Background.

The Romans honored the religion of their ancestors, whom they referred to as "the greater ones"—in Latin, the maiores. While the Greeks and all peoples in the ancient world also honored their ancestors' religions, the Romans were excessively conservative. They believed in superhuman divine beings as far back as surviving Roman history records exist, but at the same time, the Italian countryside that the Romans knew always remained the home of a multitude of little deities without human form. A grove of trees would be home to a god, as would a river or a stream or a spring. There was a host of small gods in charge of sowing the crops: the deus Occitor who looked after the harrowing, deus Sterculinius who looked after spreading manure on the fields, Sarritor who looked after hoeing, and Messor who...