As long as the grand old Roman simplicity of manners, the frugality of domestic life, the indefatigable pursuit of agriculture, trade, and commerce lasted—and all of these were well characterized by the deep reverence paid to gods (albeit not in the highest scale of divine order), who presided over the house, the field, the forest, mercantile enter prise, and the like, Vesta, the Penates, the Silvani, the bares or Lases, Hercules or lier culus (a native Italian deity, the god of the inclosed homestead [compare Jupiter hereens] apparently distinct from the Greek Hercules) as the god of property and gain. whose altar, as god of faith (Deus fadiue), was as frequently to be met with as those of the god dess of chance (Fors, Fortuna), and the god of traffic (Mercury)—so long did Roman religion, properly so called, retain its firm hold over the people's minds, and its influence cannot well be overrated. But when the antique austerity, the olden spirit of grand inde pendence, the unceasing hard work that steeled body and soul, had given way to the lazy luxurious ease of later times—then Roman religion ceased to exist in reality, and over its ruins rose a mad jumbleof unbelief, Hellenism, sectarianism, and oriental creeds. The ancient religio, the binding faith, which had excited the admiration and astonish ment of the Greeks, had waned, and in proportion with the unbelief rose the pomp, and stateliness, and luxury of public worship. To the hierarchy of augurs, oracle-keepers,
and pontifices were snperadded special banquet-magers for the divine banquets. The priests more and more freed themselves from taxes and other public burdens, and tire custom of perpetual endowments for religious objects crept. in, as their influence waxed stronger and stronger. " Pious services" became as much an item of domestic expendi ture as cook's and nurse's wages. Penny collections for the " mother of God " were gathered on certain fixed days by the sound of fife and drum played by priests in oriental garb, headed by a eunuch, from house to house. and the whole substance of Roman faith was transformed into an unwieldly mass of dark, groveling mysticism and shameless presided over by wretched gangs of uneducated and unprincipled priests. ow this state of things favored the gradual introduction of Judaism and Christianity into the dying days of imperial Rome, has been briefly sketched in Gnostics (q.v.). Con stantine time great abolished the last outward trace of Roman religion by proclaiming Christianity as time state religitm.—For the greater part of the gods and goddesses men tioned, see special articles. See also GREEK RELIGION, ETRURIA, PELASGIANS, etc. For a fuller account of tine whole subject, the reader is referred to Mommsen's History of Rome (Eng. transl. bond. 1864).