the provinces in Africa and Asia. The Roman colonies, merchants, magistrates and soldiers, in the last named provinces, made so small a number in comparison with the natives, that they were not able to supplant either their laws and customs, or their language and religion. On the contrary, it was matter of complaint from the earliest times, wherever the Roman legions trod Asiatic and Egyptian ground, that the brave warriors of Italy, under the sky of Asia and Egypt, became enervate, and that they received the vices and superstitions of the vanquished instead of imparting to these their mode of thinking and morals. When these degenerate Romans returned to their native land, they of course brought with them the vices and superstitions to which they had been accustomed, and infected with them the hitherto uncorrupted mass of the people. This was done by many thousands of the inhabitants of the provinces, who were brought to Rome by a desire of gain, by ambition, and by the wish to find protection against oppression, or satisfaction for injustice which they had suffered."*

There is no doubt that this statement is substantially correct. By the extension of the empire the Romans lost in virtue what they gained in power, and their intercourse with conquered nations proved destructive to their morals. But it may still be asked, 'In what manner was this result produced? Were the enervating effects of luxury and ease, the vicious examples of the nations whom their arms subdued, and the corrupting influences of extensive political domination the only moral causes which undermined the virtue of the Romans, and finally overthrew the vast fabric of their power? Why was not the Roman character able to abide the test to which it was subjected by the prosperity which its own excellence secured? Did the influences by which that character was formed at length cease to exist? or were the noble qualities to which those influences had given birth, at last extirpated by antagonist causes introduced in later ages?' In the early ages, the Romans were a rude and simple nation of warlike husbandmen, possessed of a small territory, without the means of gratifying avarice, and free from temptation to foreign vices. But this primitive rudeness, and this freedom from temptation was not the cause of their virtues. Other heathen nations in the same state of civilization have been entirely destitute of such noble traits of character. These

* Meiners Geschichte der Religionen, I. 122.

admirable qualities were produced by the institutions which existed among them-institutions whose foundations were laid in religious belief. In later ages the Romans became as profligate and abandoned as they had been upright, temperate, and patriotic. At this period they were possessed of great power, and exposed to new causes of corruption. Those causes doubtless exerted their influence. But the change which had taken place was not wholly external. It was something more than new relations to other nations which overthrew the virtues of the Romans. There was an essential change in their institutions. Religion was overthrown. While other influences tended to this result, the removal of religious belief from the minds of the people was by no means the least of the causes which brought down the Romans from the height of moral greatness, as well as of military glory and political power, which they had reached. This we shall now attempt to prove.

III. The most important features of the religion of the early Romans have been pointed out in our discussion of that part of the subject. It is certain that in the first ages of the state religious belief had firm hold of the public mind, and that the institutions of Numa gave direction and strength to this belief. Whether the length of Numa's life, or some other cause be assigned, the religious spirit of his institutions became thoroughly incorporated with the national habits of thought and feeling. A change afterwards took place; but this change was unquestionably gradual. Dionysius does indeed state,* that during the reign of Tullus Hostilius, the successor of Numa, many of the religious ceremonies were neglected. He says, also, that under this martial prince the people became not only more warlike, but also more avaricious, and that they neglected their husbandry. But, on the other hand, he represents the first act of Ancus Martius to have been a speech in a general assembly of the people, in which he points out the evils that had come from the abuses which had crept in. Praising the pious and peaceful institutions of his grandfather, he exhorted the people to return to agriculture and the grazing of cattle, and to abstain from violence and rapine. At the same time receiving from the priests the sacred writings of Numa, he transcribed them afresh, and set them up in public that they might be open to examination. It would seem, however, that in the sixth century from

* Antiq. Rom. III. 36.

the founding of the city, the forms of religion had been so much changed, that when Numa's books had been accidentally discovered, it was thought prudent by the senate to have them burnt.* But the external drapery of religion is of inferior importance, so long as its essential elements remain unchanged. These have their seat in the national belief. It is by the subversion of these, and not by any change of form, that religion is overthrown. It has been shown that for nearly two centuries the Romans worshipped the Deity without images; that for a much longer period they were in all things very religious; that they regarded themselves as under a moral government, administered by divine power; and that they believed in the immortality of the soul, and in a future state of rewards and punishments. But this religious groundwork was afterwards. entirely swept away. Commencing with the establishment of image-worship, the work of reform went on from step to step, till the religion and the character of the early Romans disappeared together. The influence of religion, as it once existed, has been described in the words of Polybius. Even in his time, it would seem, the change had commenced. It need not be denied that the refinements of Grecian art contributed to enervate the stern conquerors of that ancient home of liberty. But it was the skepticism of Greek philosophy that cut the nerve of the Roman character. It has been maintained that philosophy was cultivated in the earliest times of Rome. But the whole history of the state is opposed to such a supposition. While other sciences, and many of the arts, were introduced, and cultivated to a greater or less extent, philosophy appears to have been very little known as a distinct branch of knowledge till near the time of Cicero. The attention of the Roman youth was first turned in this direction by the philosophers Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes, who, near the close of the sixth century from the founding of the city, were sent to Rome as ambassadors from Athens. Cicero describes one of them, not only as a philosopher, but as an orator of such consummate skill that he defended no proposition which he did not establish, and attacked none which he did not overthrow.§ It is not strange

* Liv. XL. 29.

† De Beaufort, I. 363.

Brucker. Hist. Philos. 286. Cicero De Oratore, II. 37. §De Oratore II. 38. Carneadis verò vis incredibilis illa dicendi, et varietas, perquam esset optanda nobis ; qui nullam

that these distinguished men were able to enkindle among the Roman youth a transient zeal for the study of philosophy. But the sterner spirits among the leading men at Rome at that period regarded this introduction of the Greek philosophy, as the forerunner of evils to the state. At the instance of Cato the elder, the ambassadors were honorably dismissed, and the youth directed to study the laws and institutions as before. Soon after, the Greek philosophers, and even rhetoricians, were forbidden to live at Rome. But the relation of Rome to other parts of the world had become such that it was found impossible to prohibit the cultivation of foreign literature, or to check the spread of new opinions. The young men of Rome having obtained the command of armies in the East, came in contact with the cultivated minds of Greece and other countries, and were captivated by the beauties of philosophy and the charms of eloquence. The acquaintance with philosophy became general, and exerted so much influence, that Scipio Africanus, and others like him, must be regarded as little, if at all, more the productions of the Roman than of the Grecian world. Sylla brought from Asia an extensive library, containing the works of Aristotle and of Theophrastus, and Lucullus completed the establishment of Greek philosophy at Rome, by gathering around him, in his magnificent retreat, a crowd of the most eminent philosophers of his age. From his time all the Grecian sects flourished at Rome. The judgment of Cato proved correct; for the influence of the Grecian mode of thinking soon manifested itself, and in nothing more strikingly than in reference to religion. A full examination of the tenets of the Greek philosophers, with an account of the progress of the different sects at Rome, and their influence there, would lead to a much more extensive investigation than is consistent with the design of this article. The connection of the Greek philosophy with the religious belief, and the state of morals in the later times of the republic, and under the empire, will be sufficiently evident from a brief statement of the prevailing views in theology, which we will now make for the purpose of comparing these later views with the elements of religion as they existed in the earlier Roman theology. When the Greek philosophy had taken root, what were the current opinions respecting the exist

unquam in illis suis disputationibus rem defendit quam non probarit; nullam oppugnavit, quam non everterit.

ence and character of God, the divine government, the immortality of the soul, and a future state of rewards and punishments? These are the fundamental truths of religion, and it is on these, more than on all things else, that individual and national morality depend. What then was the state of the public mind in reference to these in the later days of Rome?

1. Rejection of the national gods, with atheism and general skepticism, became extensively prevalent.

This fact, and its connection with philosophy, are distinctly stated in the following passage from Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: "The spirit of inquiry, prompted by emulation and supported by freedom, had divided the public teachers of philosophy into a variety of contending sects; but the ingenuous youth who, from every part, resorted to Athens and the other seats of learning in the Roman empire, were alike instructed in every school to reject and despise the religion of the multitude. How, indeed, was it possible that a philosopher should accept as divine truths, the idle tales of the poets, and the incoherent traditions of antiquity; or that he should adore as gods, those imperfect beings whom he must have despised as men! Against such unworthy adversaries Cicero condescended to employ the arms of reason and eloquence; but the satire of Lucian was a much more adequate, as well as more efficacious weapon. We may be well assured, that a writer conversant with the world, would never have ventured to expose the gods of his country to public ridicule, had they not already been the objects of secret contempt among the polished and enlightened orders of society."

The change of views here spoken of commenced in the higher ranks, and among those who had been connected with the armies in Greece. But as indifference to the spirit, or neglect of the forms of religion, cannot long be confined to the leading men of a nation, the new sentiments soon became general. The proof of this change in regard to religion is abundant and decisive. Of all the ancient writers, no one refers to the fact more frequently or with greater explicitness than Dionysius. In one of the many passages in which the subject is mentioned by him, after having described the solemn religious ceremonies with which the kings, and after their expulsion, the consuls and other magistrates were inducted into office, he condemns the

* I. 19.