republican contempt for non-burgesses, gave rise to a growing custom of tolerating, side by side with the more formal process, a summary criminal, or rather police, procedure against slaves and common people.  Here too the passionate strife regarding political processes overstepped natural limits, and introduced institutions which materially contributed to estrange the Romans step by step from the idea of a fixed moral order in the administration of justice.

Religion—­
New Gods

We are less able to trace the progress of the religious conceptions of the Romans during this epoch.  In general they adhered with simplicity to the simple piety of their ancestors, and kept equally aloof from superstition and from unbelief.  How vividly the idea of spiritualizing all earthly objects, on which the Roman religion was based, still prevailed at the close of this epoch, is shown by the new “God of silver” (-Argentinus-), who presumably came into existence only in consequence of the introduction of the silver currency in 485, and who naturally was the son of the older “God of copper” (-Aesculanus-).

The relations to foreign lands were the same as heretofore; but here, and here especially, Hellenic influences were on the increase.  It was only now that temples began to rise in Rome itself in honour of the Hellenic gods.  The oldest was the temple of Castor and Pollux, which had been vowed in the battle at lake Regillus(17) and was consecrated on 15th July 269.  The legend associated with it, that two youths of superhuman size and beauty had been seen fighting on the battle-field in the ranks of the Romans and immediately after the battle watering their foaming steeds in the Roman Forum at the fountain of luturna, and announcing the great victory, bears a stamp thoroughly un-Roman, and was beyond doubt at a very early period modelled on the appearance of the Dioscuri—­similar down to its very details—­in the famous battle fought about a century before between the Crotoniates and Locrians at the river Sagras.  The Delphic Apollo too was not only consulted—­as was usual with all peoples that felt the influence of Grecian culture—­and presented moreover after special successes, such as the capture of Veii, with a tenth of the spoil (360), but also had a temple built for him in the city (323, renewed 401).  The same honour was towards the close of this period accorded to Aphrodite (459), who was in some enigmatical way identified with the old Roman garden goddess, Venus;(18) and to Asklapios or Aesculapius, who was obtained by special request from Epidaurus in the Peloponnesus and solemnly conducted to Rome (463).  Isolated complaints were heard in serious emergencies as to the intrusion of foreign superstition, presumably the art of the Etruscan -haruspices- (as in 326); but in such cases the police did not fail to take proper cognisance of the matter.

In Etruria on the other hand, while the nation stagnated and decayed in political nullity and indolent opulence, the theological monopoly of the nobility, stupid fatalism, wild and meaningless mysticism, the system of soothsaying and of mendicant prophecy gradually developed themselves, till they reached the height at which we afterwards find them.