of the Second Punic War; the fascination of the Orient, exhibited to Rome in the cult of the Magna Mater; and the new gift which Greece now made to Rome, the knowledge of her literature, especially of her philosophy.  In the last two centuries of the republic then these forces alone would have been sufficient to cause the downfall of religion, but they were aided by politics, which fastened itself upon the formalism of the state religion and sucked the little life-blood that was left.  Rome’s scholars and wise men could deplore the result and point out the causes, but they could not cure the state of affairs.  What politics had done, politics alone could undo, hence only the reforms of an autocrat could restore something of the outward structure of the old state religion.  But beyond this politics and the autocrat were alike powerless.  Against philosophy and Oriental ecstasy they were of no avail.  Hence the spirit had left the religion which Augustus had restored even before the marble temples which he had built in its honour had fallen into decay.

The age of formalism had passed, the religious demands of the individual could no longer be satisfied by a mere ritual.  For good or for evil something more personal, more subjective, was needed.  Men sought for it in various ways and with varying success, but except in the simple forms of family worship old Roman religion was dead.

INDEX

References to the more recent literature on the subject of Roman religion have been given in connection with the appropriate topics in this index.

The following abbreviations have been employed:—­R.F. = Warde Fowler, Roman Festivals, London, 1899; R.R. = Wissowa, Religion und Cultus der Roemer, Muenchen, 1902; P.W. = Pauly-Wissowa, Encyclopaedie der Altertumswissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1894—­; Lex. = Roscher, Lexikon der Griechischen und Roemischen Mythologie, Leipzig, 1884—.

Actium, 81, 165

Aeneid, as a political treatise, 153

Aesculapius, 84. 
  Cp. R.R. 253 ff.;
  R.F. 278;
  Thraemer, P.W. s.v.;
  Asklepios

Agricultural character of early Roman religion, 18. 
  Cp. R.F. 335;
  R.R. 20 ff.;
  Mommsen, C.I.L. 1, ed. 2, p. 298.

Agrippa, erects Temple of Neptune, 81;
  Richter, Topographic der Stadt Rom. 242;
  Platner, Ancient Rome, 357

Alba Longa and the Latin League, 52. 
  Cp.  Beloch, Italische Bund, 177;
  Huelsen, in P.W. s.v.

Altar of Caesar, 173. 
  Cp.  Huelsen, Forum Romanum, ed. 2, p. 139;
  Platner, Ancient Rome, 180

Animism, 5. 
  Cp.  Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 377 ff., ii. 1-327;
  Frazer, Golden Bough, i. 170 ff.