towards the deities in question, and he will enjoy the festivals belonging to them.  If remarkable portents and disasters occur, he will agree that there is something wrong in the behaviour of the state, and that there must be some public purification or other placation of the gods.  If the state orders such a proceeding, he will perform whatever may be his share in it.  So far he is loyal to the “religion of the state.”

[Illustration:  FIG. 112.—­HOUSEHOLD SHRINE. (Pompeii.)]

In his private capacity he has his own wants, fears, and hopes.  He therefore betakes himself to whatever divinity he considers most likely to help him; he makes his own prayers and vows an offering if his request is granted.  Reduced to plain commercial language his ordinary attitude is—­no success, no payment.  A cardinal difference between the religion of the Romans and our own is to be seen in the nature of their prayers.  They always ask for some definite advantage—­prosperity, safety, health, or the like.  They never pray for a clean heart or for some moral improvement.  Of more importance than the man’s moral condition will be his scrupulous observance of the right external practices.  Unlike the Greek, he will cover his head when he prays.  He will raise his hand to his lips before the statue, or, if he is appealing to the celestial deities, he will stretch his palms upwards above his head; if to the infernal powers, he will hold them downwards.  These are the things that matter.

At home, if he belongs to the better type of representative citizen, our Roman has his household shrine and his household divinities, whom he never neglects.  If he is very pious, he may pray to them every morning, or at least before every enterprise.  In any case he will remember them with a small offering when he dines.  There are the “gods of the stores”—­his “penates”—­certain deities whom he has selected as guardians of his belongings, and who have their little images by the hearth in the kitchen.  There is the household “protector,” or more commonly there are two, who may be painted under the form of lightly-stepping youths in a little niche or shrine above a small altar.  To these he will offer fruits, flowers, incense, and cakes.  And there is the “Genius” of the master of the house, who is also painted on the wall, or who may be represented by his own portrait bust or by the picture of a snake.  That “Genius” means the power presiding over his vitality and health and wellbeing.  If he is an artisan and belongs to a guild, he will pay special worship to the patron god or goddess of that guild—­to Vesta, if he is a baker, to Minerva, if he is a fuller.  Out of doors he will find a street shrine in the wall at a crossing, pertaining to the tutelary god of what may be called his “parish,” and this he will not neglect.  Like all other orthodox Romans he will not undertake any new enterprise—­betrothal, marriage, journey, or important business—­without ascertaining that the auspices are favourable.