[967] Lucian, Demonax.
[968] It was, however, prohibited early at Thebes; Aelian, Var. Hist., ii, 7.
[969] Pand., XXV, iii, 4; see Noodt’s Julius Paulus, etc., 1710. Aristotle upheld the custom without scruple; Politics, viii, 16.
[970] Then Valentinian proscribed it with a penalty, but the legislation was tentative, and the practice was scarcely suppressed until modern times; Cod. Theod., V, vii; Cod., VIII, lii, 2; cf. Lactantius, Div. Inst., vi, 20. It was palliated by the institution of the brephotrophia; see p. 82.
[971] Odyssey, xx, 55.
[972] See Lysias, Orat., Ὑπερ τοῦ ἀδυνάτου, etc., Plutarch, Aristides ad fin.
[974] Trajan appears to have established orphanages and homes for the children of needy parents; see Pliny, Panegyric., 27, etc. The fact is also indicated by coins (ALIMENTA ITALIAE), and a sculptured slab found in the Roman forum; Cohen, ii, p. 18; Middleton, Rome, etc., Lond., 1892, p. 346. Faustina, wife of Antoninus Pius, also busied herself in a similar way, as is evidenced by well-known coins (PUELLULAE FAUSTINIANAE); Cohen, ii, p. 433.
[975] Isis and Serapis, after a stormy career which lasted more than a century, became finally seated in the city under Vespasian; see “Isis” in Smith’s Classical Dictionary and similar works. But the greatest run was on Mithras, a sun-god extracted from the Persian mythology, who grew in favour from the time of Pompey until his worship reached even to the north of Britain. Quite a literature exists under his name at present; see Cumont, Mysteries of Mithras, Lond., 1903. For the account of a regular invasion of Syrian deities see Hist. August., Heliogabalus.
[976] Polybius complains of the rising scepticism at Rome in his time; vi, 56. I need not reproduce the oft-quoted lines of Juvenal (ii, 149), but the following are not generally brought forward: