of Ennius has grown into a triple truth, and there are no less than three distinct religions:  the religion of poets, of philosophers, and of statesmen.  The religion of the poets, by which he means the mythological treatment of the gods, he condemns as worthless because it tells a great many things about the gods which are not true and which are entirely unworthy of them.  The religion of philosophers he does not consider suitable to the state, because it contains many things which are superfluous, and some which are injurious.  The superfluous things may be allowed to pass, but the injurious things, by which he evidently means the doctrines of Euhemeros, are a very serious matter, not because they are untrue but because the knowledge of them is inexpedient for the masses.  The religion of the statesman can have no part in these things, even if they are true; and a man as a citizen of the state must believe in many things, or profess belief in them, which the same man, as an individual and a philosopher, knows are false.  Scaevola’s honest well-intentioned effort to support the religion of the state was naturally a failure.  The very “masses” in whose behalf Scaevola was calling on his fellow-citizens to undergo these casuistical gymnastics soon cared more for Bellona and Isis than for all the gods of Numa together.  But we cannot help admiring Scaevola for his patriotism, though we may not envy him his ethics.  The state religion could never be supported on the arguments of expediency; every one granted its expediency, and still it fell; its worst enemies, the politicians, granted it most of all, and they were the only ones who put the doctrine to any practical use.  It was precisely this discovery of its expediency and its great practical value which caused its downfall.  From the practical standpoint the problem was settled once and for all, but as a matter of theory it remained for the next generation, in the person of Varro, to provide a more satisfactory solution, and to effect something of a compromise between the truth of philosophy and the truth of religion.

Marcus Terentius Varro came to the work equipped with all the learning of his time and possessed of a greater knowledge of facts than any other Roman of his or any other day.  So far as the problem of religion was concerned, he embodied this learning in the sixteen books of Divine Antiquities, which he very appropriately dedicated to Julius Caesar in his capacity as Pontifex Maximus.  If Ennius’s Sacra Historia be left out of account, his book was the first treatise on systematic theology which Rome ever had.  In this work he desired to accomplish three things:  first, by a review of the history of Rome to show how essential the state religion was; second, by an examination of Greek mythology to purify the state religion from its immoral influences; third, to show that the state religion so purified was fully in accord with Stoic philosophy.  In regard to the “three religions,” therefore, he agreed