FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The Licinian law provided that no one should rent at a time more than 500 acres of public land.

[2] The league by which the Latin states were bound (jus Latii) was more favourable than that granted to the other Italians (jus Italicum.)

* * * * *

CHAPTER VI.

THE ROMAN RELIGION.

  First to the gods ’tis fitting to prepare
  The due libation, and the solemn prayer;
  For all mankind alike require their grace,
  All born to want; a miserable race.—­Homer.

1.  We have shown that the Romans were, most probably, a people compounded of the Latins, the Sabines, and the Tuscans; and that the first and last of these component parts were themselves formed from Pelasgic and native tribes.  The original deities[1] worshipped by the Romans were derived from the joint traditions of all these tribes; but the religious institutions and ceremonies were almost wholly borrowed from the Tuscans.  Unlike the Grecian mythology, with which, in later ages, it was united, the Roman system of religion had all the gloom and mystery of the eastern superstitions; their gods were objects of fear rather than love, and were worshipped more to avert the consequences of their anger than to conciliate their favour.  A consequence of this system was, the institution of human sacrifices, which were not quite disused in Rome until a late period of the republic.

2.  The religious institutions of the Romans form an essential part of their civil government; every public act, whether of legislation or election, was connected with certain determined forms, and thus received the sanction of a higher power.  Every public assembly was opened by the magistrate and augurs taking the auspices, or signs by which they believed that the will of the gods could be determined; and if any unfavourable omen was discovered, either then or at any subsequent time, the assembly was at once dismissed. 3.  The right of taking auspices was long the peculiar privilege of the patricians, and frequently afforded them pretexts for evading the demands of the plebeians; when a popular law was to be proposed, it was easy to discover some unfavourable omen which prohibited discussion; when it was evident that the centuries were about to annul some patrician privilege, the augurs readily saw or heard some signal of divine wrath, which prevented the vote from being completed.  It was on this account that the plebeians would not consent to place the comitia tributa under the sanction of the auspices.

4.  The augurs were at first only three in number, but they were in later ages increased to fifteen, and formed into a college.  Nothing of importance was transacted without their concurrence in the earlier ages of the republic, but after the second punic war, their influence was considerably diminished.[2] 5.  They derived omens from five sources:  1, from celestial phenomena, such as thunder, lightning, comets, &c.; 2, from the flight of birds; 3, from the feeding of the sacred chickens; 4, from the appearance of a beast in any unusual place; 5, from any accident that occurred unexpectedly.