[900] A summary of the relations between Virgil and Augustus may be found in Mr. Glover's Studies in Virgil, p. 144 foll.
[901] Tiberius added to his Augustan inheritance a curious and possibly morbid anxiety about religious matters and details of cult, of which examples may be found in Tac. Ann. iii. 58, vi. 12, among other passages. Perhaps, however, the most interesting is that connected with the famous story of "the Great Pan is dead," told by Plutarch in the de Defectu Oraculorum, ch. xvii. The news of this strange story reached the ears of Tiberius, who at once set the learned men about him to inquire into it; and they came to the no less strange conclusion that "this was the Pan who was born of Hermes and Penelope." S. Reinach has recently offered an explanation of this story, which is at least better than previous ones, in Cultes, mythes, et religions, vol. iii. p. 1 foll.
[902] C.I.L. vi. 1001.
[903] Jul. Capitolinus, 13.
[904] Symmachus, Rel. 3.
[905] Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. 2. On this subject generally consult Dill's Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, bk. i. chs. i. and iv.
[906] This idea is exactly expressed by Horace in Odes iii. 23, perhaps addressed to the vilica of his own farm. Cp. Cato, R.R. 143, where the vilica is to pray to the Lar familiaris pro copia. Horace mentions only the Kalends for this rite; Cato adds Nones and Ides. Cp. Tibull. i. 3. 34; i. 10. 15 foll.
[907] See above, Lectures iv. and v.
[908] Greatness and Decline of Rome (E.T.), v. 93.
[909] See especially lines 45 foll. and 56 foll.