[16] Suetonius, De claris rhetoribus. [↑]
[17] See in Cicero, De Oratore, iii, 24, the account by the censor Crassus of his reasons for preferring the Greek rhetors. [↑]
[18] Valerius Maximus, i, 3, 1. [↑]
[19] The culture history of the republican period, as partially recovered by recent archæology, shows a process of dissolution and replacement from a remote period. Cp. Ettore Pais, Ancient Legends of Roman History, Eng. tr. 1906, ch. ii, notably p. 18. [↑]
[20] De rerum natura, i, 50–135; cp. v, 1166. [↑]
[21] ii, 646–50 (the passage cited by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons in one of the Bradlaugh debates, with a confession of its noble beauty); and again ii, 1090–1105, and iii, 18–22. [↑]
[22] See Christianity and Mythology, pp. 52–57. [↑]
[23] See the account of the doctrine of the high-priest Scaevola, preserved by Augustine, De civ. Dei, iv, 27. He and Varro (id. iv, 31; vi, 5–7) agreed in rejecting the current myths, but insisted on the continued civic acceptance of them. On the whole question compare Boissier, La religion romaine, i, 47–63. [↑]
[24] Thus the satirist Lucilius, who ridiculed the popular beliefs, was capable, in his capacity of patriot, of crying out against the lack of respect shown to religion and the Gods (Boissier, pp. 51–52). The purposive insincerity set up in their thinking by such men must, of course, have been injurious to character. [↑]