4. But why do you think that the gods can avail on behalf of the Romans, when you see that they can do nothing for their own worshipers in opposition to the Roman arms? For we know that the gods of the Romans are indigenous. Romulus was made a god by the perjury of Proculus, and Picus, and Tiberinus, and Pilumnus, and Consus, whom as a god of treachery Romulus would have to be worshipped, just as if he had been a god of counsels, when his perfidy resulted in the rape of the Sabines. Tatius also both invented and worshipped the goddess Cloacina; Hostilius, Fear and Paleness. By and by, I know not by whom, Fever was dedicated, and Acca and Flora the harlots.6    The following passage, accepted in some editions, is of doubtful authenticity: “To such an extent, indeed, were feigned the names of gods among the Romans, that there is even among them a god, Viduus, who widows the body from the soul—who, as being sad and funereal, is not kept within the walls, but placed outside; but who nevertheless, in that he is excluded, is rather condemned by the Roman religion than worshipped. There is also Scansus, so called from ascents, and Forculus from doors, and Limentinus from thresholds, and Cardea from hinges, and Orbona from bereavement.” These are the Roman gods. But Mars is a Thracian, and Jupiter a Cretan, and Juno either Argive or Samian or Carthaginian, and Diana of Taurus, and the mother of the gods of Ida; and there are Egyptian monsters, not deities, who assuredly, if they had had any power, would have preserved their own and their people’s kingdoms. Certainly there are also among the Romans the conquered Penates whom the fugitive Æneas introduced thither. There is also Venus the bald,—far more dishonoured by the fact of her baldness in Rome than by her having been wounded in Homer.

IV. Cur vero deos putas pro Romanis posse, quos videas nihil pro suis adversus eorum arma valuisse? Romanorum enim vernaculos deos novimus. 0570A Est Romulus pejerante Proculo deus factus, et Picus, et Tiberinus, et Pilumnus, et Consus, quem Deum fraudis vel ut consiliorum deum, coli Romulus voluit postquam in raptum Sabinarum perfidia provenit . Deam quoque Cloacinam Tatius et invenit et coluit, Pavorem Hostilius atque Pallorem. Mox a nescio quo Febris dedicata, et Acca et Flora meretrices . [Interdum vero deorum vocabula apud Romanos 0571A finguntur, ut sit apud illos et Viduus deus, qui anima corpus viduet, qui quasi feralis et funebris intra muros non habetur; et nihilominus, quia extorris factus, damnatur potius Romana religione, quam colitur. Est et Scansus ab ascensibus dictus , et Forculus a foribus, et a liminaribus Limentinus, et Cardea a cardinibus et ab orbitatibus Orbona ]. Hi dii Romani. Caeterum Mars Thracius, et Jupiter Creticus, et Juno vel Argiva vel Samia vel Poena, et Diana Taurica, et deorum mater Idaea, et Aegyptia portenta, non numina: quae utique si quid potestatis habuissent, sua ac suorum regna servassent. Plane sunt apud Romanos et victi penates , quos Aeneas profugus advexit. Est et Venus calva, multo hic turpius calva quam apud Homerum vulnerata.