THE RELIGIOUS REVIVAL.[305]
I.
The result of recent enquiries into the state of civilisation under
the Roman Empire during the first two centuries of its existence,
has been to suggest conclusions in many respects at variance with
those formerly entertained. Instead of the intellectual stagnation,
the moral turpitude, and the religious indifference which were once
supposed to have been the most marked characteristics of that period,
modern scholars discern symptoms of active and fruitful thought, of
purity and disinterestedness both in public and private life, but
above all of a religious feeling which erred far more on the side of
excess than on the side of defect. This change of view may be traced
to various causes. A new class of investigators have made ancient
history an object of special study. Fresh evidence has been brought
to light, and a more discriminating as well as a more extended use
has been made of the sources already available. And, perhaps, even
greater importance is attributable to the principle now so generally
accepted, that historical phenomena, like all other phenomena, are
essentially continuous in their movement. The old theories assumed that
the substitution of Christian for what is called Pagan civilisation
was accompanied by a sudden break in men’s habits and ideas. But the
whole spirit of modern philosophy has prepared us to believe that such
a break is not likely to have ever occurred. And a new survey of the
period in question is leading us to the conviction that, as a matter of
fact, it did not occur.
For a long time the history of the Roman Empire was written by the
descendants of its most deadly enemies—by Christian ecclesiastics or
by scholars trained under their influence, and by the inheritors of
the northern races who overran and destroyed it. The natural tendency
of both classes was to paint the vices of the old society in the most
glaring colours, that by so doing they might exhibit the virtues of its
conquerors and the necessity of their mission in stronger relief. In
this respect, their task was greatly facilitated by the character of
the authorities from whom their information was principally derived.
Horace and Petronius, Seneca and Juvenal, Tacitus and Suetonius,
furnished them with pictures of depravity which it was impossible
to exaggerate, which had even to be toned down before they could
be reproduced in a modern language. No allowance was made for the
influence of a rhetorical training in fostering the cultivation of
effect at the expense of truth, nor for the influence of aristocratic
prejudice in securing a ready acceptance for whatever tended to the
discredit of a monarchical government. It was also forgotten that the
court and society of Rome could give no idea of the life led in the
rest of Italy and in the provinces. Moreover, the contrast continually
instituted or implied by these historians was not between the ancient
civilisation and the state of things which immediately succeeded it,
nor yet between the society of a great capital as it was then, and as
it was in the historian’s own time. The points selected for contrast
were what was worst in Paganism and what is best in Christianity. The
one was judged from the standpoint of courtiers and men of the world,
embittered by disappointment and familiar with every form of depravity,
the other was judged from the standpoint of experience acquired in a
college quadrangle, a country parsonage, or a cathedral close. The
modern writer knew little enough even about his own country, he knew
next to nothing about what morality was in the Middle Ages, and nothing
at all about what it still continues to be in modern Italy.
Even the very imperfect means of information supplied by the literature
of the empire were not utilised to the fullest extent. It was naturally
the writers of most brilliant genius who received most attention,
and these, as it happened, were the most prejudiced against their
contemporaries. Their observations, too, were put on record under
the form of sweeping generalisations; while the facts from which a
different conclusion might be gathered lay scattered through the pages
of more obscure authorities, needing to be carefully sifted out and
brought together by those who wished to arrive at a more impartial view
of the age to which they relate.
Another noteworthy circumstance is that the last centuries of Paganism
were on the whole marked by a steady literary decline. To a literary
man, this meant that civilisation as a whole was retrograding, that
it was an effete organism which could only be regenerated by the
infusion of new life from without; while, conversely, the fresh
literary productivity of mediaeval and modern Europe was credited to
the complete renovation which Christianity and the Barbarians were
supposed to have wrought. A closer study of Roman law has done much to
correct this superficial impression. It has revealed the existence,
in at least one most important domain, of a vast intellectual and
moral advance continued down to the death of Marcus Aurelius. And the
retrograde movement which set in with Commodus may be fairly attributed
to the increased militarism necessitated by the encroachments of
barbarism, and more directly to the infusion of barbarian elements into
the territory of the empire, rather than to any spontaneous decay of
Roman civilisation. The subsequent resuscitation of art and letters
is another testimony to the permanent value and vitality of ancient
culture. It was in those provinces which had remained least affected
by the northern invasion, such as Venetia and Tuscany, that the free
activity of the human intellect was first or most fruitfully resumed,
and it was from the irradiation of still unconquered Byzantium that the
light which re-awakened them was derived.
Another science which has only been cultivated on a large scale within
comparatively recent years has confirmed the views suggested by
jurisprudence. An enormous mass of inscriptions has been brought to
light, deciphered, collated, and made available by transcription for
the purposes of sedentary scholars. With the help of these records,
fragmentary though they be, we have obtained an insight into the
sentiments, beliefs, and social institutions of Pagan antiquity as it
was just before the conversion of the Roman world to Christianity, such
as literature alone could not supply. Literature and history, too, have
told a somewhat different story when read over again in the light of
these new discoveries. Finally, the whole mine of materials, new and
old, has been worked by a class of enquirers who bring to their task
qualities nearly unknown among the scholars of a former generation.
These men are familiar with an immense range of studies lying outside
their special subject, but often capable of affording it unexpected
illustrations; they are free from theological prejudices; they are
sometimes versed in the practical conduct of state affairs; and habits
of wide social intercourse have emancipated them from the narrowing
associations incident to a learned profession.
Perhaps no subject has gained so much from the application of the
new historical method as that which we have now to study in its
connexion with the progress of Greek philosophy. This is the religion
of the Roman empire. On former occasions, we have had to observe how
fruitful was the interaction between faith and reason in the early
stages of Greek thought. We have now to show how the same process
was continued on a greater scale during its later development and
diffusion. The conditions and results of this conflict have sometimes
been gravely misconceived. We have said that in more than one direction
important advances were made under the empire. In the direction of
pure rationalism, however, there was no advance at all, but, on the
contrary, a continual loss of the ground formerly won. The polytheism
which Christianity displaced turns out to have been far more vigorous
and fertile than was once supposed, and in particular to have been
supported by a much stronger body not only of popular sentiment, but,
what at first seems very surprising, of educated conviction. We were
formerly taught to believe that the faith of Homer and Aeschylus, of
Pythagoras and Pheidias, was in the last stage of decrepitude when
its destined successor appeared, that it had long been abandoned by
the philosophers, and was giving place in the minds of the vulgar to
more exciting forms of superstition newly imported from the East. The
undue preponderance given to purely literary sources of information
is largely responsible for an opinion which now appears to have been
mistaken. Among the great Roman writers, Lucretius proclaims himself
a mortal enemy to religion; Ennius and Horace are disbelievers in
providence; the attitude of Juvenal towards the gods and towards a
future life is at least ambiguous, and that of Tacitus undecided;
Cicero attacks the current superstitions with a vigour which has
diverted attention from the essentially religious character of his
convictions; Lucian, by far the most popular Greek writer of the
empire, is notorious for his hostility to every form of theology. Among
less known authors, the elder Pliny passionately denounces the belief
in a divine guidance of life and in the immortality of the soul.[306]
Taken alone, these instances would tend to prove that sceptical ideas
were very widely diffused through Roman society, both before and after
the establishment of the empire. Side by side, however, with the
authorities just cited there are others breathing a very different
spirit; and what we have especially to notice is that with the progress
of time the latter party are continually gaining in weight and numbers.
And this, as we shall now proceed to show, is precisely what might have
been expected from the altered circumstances which ensued when the
civilised world was subjected to a single city, and that city herself
to a single chief.
II.
In the world of thought no less than in the world of action, the
boundless license which characterised the last days of Roman
republicanism was followed by a period of tranquillity and restraint.
Augustus endeavoured to associate his system of imperialism with a
revival of religious authority. By his orders a great number of ruinous
temples were restored, and the old ceremonies were celebrated once
more with all their former pomp. His efforts in this direction were
ably seconded by the greatest poet and the greatest historian of the
age. Both Virgil and Livy were animated by a warm religious feeling,
associated, at least in the case of the latter, with a credulity which
knew no bounds. With both, religion took an antiquarian form. They were
convinced that Rome had grown great through faith in the gods, that she
had a divine mandate to conquer the world, and that this supernatural
mission might be most clearly perceived in the circumstances of her
first origin.[307] It is also characteristic that both should have been
provincials, educated in the traditions of a reverent conservatism,
and sympathising chiefly with those elements in the constitution of
Rome which brought her nearest to primitive Italian habits and ideas.
Now it was not merely the policy, it was the inevitable consequence of
imperialism to favour the provinces[308] at the expense of the capital,
by depriving the urban population and the senatorial aristocracy of the
political preponderance which they had formerly enjoyed. Here, as in
most other instances, what we call a reaction did not mean a change in
the opinions or sentiments of any particular persons or classes, but
the advent of a new class whose ways of thinking now determined the
general tone of the public mind.
One symptom of this reaction was the fashionable archaism of the
Augustan age, the tendency to despise whatever was new in literature,
and to exalt whatever was old. It is well known how feelingly Horace
complains of a movement which was used to damage his own reputation as
a poet;[309] but what seems to have escaped observation is, that this
protest against the literary archaism of his contemporaries is only
one symptom of a much profounder division between his philosophy and
theirs. He was just as good a patriot as they were, but his sympathies
were with the Hellenising aristocracy to which Lucretius and Cicero had
belonged, not with the narrow-minded conservatism of the middle classes
and the country people. He was a man of progress and free-thought,
who accepted the empire for what it might be worth, a Roman Prosper
Merimée or Sainte-Beuve, whose preference of order to anarchy did not
involve any respect for superstitious beliefs simply because they were
supported by authority. And this healthy common sense is so much a part
of his character, that he sometimes gives his mistresses the benefit of
it, warning Leuconoe against the Babylonian soothsayers, and telling
Phidyle that the gods should be approached not only with sacrifices
but with clean hands.[310] Yet so strong was the spirit of the age,
that the sceptical poet occasionally feels himself obliged to second
or to applaud the work of restoration undertaken by Augustus, and to
augur from it, with more or less sincerity, a reformation in private
life.[311] And even the frivolous Ovid may be supposed to have had the
same object in view when composing his _Fasti_.
The religious revival initiated by Augustus for his own purposes was
soon absorbed and lost in a much wider movement, following independent
lines and determined by forces whose existence neither he nor any of
his contemporaries could suspect. Even for his own purposes, something
more was needed than a mere return to the past. The old Roman faith and
worship were too dry and meagre to satisfy the cravings of the Romans
themselves in the altered conditions created for them by the possession
of a world-wide empire; still less could they furnish a meeting-ground
for all the populations which that empire was rapidly fusing into a
single mass. But what was wanted might be trusted to evolve itself
without any assistance from without, once free scope was given to the
religious instincts of mankind. These had long been kept in abeyance
by the creeds which they had originally called into existence, and
by the rigid political organisation of the ancient city-state. Local
patriotism was adverse to the introduction of new beliefs either from
within or from without. Once the general interests of a community had
been placed under the guardianship of certain deities with definite
names and jurisdictions, it was understood that they would feel
offended at the prospect of seeing their privileges invaded by a
rival power; and were that rival the patron of another community, his
introduction might seem like a surrender of national independence at
the feet of an alien conqueror. So, also, no very active proselytism
was likely to be carried on when the adherents of each particular
religion believed that its adoption by an alien community would enable
strangers and possible enemies to secure a share of the favour which
had hitherto been reserved for themselves exclusively. And to allure
away the gods of a hostile town by the promise of a new establishment
was, in fact, one of the stratagems commonly employed by the general of
the besieging army.[312]
If the Roman conquest did not altogether put an end to these
sentiments, it considerably mitigated their intensity. The imperial
city was too strong to feel endangered by the introduction of alien
deities within its precincts. The subject states were relieved from
anxiety with regard to a political independence which they had
irrecoverably lost. Moreover, since the conquests of Alexander, vast
aggregations of human beings had come into existence, to which the
ancient exclusiveness was unknown, because they never had been cities
at all in the ancient sense of the word. Such were Alexandria and
Antioch, and these speedily became centres of religious syncretism.
Rome herself, in becoming the capital of an immense empire, acquired
the same cosmopolitan character. Her population consisted for the most
part of emancipated slaves, and of adventurers from all parts of the
world, many of whom had brought their national faiths with them, while
all were ready to embrace any new faith which had superior attractions
to offer. Another important agent in the diffusion and propagation of
new religions was the army. The legions constituted a sort of migratory
city, recruited from all parts of the empire, and moving over its whole
extent. The dangers of a military life combined with its authoritative
ideas are highly favourable to devotion; and the soldiers could readily
adopt new modes for the expression of this feeling both from each other
and from the inhabitants of the countries where they were stationed,
and would in turn become missionaries for their dissemination over
the most distant regions. That such was actually the case is proved by
numerous religious inscriptions found in the neighbourhood of Roman
camps.[313]
After considering by what agencies the seeds of religious belief
were carried from place to place, we have to examine, what was even
more important, the quality of the soil on which they fell. And
here, to continue the metaphor, we shall find that the Roman plough
had not only broken through the crust of particularist prejudice,
but had turned up new social strata eminently fitted to receive and
nourish the germs scattered over their surface by every breeze and
every bird of passage, or planted and watered by a spiritual sower’s
hand. Along with the positive check of an established worship, the
negative check of dissolving criticism had, to a great extent,
disappeared with the destruction of the régime which had been most
favourable to its exercise during the early stages of progress. The
old city aristocracies were not merely opposed on patriotic grounds to
free-trade in religion, but, as the most educated and independent class
in the community, they were the first to shake off supernatural beliefs
of every kind. We have grown so accustomed to seeing those beliefs
upheld by the partisans of political privilege and attacked in the name
of democratic principles, that we are apt to forget how very modern
is the association of free-thought with the supremacy of numbers. It
only dates from the French Revolution, and even now it is far from
obtaining everywhere. Athens was the most perfectly organised democracy
of antiquity, and in the course of this work we have repeatedly had
occasion to observe how strong was the spirit of religious bigotry
among the Athenian people. If we want rationalistic opinions we must
go to the great nobles and their friends, to a Pericles, a Critias,
or a Protagoras. There must also have been perfect intellectual
liberty among the Roman nobles who took up Hellenic culture with such
eagerness towards the middle of the second century B.C., and among
those who, at a later period, listened with equanimity or approval to
Caesar’s profession of Epicureanism in a crowded senatorial debate.
It was as much in order that the _De Rerum Naturâ_ should have been
written by a member of this class as that the _Aeneid_ should proceed
from the pen of a modest provincial farmer. In positive knowledge,
Virgil greatly excelled Lucretius, but his beliefs were inevitably
determined by the traditions of his ignorant neighbours. When civil
war, proscription, delation, and, perhaps more than any other cause,
their own delirious extravagance, had wrought the ruin of the Roman
aristocracy, their places were taken by respectable provincials
who brought with them the convictions without the genius of the
Mantuan poet; and thenceforward the tide of religious reaction never
ceased rising until the Crusades, which were its supreme expression,
unexpectedly brought about a first revival of Hellenic culture. On that
occasion, also, the first symptoms of revolt manifested themselves
among the nobles; taking the form of Gnosticism in the brilliant courts
of Languedoc, and, at a later period, of Epicureanism in the Ghibelline
circles of Florentine society; while, conversely, when the Ciompi or
poorer artisans of Florence rose in revolt against the rich traders,
one of the first demands made by the successful insurgents was, that
a preaching friar should be sent to give them religious instruction.
At a still later period, the same opposition of intellectual interests
continues to be defined by the same social divisions. Two distinct
currents of thought co-operated to bring about the Protestant
Reformation. One, which was religious and reactionary, proceeded
from the people. The other, which was secularising, scholarly, and
scientific, represented the tendencies of the upper classes and of
those who looked to them for encouragement and support. Throughout
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, many noble names are to be
found among the champions of reason; and while speculative liberty is
associated with the ascendency of the aristocratic party, superstition
and intolerance are associated with the triumph of the people, whether
under the form of a democracy or of a levelling despotism. So, also,
the great emancipating movement of the eighteenth century was fostered
by the descendants of the Crusaders, and, until after the Revolution,
met with no response among the bourgeoisie or the people; indeed the
reaction in favour of supernaturalism was begun by a child of the
people, Rousseau. All this, as we have already observed, has been
reversed in more recent times; but the facts quoted are enough to prove
how natural it was that in the ancient world decay of class privileges
should be equivalent to a strengthening of the influences which made
for supernaturalism and against enlightened criticism.
III.
After the revolution which destroyed the political power of the old
aristocracy, there came a further revolution the effect of which was
to diminish largely its social predominance. We learn from the bitter
sarcasms of Horace and Juvenal that under the empire wealth took the
place of birth, if not, as those satirists pretend, of merit, as a
passport to distinction and respect. Merely to possess a certain
amount of money procured admission to the equestrian and senatorial
orders; while a smaller pecuniary qualification entitled any Roman
citizen to rank among the _Honestiores_ as opposed to the _Humiliores_,
the latter only being liable, if found guilty of certain offences,
to the more atrocious forms of capital punishment, such as death by
the wild beasts or by fire.[314] Even a reputation for learning was
supposed to be a marketable commodity; and when supreme power was held
by a philosopher, the vulgar rich could still hope to attract his
favourable notice by filling their houses with books.[315] We also know
from Juvenal, what indeed the analogy of modern times would readily
suggest, that large fortunes were often rapidly made, and made by the
cultivation of very sordid arts. Thus members of the most ignorant and
superstitious classes were constantly rising to positions where they
could set the tone of public opinion, or at least help to determine its
direction.
The military organisation of the empire had the further effect of
giving a high social status to retired centurions—men probably
recruited from the most barbarous provincial populations, and certainly
more remarkable for their huge size than for their mental gifts.[316]
When one of these heroes heard a philosopher state that nothing can be
made out of nothing, he would ask with a horse-laugh whether that was
any reason for going without one’s dinner.[317] On the other hand, when
it came to be a question of supernatural agency, a man of this type
would astonish the Jews themselves by his credulity. Imbued with the
idea of personal authority, he readily fancied that anyone standing
high in the favour of God could cure diseases from a distance by simply
giving them the word of command to depart.[318]
A much more important factor in the social movement than those already
mentioned was the ever-increasing influence of women. This probably
stood at the lowest point to which it has ever fallen, during the
classic age of Greek life and thought. In the history of Thucydides,
so far as it forms a connected series of events, four times only
during a period of nearly seventy years does a woman cross the scene.
In each instance her apparition only lasts for a moment. In three of
the four instances she is a queen or a princess, and belongs either to
the half-barbarous kingdoms of northern Hellas or to wholly barbarous
Thrace. In the one remaining instance— that of the woman who helps
some of the trapped Thebans to make their escape from Plataea—while
her deed of mercy will live for ever, her name is for ever lost.[319]
But no sooner did philosophy abandon physics for ethics and religion
than the importance of those subjects to women was perceived, first
by Socrates, and after him by Xenophon and Plato. Women are said to
have attended Plato’s lectures disguised as men. Women formed part
of the circle which gathered round Epicurus in his suburban retreat.
Others aspired not only to learn but to teach. Arêtê, the daughter of
Aristippus, handed on the Cyrenaic doctrine to her son, the younger
Aristippus. Hipparchia, the wife of Crates the Cynic, earned a place
among the representatives of his school. But all these were exceptions;
some of them belonged to the class of Hetaerae; and philosophy,
although it might address itself to them, remained unaffected by
their influence. The case was widely different in Rome, where women
were far more highly honoured than in Greece;[320] and even if the
prominent part assigned to them in the legendary history of the
city be a proof, among others, of its untrustworthiness, still that
such stories should be thought worth inventing and preserving is an
indirect proof of the extent to which feminine influence prevailed.
With the loss of political liberty, their importance, as always
happens at such a conjuncture, was considerably increased. Under a
personal government there is far more scope for intrigue than where
law is king; and as intriguers women are at least the equals of men.
Moreover, they profited fully by the levelling tendencies of the age.
One great service of the imperial jurisconsults was to remove some of
the disabilities under which women formerly suffered. According to
the old law, they were placed under male guardianship through their
whole life, but this restraint was first reduced to a legal fiction
by compelling the guardian to do what they wished, and at last it was
entirely abolished. Their powers both of inheritance and bequest were
extended; they frequently possessed immense wealth; and their wealth
was sometimes expended for purposes of public munificence. Their social
freedom seems to have been unlimited, and they formed combinations
among themselves which probably served to increase their general
influence.[321]
All these circumstances taken together would permit the Roman women
to have opinions of their own if they liked, and would ensure a
respectful hearing for whatever they had to say; while the men who had
opinions to propagate would, for the same reason, be deeply interested
in securing their adhesion. On the other hand, they received a good
literary education, being sent apparently to the same schools as
their brothers, and there made acquainted with, at least, the Latin
poets.[322] Thus they would possess the degree of culture necessary
for readily receiving and transmitting new impressions. And we know,
as a matter of fact, that many Roman ladies entered eagerly into the
literary movement of the age, sharing the studies of their husbands,
discoursing on questions of grammar, freely expressing their opinion on
the relative merits of different poets, and even attempting authorship
on their own account.[323] Philosophy, as it was then taught, attracted
a considerable share of their attention; and some great ladies were
constantly attended by a Stoic professor, to whose lectures they
listened seemingly with more patience than profit.[324] One of their
favourite studies was Plato’s _Republic_, according to Epictêtus,
because it advocated a community of wives;[325] or, as we may more
charitably suggest, because it admitted women to an equality with men.
But there is no evidence to prove that their inquisitiveness ever went
to the length of questioning the foundations of religious faith; and
we may fairly reckon their increasing influence among the forces which
were tending to bring about an overwhelming religious revival among the
educated classes.
In this connexion, some importance must also be attributed to the
more indirect influence exercised by children; These did not form a
particularly numerous class in the upper ranks of Roman society; but,
to judge by what we see in modern France, the fewer there were of them
the more attention were they likely to receive; and their interests,
which like those of the other defenceless classes had been depressed or
neglected under the aristocratic régime, were favoured by the reforming
and levelling movement of the empire. One of Juvenal’s most popular
satires is entirely devoted to the question of their education; and,
in reference to this, the point of view most prominently put forward
is the importance of the examples which are offered to them by their
parents. Juvenal, himself a free-thinker, is exceedingly anxious that
they should not be indoctrinated with superstitious opinions; but we
may be sure that a different order of considerations would equally
induce others to give their children a careful religious training,
and to keep them at a distance from sceptical influences; while the
spontaneous tendency of children to believe in the supernatural would
render it easier to give them moral instruction under a religious form.
To complete our enumeration of the forces by which a new public opinion
was being created, we must mention the slaves. Though still liable
to be treated with great barbarity, the condition of this class
was considerably ameliorated under the empire. Their lives and, in
the case of women, their chastity, were protected by law; they were
allowed by custom to accumulate property; they had always the hope of
liberty before their eyes, for emancipations were frequent and were
encouraged by the new legislation; they often lived on terms of the
closest intimacy with their masters, and were sometimes educated enough
to converse with them on subjects of general interest. Now a servile
condition is more favourable than any other to religious ideas. It
inculcates habits of unquestioning submission to authority; and by
the miseries with which it is attended immensely enhances the value
of consolatory beliefs, whether they take the form of faith in divine
protection during this life, or of a compensation for its afflictions
in the next. Moreover, a great majority of the Roman slaves came from
those Eastern countries which were the native land of superstition, and
thus served as missionaries of Oriental cults and creeds in the West,
besides furnishing apt disciples to the teachers who came from Asia
with the express object of securing converts to their religion in Rome.
The part played by slaves in the diffusion of Christianity is well
known; what we have to observe at present is that their influence must
equally have told in favour of every other supernaturalist belief, and,
to the same extent, against the rationalism of writers like Horace and
Lucian.
Thus Roman civilisation, even when considered on its liberal,
progressive, democratic side, seems to have necessarily favoured the
growth and spread of superstition, because the new social strata
which it turned up were less on their guard against unwarranted
beliefs than the old governing aristocracies with their mingled
conservatism and culture. But this was not all; and on viewing the
empire from another side we shall find that under it all classes
alike were exposed to conditions eminently inconsistent with that
individual independence and capacity for forming a private judgment
which had so honourably distinguished at least one class under the
republican régime. If imperialism was in one sense a levelling and
democratic system, in another sense it was intensely aristocratic, or
rather timocratic. Superiorities of birth, race, age, and sex were
everywhere tending to disappear, only that they might be replaced
by the more ignoble superiorities of brute-force, of court-favour,
and of wealth. The Palace set an example of caprice on the one side
and of servility on the other which was faithfully followed through
all grades of Roman society, less from a spirit of imitation than
because circumstances were at work which made every rich man or woman
the centre of a petty court consisting of voluntary dependents whose
obsequiousness was rewarded by daily doles of food and money, by the
occasional gift of a toga or even of a small farm, or by the hope of
a handsome legacy. Before daybreak the doors of a wealthy house were
surrounded by a motley crowd, including not only famished clients
but praetors, tribunes, opulent freedmen, and even ladies in their
litters; all come nominally for the purpose of paying their respects
to the master, but in reality to receive a small present of money. At
a later hour, when the great man went abroad, he was attended by a
troop of poor hangers-on, who, after trudging about for hours in his
train and accompanying him home in the afternoon, often missed the
place at his table which their assiduities were intended to secure.
Even when it came, the invitation brought small comfort, as only the
poorest food and the worst wine were set before the client, while
he had the additional vexation of seeing his patron feasting on the
choicest dishes and the most delicious vintages; and this was also
the lot of the domestic philosopher whom some rich men regarded as an
indispensable member of their retinue.[326] Of course those who wished
for a larger share of the patron’s favours could only hope to win it
by unstinted tokens of admiration, deference, or assent; and probably
many besides the master of thirty legions in the well-known story
were invariably allowed to be right by the scholars with whom they
condescended to dispute.
Besides the attentions lavished on every wealthy individual, those who
had no children were especially courted, and that too by others who
were as well off as themselves with the object of being remembered in
their wills. So advantageous a position, indeed, did these _orbi_,
as they were called, occupy, that among the higher classes there was
extreme unwillingness to marry; although, as an encouragement to
population, the father of three children enjoyed several substantial
privileges. This circumstance, again, by preventing the perpetuation of
wealthy families, and allowing their property to pass into the hands of
degraded fortune-hunters, rendered impossible the consolidation of a
new aristocracy which might have reorganised the traditions of liberal
culture, and formed an effectual barrier against the downward pressure
of despotism on the one side and the inroads of popular superstition on
the other.
As a last illustration of the extent to which authority and
subordination were pushed in Roman society, it may be mentioned that
the better class of slaves were permitted to keep slaves for their own
service. But whether the institution of slavery as a whole should be
reckoned among the conditions favourable to authoritative beliefs is
doubtful, as it was an element common to every period of antiquity.
Perhaps, however paradoxical such an assertion may seem, the very
frequency of emancipation gave increased strength to the feeling of
dependence on an overruling personal power. A freedman could not forget
that the most important event in his life was due, not to any natural
law, but to the will or the caprice of a master; and this reflection
must have confirmed his faith in the divine beings of whom he and his
master were fellow-slaves.
IV.
We have now to show what new beliefs gained most ground, and what old
beliefs were most successfully revived, through the combination of
favourable conditions, an analysis of which has been attempted in the
preceding pages. Among the host of creeds which at this period competed
with one another for the favour of the rich or for the suffrages of
the poor, there were some that possessed a marked advantage over their
rivals in the struggle for existence. The worship of Nature considered
as imaging the vicissitudes of human life, could not fail to be the
most popular of any. All who desired a bond of sympathy uniting them
with their fellow-subjects over the whole empire, and even with the
tribes beyond its frontiers, might meet on this most universal ground.
All who wished to combine excitement with devotion were attracted by
the dramatic representation of birth and death, of bereavement and
sorrow and searching, of purification through suffering, and triumphant
reunion with the lost objects of affection in this or in another world.
Inquisitive or innovating minds were gratified by admission to secrets
a knowledge of which was believed to possess inestimable value. And the
most conservative could see in such celebrations an acknowledgment,
under other forms, of some divinity which had always been reverenced
in their own home, perhaps even the more authentic reproduction of
adventures already related to them as dim and uncertain traditions of
the past. More than one such cultus, representing under the traits
of personal love and loss and recovery, the death of vegetation in
winter and its return to life in spring, was introduced from the
East, and obtained a wide popularity through the empire. Long before
the close of the republic, the worship of Cybele was established in
Rome with the sanction of the Senate. Other Asiatic deities of a much
less respectable character, Astarte and the so-called Syrian goddess,
though not officially recognised, enjoyed a celebrity extending to
the remotest corners of the western world.[327] Still greater and
more universal was the veneration bestowed on Isis and Serapis. From
the prince to the peasant, from the philosopher to the ignorant girl,
all classes united in doing homage to their power. Their mysteries
were celebrated in the mountain valleys of the Tyrol, and probably
created as much excitement among the people of that neighbourhood as
the Ammergau passion-play does at present.[328] An inscription has
been discovered describing in minute detail an offering made to Isis
by a Spanish matron in honour of her little daughter. It was a silver
statue richly ornamented with precious stones, resembling, as our
authority observes, what would now be presented to the Madonna,[329]
who indeed is probably no more than a Christian adaptation of the
Egyptian goddess. And Plutarch, or another learned and ingenious writer
whose work has come down to us under his name, devotes a long treatise
to Isis and Osiris, in which the mythical history of the goddess is
as thickly covered with allegorical interpretations as the statue
dedicated to her by the Spanish lady was with emeralds and pearls.
Another form of naturalistic religion, fitted for universal acceptance
by its appeals to common experience, was the worship of the Sun. It
was probably as such that Mithras, a Syro-Persian deity, obtained
a success throughout the Roman empire which at one time seemed to
balance the rising fortunes of Christianity. Adoration of the heavenly
bodies was, indeed, very common during this period, and was probably
connected with the extreme prevalence of astrological superstition.
It would also harmonise perfectly with the still surviving Olympian
religion of the old Hellenic aristocracy, and would profit by the
support which philosophy since the time of Socrates had extended to
this form of supernaturalist belief. But, perhaps, for that very reason
the classes which had now become the ultimate arbiters of opinion,
felt less sympathy with Mithras-worship and other kindred cults than
with the Egyptian mysteries. These had a more recognisable bearing
on their own daily life, and, like the Chthonian religions of old
Greece, they included a reference to the immortality of the soul.
Moreover, the climate of Europe, especially of western Europe, does not
permit the sun to become an object of such excessive adoration as in
southern Asia. Mithras-worship, then, is an example of the expansive
force exhibited by Oriental ideas rather than of a faith which really
satisfied the wants of the Roman world.
A far higher place must be assigned to Judaism among the competitors
for the allegiance of Europe. The cosmopolitan importance at one time
assumed by this religion has been considerably obscured, owing to the
subsequent devolution of its part to Christianity. It is, however, by
no means impossible that, but for the diversion created by the Gospel,
and the disastrous consequences of their revolt against Rome, the Jews
might have won the world to a purified form of their own monotheism. A
few significant circumstances are recorded showing how much influence
they had acquired, even in Rome, before the first preaching of
Christianity. The first of these is to be found in Cicero’s defence of
Flaccus. The latter was accused of appropriating part of the annual
contributions sent to the temple at Jerusalem; and, in dealing with
this charge, Cicero speaks of the Jews, who were naturally prejudiced
against his client, as a powerful faction the hostility of which he is
anxious not to provoke.[330] Some twenty years later, a great advance
has been made. Not only must the material interests of the Jews be
respected, but a certain conformity to their religious prescriptions is
considered a mark of good breeding, In one of his most amusing satires,
Horace tells us how, being anxious to shake off a bore, he appeals for
help to his friend Aristius Fuscus, and reminds him of some private
business which they had to discuss together. Fuscus sees his object,
and being mischievously determined to defeat it, answers: ‘Yes, I
remember perfectly, but we must wait for some better opportunity;
this is the thirtieth Sabbath, do you wish to insult the circumcised
Jews?’ ‘I have no scruples on that point,‘ replies the impatient
poet. ‘But I have,’ rejoins Fuscus,—‘a little weak-minded, one of
the many, you know—excuse me, another time.‘[331] Nor were the Jews
content with the countenance thus freely accorded them. The same poet
elsewhere intimates that whenever they found themselves in a majority,
they took advantage of their superior strength to make proselytes by
force.’[332] And they pursued the good work to such purpose that a
couple of generations later we find Seneca bitterly complaining that
the vanquished had given laws to the victors, and that the customs
of this abominable race were established over the whole earth.[333]
Evidence to the same effect is given by Philo Judaeus and Josephus, who
inform us that the Jewish laws and customs were admired, imitated, and
obeyed over the whole earth.[334] Such assertions might be suspected
of exaggeration, were they not, to a certain extent, confirmed by the
references already quoted, to which others of the same kind may be
added from later writers showing that it was a common practice among
the Romans to abstain from work on the Sabbath, and even to celebrate
it by praying, fasting, and lighting lamps, to visit the synagogues,
to study the law of Moses, and to pay the yearly contribution of two
drachmas to the temple at Jerusalem.[335]
Then as now, Judaism seems to have had a much greater attraction for
women than for men; and this may be accounted for not only by the
greater credulity of the female sex, which would equally predispose
them in favour of every other new religion, but also by their natural
sympathy with the domestic virtues which are such an amiable and
interesting feature in the Jewish character. Josephus tells us that
towards the beginning of Nero’s reign nearly all the women of Damascus
were attached to Judaism;[336] and he also mentions that Poppaea, the
mistress and afterwards the wife of Nero, used her powerful influence
for the protection of his compatriots, though whether she actually
became a proselyte, as some have supposed, is doubtful.[337] According
to Ovid, the synagogues were much visited by Roman women, among
others, apparently, by those of easy virtue, for he alludes to them as
resorts which the man of pleasure in search of a conquest will find it
advantageous to frequent.[338]
The monotheism of the Jehovist religion would seem to have marked it
out as the natural faith of a universal empire. Yet, strange to say, it
was not by this element of Judaism that proselytes were most attracted.
Our authorities are unanimous in speaking of the sabbath-observance as
the most distinguishing trait of the Jews themselves, and the point in
which they were most scrupulously imitated by their adherents; while
the duty of contributing to the maintenance of the temple apparently
stood next in popular estimation. But if this be true, it follows
that the liberation of the spiritualistic element in Judaism from
its ceremonial husk was a less essential condition to the success of
Christianity than some have supposed. What the world objected to in
Judaism was not its concrete, historical, practical side, but its
exclusiveness, and the hatred for other nations which it was supposed
to breed. What the new converts wished was to take the place of the
Jews, to supersede them in the divine favour, not to improve on their
law. It was useless to tell them that they were under no obligation
to observe the sabbath, when the institution of a day of rest was
precisely what most fascinated them in the history of God’s relations
with his chosen people. And it was equally useless to tell them that
the hour had come when the Father should not be worshipped any more at
Jerusalem but everywhere in spirit and in truth, when Jerusalem had
become irrevocably associated in their minds with the establishment
of a divine kingdom on this earth. Thus, while the religion of the
Middle Ages reached its intensest expression in armed pilgrimages to
Palestine, the religion of modern Puritanism has embodied itself by
preference in the observance of what it still delights to call the
sabbath.
It must not be supposed that the influx of Asiatic religions into
Europe was attended by any loss of faith in the old gods of Greece
and Italy, or by any neglect of their worship. The researches of
Friedländer have proved the absolute erroneousness of such an idea,
widely entertained as it has been. Innumerable monuments are in
existence testifying to the continued authority of the Olympian
divinities, and particularly of Jupiter, over the whole extent of the
Roman empire. Ample endowments were still devoted to the maintenance
of their service; their temples still smoked with sacrifices; their
litanies were still repeated as a duty which it would have been
scandalous to neglect; in all hours of public and private danger their
help was still implored, and acknowledged by the dedication of votive
offerings when the danger was overcome; it was still believed, as in
the days of Homer, that they occasionally manifested themselves on
earth, signalising their presence by works of superhuman power.[339]
Nor was there anything anomalous in this peaceable co-existence of the
old with the new faiths. So far back as we can trace the records both
of Greek and Roman polytheism, they are remarkable for their receptive
and assimilative capacity. Apollo and Artemis were imported into Greece
from Lycia, Heracles and Aphrodite from Phoenicia, Dionysus and Ares
probably from Thrace. Roman religion under its oldest form included
both a Latin or Sabine and an Etruscan element; at a subsequent period
it became Hellenised without losing anything of its grave and decorous
character. In Greece, the elastic system of divine relationships was
stretched a little further so as to make room for the new comers. The
same system, when introduced into Roman mythology, served to connect
and enliven what previously had been so many rigid and isolated
abstractions. With both, the supreme religious conception continued
to be what it had been with their Aryan ancestors, that of a heavenly
Father Jove; and the fashionable deities of the empire were received
into the pantheon of Homer and Hesiod as recovered or adopted children
of the same Olympian sire. The danger to Hellenistic polytheism was
not from another form of the same type, but from a faith which should
refuse to amalgamate with it on any terms; and in the environment
created by Roman imperialism with its unifying and cosmopolitan
character, such a faith, if it existed anywhere, could not fail in the
long-run to supersede and extinguish its more tolerant rivals. But
the immediate effect produced by giving free play to men’s religious
instincts was not the concentration of their belief on a single object,
or on new to the exclusion of old objects, but an extraordinary
abundance and complexity of supernaturalism under all its forms. This
general tendency, again, admits of being decomposed into two distinct
currents, according as it was determined by the introduction of alien
superstitions from without, or by the development of native and popular
superstition from within. But, in each case, the retrogressive movement
resulted from the same political revolution. At once critical and
conservative, the city-aristocracies prevented the perennial germs of
religious life from multiplying to any serious extent within the limits
of their jurisdiction, no less vigilantly than they prohibited the
importation of its completed products from abroad. We have now to study
the behaviour of these germs when the restraint to which they had
formerly been subjected was lightened or withdrawn.
V.
The old religions of Greece and Italy were essentially oracular. While
inculcating the existence of supernatural beings, and prescribing the
modes according to which such beings were to be worshipped, they paid
most attention to the interpretation of the signs by which either
future events in general, or the consequences of particular actions,
were supposed to be divinely revealed. Of these intimations, some
were given to the whole world, so that he who ran might read, others
were reserved for certain favoured localities, and only communicated
through the appointed ministers of the god. The Delphic oracle in
particular enjoyed an enormous reputation both among Greeks and
barbarians for guidance afforded under the latter conditions; and
during a considerable period it may even be said to have directed the
course of Hellenic civilisation. It was also under this form that
supernatural religion suffered most injury from the great intellectual
movement which followed the Persian wars. Men who had learned to study
the constant sequences of Nature for themselves, and to shape their
conduct according to fixed principles of prudence or of justice, either
thought it irreverent to trouble the god about questions on which
they were competent to form an opinion for themselves, or did not
choose to place a well-considered scheme at the mercy of his possibly
interested responses. That such a revolution occurred about the middle
of the fifth century B.C., seems proved by the great change of tone in
reference to this subject which one perceives on passing from Aeschylus
to Sophocles. That anyone should question the veracity of an oracle is
a supposition which never crosses the mind of the elder dramatist. A
knowledge of augury counts among the greatest benefits conferred by
Prometheus on mankind, and the Titan brings Zeus himself to terms by
his acquaintance with the secrets of destiny. Sophocles, on the other
hand, evidently has to deal with a sceptical generation, despising
prophecies and needing to be warned of the fearful consequences brought
about by neglecting their injunctions.
Probably few contributed so much to the change as Socrates,
notwithstanding his general piety and the credulity which he exhibited
on this particular point. For his ethical and dialectical training,
combined with that careful study of facts which he so earnestly
recommended, went very far towards making a consultation of the oracle
superfluous; and he did actually impress on his auditors the duty
of dispensing with its assistance in all cases except those where
a knowledge of the future was necessary and could not be otherwise
obtained.[340] Even so superstitious a believer as Xenophon improved on
his master’s lessons in this respect, and instead of asking the Pythia
whether he should take service with the younger Cyrus—as Socrates had
advised—simply asked to what god he should sacrifice before starting on
the expedition. Towards the beginning of our era, as is well known, the
Greek oracles had fallen into complete neglect and silence.
But all this time the popular belief in omens had continued unaffected,
and had apparently even increased. The peculiar Greek feeling known
as Deisidaimonia is first satirised by Theophrastus, who defines
it as cowardice with regard to the gods, and gives several amusing
instances of the anxiety occasioned by its presence—all connected with
the interpretation of omens—such as Aristophanes could hardly have
failed to notice had they been usual in his time. Nor were such fancies
confined to the ignorant classes. Although the Stoics cannot be accused
of Deisidaimonia, they gave their powerful sanction to the belief in
divination, as has been already mentioned in our account of their
philosophy. It would seem that whatever authority the great oracular
centres had lost was simply handed over to lower and more popular forms
of the same superstition.
In Rome, as well as in Greece, rationalism took the form of disbelief
in divination. Here at least the Epicurean, the Academician, and,
among the Stoics, the disciple of Panaetius, were all agreed. But as
the sceptical movement began at a much later period in Rome than in
the country where it first originated, so also did the supernaturalist
reaction come later, the age of Augustus in the one corresponding very
nearly with the age of Alexander in the other. Virgil and Livy are
remarkable for their faith in omens; and although the latter complains
of the general incredulity with which narratives of such events were
received, his statements are to be taken rather as an index of what
people thought in the age immediately preceding his own, than as
an accurate description of contemporary opinion. Certainly nothing
could be farther from the truth than to say that signs and prodigies
were disregarded by the Romans under the empire. Even the cool and
cautious Tacitus feels himself obliged to relate sundry marvellous
incidents which seemed to accompany or to prefigure great historical
catastrophes; and the more credulous Suetonius has transcribed an
immense number of such incidents from the pages of older chroniclers,
besides informing us of the extreme attention paid even to trifling
omens by Augustus.[341]
Meanwhile the recognised methods for looking into futurity continued
to enjoy their old popularity, and that which relied on indications
afforded by the entrails of sacrifices was practised with unabated
confidence down to the time of Julian.[342] Even faith in natural law,
where it existed, accommodated itself to the prevalent superstition by
taking the form of astrology; and it is well known what reliance the
emperor Tiberius, for his time a singularly enlightened man, placed on
predictions derived from observation of the starry heavens.
Subsequently, with the revival of Hellenism, the Greek oracles broke
silence, and regained even more than their ancient reputation, as the
increased facilities for locomotion now rendered them accessible from
the remotest regions.[343] Sometimes the miraculous character of their
responses resulted in the conversion of hardened infidels. In this
connexion, the following anecdote is related by Plutarch. A certain
governor of Cilicia entertained serious doubts about the gods, and was
still further confirmed in his impiety by the Epicureans who surrounded
him. This man, for the purpose of throwing discredit on the famous
oracle of Mopsus, sent a freedman to consult it, bearing a sealed
letter containing a question with whose purport neither he nor any one
else except the sender was acquainted. On arriving at the oracle, the
messenger was admitted to pass a night within the temple, which was
the method of consultation usually practised there. In his sleep a
beautiful figure appeared to him, and after uttering the words ‘a black
one,’ immediately vanished. On hearing this answer the governor fell
on his knees in consternation, and, opening the sealed tablet, showed
his friends the question which it contained, ‘Shall I sacrifice a white
or a black bull to thee?’ The Epicureans were confounded; while the
governor offered up the prescribed sacrifice, and became thenceforward
a constant adorer of Mopsus.[344]
Nothing, as Friedländer observes, shows so well what intense credulity
prevailed at this time, with reference to phenomena of a marvellous
description, as the success obtained by a celebrated impostor,
Alexander of Abonuteichus, whose adventurous career may still be
studied in one of Lucian’s liveliest pieces. Here it will be enough
to mention that Alexander was a clever charlatan of imposing figure,
winning manners, and boundless effrontery, who established himself in
Abonuteichus, a small town in Paphlagonia, on the southern shore of
the Black Sea, where he made a trade of giving oracles in the name
of Asclêpius. The god of healing was represented for the occasion by
a large tame serpent fitted with a human head made of painted canvas
and worked by horsehair strings. Sometimes the oracular responses were
delivered by the mouth of the god himself. This was managed with the
help of a confederate who spoke through a tube connected with the false
head. Such direct communications were, however, only granted as an
exceptional favour and for a high price. In most instances the answer
was given in writing, and the fee charged for it only amounted to a
shilling of our money. Alexander had originally fixed on Abonuteichus,
which was his native place and therefore well known to him, as the
seat of his operations, on account of the extraordinary superstition
of its inhabitants; but the people of the adjacent provinces soon
showed themselves to be nowise behind his fellow-townsmen in their
credulity. The fame of the new oracle spread over all Asia Minor and
Thrace; and visitors thronged to it in such numbers as sometimes to
produce a scarcity of provisions. The prophet’s gross receipts rose to
an average of 3,000_l._ a year, and the office of interpreting his more
ambiguous responses became so lucrative that the two exegêtes employed
for this purpose paid each a talent a year (240_l._) for the privilege
of exercising it.
It was from the Epicureans, of whom we are told that there were a
considerable number in these parts, that the most serious opposition
to the impostor proceeded; but he contrived to silence their
criticisms by denouncing them to the fanatical multitude as ‘atheists
and Christians.’ Towards Epicurus himself Alexander nourished an
undying hatred; and when the oracle was consulted with regard to
that philosopher’s fate, it made answer that he was ‘bound in leaden
chains and seated in a morass.’ The κύριαι δόξαι, or summary of the
Epicurean creed, he publicly burned and threw its ashes into the sea;
and one unfortunate town which contained a large school of Epicureans
he punished by refusing its inhabitants access to the oracle. On the
other hand, according to Lucian, he was on the best of terms with the
disciples of Plato, Chrysippus, and Pythagoras.[345]
At last tidings of the oracle made their way to Italy and Rome, where
they created intense excitement, particularly among the leading men
of the state. One of these, Rutilianus, a man of consular dignity and
well known for his abject superstition, threw himself head-foremost
into the fashionable delusion. He sent off messenger after messenger in
hot haste to the shrine of Asclêpius; and the wily Paphlagonian easily
contrived that the reports which they carried back should still further
inflame the curiosity and wonder of his noble devotee. But, in truth,
no great refinement of imposture was needed to complete the capture
of such a willing dupe. One of his questions was, what teacher should
he employ to direct the studies of his son? Pythagoras and Homer were
recommended in the oracular response. A few days afterwards, the boy
died, much to the discomfiture of Alexander, whose enemies took the
opportunity of triumphing over what seemed an irretrievable mistake.
But Rutilianus himself came to the rescue. The oracle, he said, clearly
foreshadowed his son’s death, by naming teachers who could only be
found in the world below. Finally, on being consulted with regard to
the choice of a wife, the oracle promptly recommended the daughter
of Alexander and the Moon; for the prophet professed to have enjoyed
the favours of that goddess in the same circumstances as Endymion.
Rutilianus, who was at this time sixty years old, at once complied with
the divine injunction, and celebrated his marriage by sacrificing
whole hecatombs to his celestial mother-in-law.
With so powerful a protector, Alexander might safely bid his enemies
defiance. The governor of Bithynia had to entreat Lucian, whose life
had been threatened by the impostor, to keep out of harm’s way.
‘Should anything happen to you,’ he said, ‘I could not afford to
offend Rutilianus by bringing his father-in-law to justice.’ Even the
best and wisest man then living yielded to the prevalent delusion.
Marcus Aurelius, who was at that time fighting with the Marcomanni,
was induced to act on an oracle from Abonuteichus, promising that if
two lions were thrown into the Danube a great victory would be the
result. The animals made their way safely to the opposite bank; but
were beaten to death with clubs by the barbarians, who mistook them for
some outlandish kind of wolf or dog; and the imperial army was shortly
afterwards defeated with a loss of 20,000 men.[346] Alexander helped
himself out of the difficulty with the stale excuse that he had only
foretold a victory, without saying which side should win. He was not
more successful in determining the duration of his own life, which came
to an end before he had completed seventy years, instead of lasting,
as he had prophesied, for a hundred and fifty. This miscalculation,
however, seems not to have impaired his reputation, for even after
his death it was believed that a statue of him in the market-place of
Parium in Mysia had the power of giving oracles.[347]
VI.
Another wide-spread superstition was the belief in prophetic or
premonitory dreams. This was shared by some even among those who
rejected supernatural religion,—a phenomenon not unparalleled at the
present day. Thus the elder Pliny tells us how a soldier of the
Praetorian Guard in Rome was cured of hydrophobia by a remedy revealed
in a dream to his mother in Spain, and communicated by her to him.
The letter describing it was written without any knowledge of his
mishap, and arrived just in time to save his life.[348] And Pliny
was himself induced by a dream to undertake the history of the Roman
campaigns in Germany.[349] Religious believers naturally put at least
equal confidence in what they imagined to be revelations of the divine
will. Galen, the great physician, often allowed himself to be guided
by dreams in the treatment of his patients, and had every reason to
congratulate himself on the result. The younger Pliny, Suetonius,
Dion Cassius, and the emperors Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, were
all influenced in a similar manner; and among these Dion, who stands
last in point of time, shows by his repeated allusions to the subject
that superstition, so far from diminishing, was continually on the
increase.[350]
It was natural that the best methods of interpreting so useful a
source of information should be greatly sought after, and that they
should be systematised in treatises expressly devoted to the subject.
One such work, the _Oneirocritica_ of Artemidôrus, is still extant.
It was composed towards the end of the second century, as its author
tells us, at the direct and repeated command of Apollo. According to
Artemidôrus, the general belief in prophecy and in the existence of
providence must stand or fall with the belief in prophetic dreams. He
looked on the compilation of his work as the fulfilment of a religious
mission, and his whole life was devoted to collecting the materials
for it. His good faith is, we are told, beyond question, his industry
is enormous, and he even exercises considerable discrimination in
selecting and elucidating the phenomena which are represented to us as
manifestations of a supernatural interest in human affairs. Thus his
beliefs may be taken as a fair gauge of the extent to which educated
opinion had at that time become infected with vulgar superstition.[351]
Dreams, like oracles, were occasionally employed for the conversion of
infidels. An incident of the kind is related by Aelian, a writer who
flourished early in the third century, and who is remarkable, even in
that age, for his bigoted orthodoxy. A certain man named Euphronius,
he tells us, whose delight was to study the blasphemous nonsense of
Epicurus, fell very ill of consumption, and sought in vain for help
from the skill of the physicians. He was already at death’s door, when,
as a last resource, his friends placed him in the temple of Asclêpius.
There he dreamed that a priest came to him and said, ‘This man’s only
chance of salvation is to burn the impious books of Epicurus, knead
the ashes up with wax, and use the mixture as a poultice for his chest
and stomach.’ On awakening, he followed the divine prescription, was
restored to health, and became a model of piety for the rest of his
life. The same author gives us a striking instance of prayer answered,
also redounding to the credit of Asclêpius, the object of whose favour
is, however, on this occasion not a human being but a fighting-cock.
The scene is laid at Tanagra, where the bird in question, having had
his foot hurt, and evidently acting under the influence of divine
inspiration, joins a choir who are singing the praises of Asclêpius,
contributing his share to the sacred concert, and, to the best of
his ability, keeping time with the other performers. ‘This he did,
standing on one leg and stretching out the other, as if to show its
pitiable condition. So he sang to his saviour as far as the strength
of his voice would permit, and prayed that he might recover the use
of his limb.’ The petition is granted, whereupon our hero claps his
wings and struts about ‘with outstretched neck and nodding crest like a
proud warrior, thus proclaiming the power of providence over irrational
animals.’[352]