy. We clearly perceive from these facts that the introduction
of the Greek religion was especially due to commercial intercourse,
and that it was traders and mariners who primarily brought the
Greek gods to Italy.

These individual cases however of derivation from abroad were but
of secondary moment, while the remains of the natural symbolism
of primeval times, of which the legend of the oxen of Cacus may
perhaps be a specimen,(18) had virtually disappeared. In all its
leading features the Roman religion was an organic creation of the
people among whom we find it.

Religion of the Sabellians

The Sabellian and Umbrian worship, judging from the little we know
of it, rested upon quite the same fundamental views as the Latin
with local variations of colour and form. That it was different
from the Latin is very distinctly apparent from the founding
of a special college at Rome for the preservation of the Sabine
rites;(19) but that very fact affords an instructive illustration
of the nature of the difference. Observation of the flight of
birds was with both stocks the regular mode of consulting the gods;
but the Tities observed different birds from the Ramnian augurs.
Similar relations present themselves, wherever we have opportunity
of comparing them. Both stocks in common regarded the gods as
abstractions of the earthly and as of an impersonal nature; they
differed in expression and ritual. It was natural that these
diversities should appear of importance to the worshippers of those
days; we are no longer able to apprehend what was the characteristic
distinction, if any really existed.

Religion of the Etruscans

But the remains of the sacred ritual of the Etruscans that have
reached us are marked by a different spirit. Their prevailing
characteristics are a gloomy and withal