ADORATION, primarily an act of homage or worship, performed among the Romans by raising the hand to the mouth, kissing it and then waving it in the direction of the adored object (Lat. ad, to; os, mouth; i.e., carrying to the mouth). Saturn and Hercules were adored with the head bare. By a natural transition the homage came to be paid to monarchs by the Greeks and Romans. The Persian method was to bend the knee and fall on the face at the prince's feet, striking the earth with the forehead and kissing the ground. This striking of the earth with the forehead is the form of adoration usually paid to Eastern potentates to-day. The Jews kissed in homage. (See I Kings xix. 18, Psalms ii. 12, Hosea xiii. 2.) In England the cere mony of kissing the sovereign's hand may be described as a form of adoration. Adoration is applied in the Roman Church to the ceremony of kissing the pope's foot, a custom said to have been introduced by the popes following the example of the Emperor Diocletian. In the Roman Church a distinction is made between Latria, a worship due to God alone, and Dulia or Hyperdulia, the adoration paid to the Virgin, saints, martyrs, crucifixes, etc.