Chapter IX.—The Power of Rome. Romanized Aspect of All the Heathen Mythology. Varro’s Threefold Distribution Criticised. Roman Heroes (Æneas Included,) Unfavourably Reviewed.

Such are the more obvious or more remarkable points which we had to mention in connection with Varro’s threefold distribution of the gods, in order that a sufficient answer might seem to be given touching the physical, the poetic, and the gentile classes. Since, however, it is no longer to the philosophers, nor the poets, nor the nations that we owe the substitution of all (heathen worship for the true religion) although they transmitted the superstition, but to the dominant Romans, who received the tradition and gave it wide authority, another phase of the widespread error of man must now be encountered by us; nay, another forest must be felled by our axe, which has obscured the childhood of the degenerate worship464    Vitii pueritatem. with germs of superstitions gathered from all quarters. Well, but even the gods of the Romans have received from (the same) Varro a threefold classification into the certain, the uncertain, and the select. What absurdity! What need had they of uncertain gods, when they possessed certain ones? Unless, forsooth, they wished to commit themselves to465    Recipere (with a dative). such folly as the Athenians did; for at Athens there was an altar with this inscription: “To the unknown gods.”466    Ignotis Deis. Comp. Acts xvii. 23. Does, then, a man worship that which he knows nothing of? Then, again, as they had certain gods, they ought to have been contented with them, without requiring select ones. In this want they are even found to be irreligious! For if gods are selected as onions are,467    Ut bulbi. This is the passage which Augustine quotes (de Civit. Dei, vii. 1) as “too facetious.” then such as are not chosen are declared to be worthless. Now we on our part allow that the Romans had two sets of gods, common and proper; in other words, those which they had in common with other nations, and those which they themselves devised. And were not these called the public and the foreign468    Adventicii, “coming from abroad.” gods? Their altars tell us so; there is (a specimen) of the foreign gods at the fane of Carna, of the public gods in the Palatium. Now, since their common gods are comprehended in both the physical and the mythic classes, we have already said enough concerning them. I should like to speak of their particular kinds of deity. We ought then to admire the Romans for that third set of the gods of their enemies,469    Touching these gods of the vanquished nations, compare The Apology, xxv.; below, c. xvii.; Minucius Felix, Octav. xxv. because no other nation ever discovered for itself so large a mass of superstition. Their other deities we arrange in two classes: those which have become gods from human beings, and those which have had their origin in some other way. Now, since there is advanced the same colourable pretext for the deification of the dead, that their lives were meritorious, we are compelled to urge the same reply against them, that no one of them was worth so much pains.  Their fond470    Diligentem. father Æneas, in whom they believed, was never glorious, and was felled with a stone471    See Homer, Il. v. 300.—a vulgar weapon, to pelt a dog withal, inflicting a wound no less ignoble! But this Æneas turns out472    Invenitur. a traitor to his country; yes, quite as much as Antenor. And if they will not believe this to be true of him, he at any rate deserted his companions when his country was in flames, and must be held inferior to that woman of Carthage,473    Referred to also above, i. 18. who, when her husband Hasdrubal supplicated the enemy with the mild pusillanimity of our Æneas, refused to accompany him, but hurrying her children along with her, disdained to take her beautiful self and father’s noble heart474    The obscure “formam et patrem” is by Oehler rendered “pulchritudinem et generis nobilitatem.” into exile, but plunged into the flames of the burning Carthage, as if rushing into the embraces of her (dear but) ruined country. Is he “pious Æneas” for (rescuing) his young only son and decrepit old father, but deserting Priam and Astyanax? But the Romans ought rather to detest him; for in defence of their princes and their royal475    The word is “eorum” (possessive of “principum”), not “suæ.” house, they surrender476    Dejerant adversus. even children and wives, and every dearest pledge.477    What Tertullian himself thinks on this point, see his de Corona, xi. They deify the son of Venus, and this with the full knowledge and consent of her husband Vulcan, and without opposition from even Juno. Now, if sons have seats in heaven owing to their piety to their parents, why are not those noble youths478    Cleobis and Biton; see Herodotus i. 31. of Argos rather accounted gods, because they, to save their mother from guilt in the performance of some sacred rites, with a devotion more than human, yoked themselves to her car and dragged her to the temple? Why not make a goddess, for her exceeding piety, of that daughter479    See Valerius Maximus, v. 4, 1. who from her own breasts nourished her father who was famishing in prison? What other glorious achievement can be related of Æneas, but that he was nowhere seen in the fight on the field of Laurentum? Following his bent, perhaps he fled a second time as a fugitive from the battle.480    We need not stay to point out the unfairness of this statement, in contrast with the exploits of Æneas against Turnus, as detailed in the last books of the Æneid. In like manner, Romulus posthumously becomes a god. Was it because he founded the city? Then why not others also, who have built cities, counting even481    Usque in. women? To be sure, Romulus slew his brother in the bargain, and trickishly ravished some foreign virgins. Therefore of course he becomes a god, and therefore a Quirinus (“god of the spear”), because then their fathers had to use the spear482    We have thus rendered “quiritatem est,” to preserve as far as one could the pun on the deified hero of the Quirites. on his account. What did Sterculus do to merit deification? If he worked hard to enrich the fields stercoribus,483    We insert the Latin, to show the pun on Sterculus; see The Apology, c. xxv. [See p. 40, supra.] (with manure,) Augias had more dung than he to bestow on them. If Faunus, the son of Picus, used to do violence to law and right, because struck with madness, it was more fit that he should be doctored than deified.484    Curaria quam consecrari. If the daughter of Faunus so excelled in chastity, that she would hold no conversation with men, it was perhaps from rudeness, or a consciousness of deformity, or shame for her father’s insanity. How much worthier of divine honour than this “good goddess”485    Bona Dea, i.e., the daughter of Faunus just mentioned. was Penelope, who, although dwelling among so many suitors of the vilest character, preserved with delicate tact the purity which they assailed! There is Sanctus, too,486    See Livy, viii. 20, xxxii. 1; Ovid, Fasti, vi. 213, etc. Compare also Augustine, de Civ. Dei, xviii. 19.  [Tom, vii. p. 576.] who for his hospitality had a temple consecrated to him by king Plotius; and even Ulysses had it in his power to have bestowed one more god upon you in the person of the most refined Alcinous.

0597B 9. Haec secundum tripertitam dispositionem . . . . divinitatis aut notiora aut insigniora digessimus, ut possit jam videri satis responsum de physico genere, de poetico, de gentibus. Et quoniam omnis superstitio , non jam philosophorum nec poetarum nec populorum, a quibus tradita est, sed dominantium Romanorum, quibus occupata est, auctoritatem sibi exstruxit, alia jam nobis ineunda est humani erroris latitudo, imo silva caedenda, quae undique conceptis superstitionum seminibus vitii pueritiam obumbravit. Sed et Romanorum deos Varro bifariam disposuit incertos et electos. Tantam vanitatem! Quid enim erat illis cum incertis, si certos habebant? nisi 0598A si Atticos stupores recipere voluerunt. Nam et Athenis ara est inscripta: Ignotis deis. Colit ergo quis quod ignorat? Tum si certos habebant, contenti esse debuerunt, nec electos desiderare. In quo etiam irreligiosi deprehenduntur. Si enim dei ut bulbi seliguntur, qui non seliguntur, reprobi pronuntiantur. Nos vero bifariam Romanorum deos recognoscimus, communes et proprios, id est, quos cum omnibus habent, et quos ipsi sunt commenti. Et numquid hi sunt publici et adventitii dicti? Hoc enim erae docent, adventitiorum ad fanum Carnae, publicorum in palatio. Quare cum communes dei, quam physico, quam in mythico comprehendantur, actum est jam de istis speciebus. De propriis dicere . . . . et. De Romanis stupeamus, tertium illud genus hostilium deorum . . . . eo quod nulla gens alia tantum sibi superstitionis invenerit 0598B . . . . duas species dirigimus, alios de hominibus assumptos, alios inde conceptos. Igitur quoniam idem illis color suppetit consecrationis mortuorum, tanquam ob merita vitae, eamdem et nos responsionem opponamus necesse est, neminem ex his quoque tanti fuisse. Patrem diligentem Aenean crediderunt, militem nunquam gloriosum, lapide debilitatum; quod telum quantum vulgare, atque caninum, tanto ignobile vulnus! Sed et proditor patriae Aeneas invenitur; tam Aeneas, quam Antenor. Ac si hoc verum nolunt, Aeneas certe patria flagrante dereliquit socios foeminae Punicae subjiciendus , quae maritum Hasdrubalem Aeneae timiditate supplicantem hosti non 0599A non comitata, raptis secum filiis, formam et patrem sibi habere non in fugam sapit, sed in ignes ardentis Carthaginis ut in amplexus patriae pereuntis incubuit. Pius Aeneas ob unicum puerum et decrepitum senem, Priamo et Astyanacte destitutis. Atquin Romanis magis detestandus, qui pro salute principum et domus eorum adversus liberos et conjuges et omne pignus suum dejerant. Consecrat filium Veneris, et hoc Vulcanus sciens patitur et Juno concedit. Si veredi parentum in coelo sedent, cur non potius Argivi juvenes dei habiti, quod matrem, ne in sacris piaculum committeret, plus quam humano more jugales provexerunt? cur non magis dea, quae magis pia, illa filia patris in carcere fame defecti uberibus suis educatrix? Quid aliud Aeneae gloriosum, nisi quod praelio laurentino nusquam comparuit? Rursus forsitan solito 0599B more quasi desertor e praelio fugerit. Romulus aeque post mortem deus, si quia urbem condidit deus, usque in foeminas, urbium auctores. Sane Romulus et fratrem interfecit et alienas virgines dolo rapuit. Ideo Quirinus est, quia tunc parentibus quiritatum est per illum. Quid Sterculus meruit ad divinitatem? Si agros stercoribus Juvando diligens fuit, plus fimi Augias conferebat. Si Faunus Pici filius in jus agitabatur mente ictus, curari eum magis quam consecrari decebat. Si Fauni filia pudicitia praecellebat, ut ne conversaretur quidem inter viros, aut barbaria aut conscientia deformitatis aut rubore insaniae paternae, quanto dignior bona dea Penelopa, quae inter utilissimos amatores diversata, obsessam castitatem tenere 0599C protexit? Est et sanctus, propter hospitalitatem a rege Plotio fanum consecutus: potuit et Ulixes de humanissimo Alcinoo unum amplius deum vobis contulisse.