In the multiplicity of deities the ordinary people were prepared to accept as many more as you chose to offer them, especially if the worship attaching to them contained mystic or orgiastic ceremonies.  By this date the populace had become exceedingly mixed, especially in the capital, and the cool hard-headed Roman stock had been largely replaced or leavened by foreign elements, especially from the East.  The official worship of the state was formal and frigid; it offered nothing to the emotions or the hopes.  Many among the people felt an instinct for something more sacramental, and especially attractive was any form of worship which promised a continued existence, and probably a happier existence, after death.  Even the mere mysteriousness of a form of worship had its allurements.  Hence a tendency to Judaism, still more to the Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris.  The latter made many proselytes, particularly among the women, and contained ideas which are by no means ignoble but to our modern minds far more truly “religious” than anything to be found in the native Roman cults.  To pass through purification, to practise asceticism, to feel that there was a life beyond the grave apportioned to your deserts, to go through an impressive form of worship held every day, and to have the emotions thus worked upon—­all this supplied something to the moral nature which was lacking in the chill sacrifices and prayers to Jupiter and the other national divinities.  In vain had the authorities, in their doubt as to the moral effects, tried on several occasions to suppress this foreign worship; it always revived, and it now held its established place both in the imperial city and in the provinces, particularly near the sea, for it was especially a sailors’ religion.  Rome, like Pompeii, had its temple of Isis and her daily celebrations.  There was, however, no necessary conflict between this worship and the official religion.  It was quite possible to accept Isis while accepting Jupiter.  Nor, though this particular cult has required mention, must it be taken as belonging to more than a section of the Roman population.  Most Romans would look upon it and other deviations with acquiescence, some with contempt, and perhaps some with a shake of the head, while themselves satisfied with an indifferent conformity to the more established customs of the state.

Setting aside the devotees of the mystic, the more ordinary point of view was that between Romans and the established gods of Rome there is an understanding.  The gods will support Rome so long as Rome pays to them their dues of formal recognition.  Their ritual must not be neglected by the authorities; it is not necessary for an individual member of the community to concern himself further in the matter.  The state, through its appointed ministers, will make the necessary sacrifices and say the necessary words; the citizen need not put in an appearance or take any part.  He will not do or say anything disrespectful