| FIG 1. BUST OF JULIUS CÆSAR | FIG 2. BUST OF BRUTUS |
| Plate XX | |
Religion was almost purely formal or political. Augurships and priesthoods still existed as the perquisite of aristocratic families. People still uttered the formulæ of oaths and vows. There was still some belief in omens and prodigies, the altars still smoked with sacrifice when triumphant generals went up to the capitol, but few prayers ascended to Jupiter in sincerity. Instead the importation of strange deities continued. Again and again in this first century before Christ the senate tried to expel the worship of Isis from the precincts of Rome, but it always returned, and eventually the triumvirs built a temple to Isis and Serapis as a measure to court popular favour. The Magna Mater of the Phrygian corybants had long been firmly established at Rome.
I think it was general materialism and immorality which killed the old State religion at Rome. Greek philosophy had generally been able to exist amicably by the side of religion. It now came in to fill up the gap left by the absence of real religious feeling. But at Rome, though Stoicism afterwards became a powerful force of inspiration to the noblest minds, philosophy was in the main a form of literary activity for dilettantists. Cato of Utica was a Stoic by temperament before he became one by doctrine. Cicero amused his leisure by recasting and combining the doctrines of the leading Greek schools in a Roman form of dialogue, in imitation of Plato; but with him it was more of a literary exercise than anything else, and Cicero has added little or nothing to the world’s stock of philosophical ideas. Only in the poet Lucretius does the fire of philosophy burn with genuine ardour. Lucretius had before him the task of proselytising at Rome for the doctrines of Epicurus and Democritus. People accustomed to the modern associations of the word “epicure” may wonder what there was to arouse the enthusiasm of a poet in the philosophy of Epicurus. That creed offered a rational explanation of the universe. With its theory of spontaneous atomic creation, and its surprising foreknowledge of some at least of the ideas of natural selection and evolution, it claimed to satisfy the intellect of mankind and to drive out all the grovelling superstition and empty rites which had usurped at Rome, as they tend to do always and everywhere, the throne of religion. All the enthusiasm with which the nineteenth century approached the new discoveries of science glowed in the heart of this rugged poet of the first century before Christ. “Voluptas” was his only goddess, but it was no vulgar pleasure of the body upon earth. It was the spirit soaring to freedom and knowledge. This atheist Epicurean is, in the true sense of the word, the most religious of all poets. He explains the nature of lightning in order that his fellow-creatures may not live in fear of thunderbolts. He explains with the same confident logic the nature of death in order that they may not fear the natural resolution of body and soul into their primordial atoms. He is moved almost to tears by the folly and sorrow of his brother-men, and he pleads with them to suffer the sacred lamp of philosophy to shine upon their darkened minds:
at nisi purgatum est pectus, quæ prælia nobis
atque pericula sunt ingratis insinuandum?
quantæ tum scindunt hominem cupedinis acres
sollicitum curæ? quantique perinde timores?
quidue superbia, spurcitia ac petulantia, quantas
efficiunt cladeis? quid luxus, desidiæque?
hæc igitur qui cuncta subegerit, ex animoque
expulerit dictis, non armis, nonne decebit
hunc hominem numero diuom dignarier esse?[20]
His doctrine is medicine for the feverish unrest of the day:
exit sæpe foras magnis ex ædibus ille
esse domi quem pertæsum est, subitoque reuentat;
quippe foris nihilo melius qui sentiat esse.
currit agens mannos ad uillam præcipitanter
auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans:
oscitat extemplo tetigit quom limina uillæ
aut abit in somnum grauis, atque obliuia quærit,
aut etiam properans urbem petit atque reuisit.
hoc se quisque modo fugit ...[21]
He has a compassionate scorn for the mourner:
