The history of Rome

Conversely, the Roman opposition rebelled against the ancient practice under which the four principal colleges of priests filled up their own ranks when vacancies arose, and demanded the extension of popular election to the stalls themselves, as it had been previously introduced with reference to the presidents, of these colleges[12]. This was certainly inconsistent with the spirit of these corporations; but they had no right to complain of it, after they had become themselves untrue to their spirit, and had played into the hands of the government at its request by furnishing religious pretexts for the annulling of political proceedings. This affair became an apple of contention between the parties: the senate beat off the first attack in 609, on which occasion the Scipionic circle especially turned the scale for the rejection of the proposal; on the other hand the project passed in 650 with the proviso already made in reference to the election of the presidents for the benefit of scrupulous consciences, that not the whole burgesses but only the lesser half of the tribes should make the election[13]; finally Sulla restored the right of co-optation in its full extent[14].

Practical Use Made of Religion

With this care on the part of the conservatives for the pure national religion, it was of course quite compatible that the circles of the highest rank should openly make a jest of it. The practical side of the Roman priesthood was the priestly cuisine; the augural and pontifical banquets were as it were the official gala-days in the life of a Roman epicure, and several of them formed epochs in the history of gastronomy: the banquet on the accession of the augur Quintus Hortensius for instance brought roast peacocks into vogue. Religion was also found very useful in giving greater zest to scandal. It was a favourite recreation of the youth of quality to disfigure or mutilate the images of the gods in the streets by night[15]. Ordinary love affairs had for long been common, and intrigues with married women began to become so; but an amour with a Vestal virgin was as piquant as the intrigues with nuns and the cloister-adventures in the world of the Decamerone. The scandalous affair of 640 seq. is well known, in which three Vestals, daughters of the noblest families, and their paramours, young men likewise of the best houses, were brought to trial for unchastity first before the pontifical college, and then, when it sought to hush up the matter, before an extraordinary court instituted by special decree of the people, and were all condemned to death. Such scandals, it is true, sedate people could not approve; but there was no objection to men finding positive religion to be a folly in their familiar circle; the augurs might, when one saw another performing his functions, smile in each other's face without detriment to their religious duties. We learn to look favourably on the modest hypocrisy of kindred tendencies, when we compare with it the coarse shamelessness of the Roman priests and Levites. The official religion was quite candidly treated as a hollow framework, now serviceable only for political machinists; in this respect with its numerous recesses and trapdoors it might and did serve either party, as it happened. Most of all certainly the oligarchy recognized its palladium in the state-religion, and particularly in the augural discipline; but the opposite party also made no resistance in point of principle to an institute, which had now merely a semblance of life; they rather regarded it, on the whole, as a bulwark which might pass from the possession of the enemy into their own.

Oriental Religions in Italy