Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius Part 12

Hadrian, that lover of the exotic and the curious, was particularly fascinated by the East. He had probably no settled faith of any kind, but he dabbled in astrology, as he dabbled in all other arts.(2324) It was a study which had been cultivated in his family. His great-uncle, Aelius Hadria.n.u.s, was an adept in the science of the stars, and had read the prediction of his nephew's future greatness.(2325) When the future emperor was a young military tribune in lower Moesia, he found the forecast confirmed by a local astrologer. He consulted the _sortes Virgilianae_ about his prospects, with not less hopeful results. He practised with intense curiosity other dark magical arts, and the mysterious death of Antinous on the Nile was by many believed to have been an immolation for the Emperor's safety.(2326) Hadrian was glad to think that the spirit of his minion had pa.s.sed into a new star which had then for the first time appeared. On every 1st of January, Hadrian predicted, with perfect a.s.surance, the events of the year, down to his own last hour.(2327) Even the last great imperial figure in our period is not free from the suspicion of having tampered with the dark arts. Julius Capitolinus reports a rumour that M. Aurelius consulted the Chaldaeans about the infatuated pa.s.sion of Faustina for a gladiator.(2328) In his account of the famous rainfall that miraculously refreshed the Roman troops in the Marcomannic war, D. Ca.s.sius ascribes the miracle to the magic arts of an Egyptian sorcerer whom M. Aurelius kept in his train.(2329) Xiphilinus, however, who attributes the marvel to the prayers of the Thundering Legion, expressly denies that the emperor gave his countenance to these impostors. Another suspicious incident comes to us on the authority of Lucian. When the war on the Danube was at its height, the new oracle of Alexander of Abonoteichos had, by mingled audacity and skill, rapidly gained an extraordinary influence even among the greatest n.o.bles in Italy.

Rutilia.n.u.s, one of the foremost among them, was its special patron and devotee, and actually married the daughter of Alexander by an amour with Selene! Probably through his influence, an oracle, in verse of the old Delphic pattern, was despatched to the headquarters of the emperor, ordering that a pair of lions should be flung into the Danube, with costly sacrifices and all the fragrant odours of the East.(2330) The oracle was obeyed, but the rite was followed by an appalling disaster to the Roman arms. The impostor was equal to the occasion, and defended himself by the example of the ambiguity of the Delphic oracle to Croesus, before the victory of Cyrus. What part M. Aurelius had in this scene we cannot pretend to tell, but the ceremony could hardly have been performed without, at least, his connivance. Nor does his philosophic att.i.tude exclude the possibility of a certain faith in oracular foresight and divination. He believed that everything in our earthly lot was ordained from eternity, and, with the Stoic fatalism, he may have held the almost universal Stoic faith in the power to discover the decrees of fate.(2331)

Nearly all the writers from whom we derive our impressions of that age were more or less tinged with its superst.i.tions. Even the elder Pliny, who rejected almost with scorn the popular religion, was led by a dream to undertake his history of the wars in Germany.(2332) His nephew, although he rejoiced at being raised to the augurate, and restored a temple of Ceres on his lands, seems to have clung to the old religion rather as a matter of sentiment than from any real faith. But he had a genuine belief in dreams and apparitions, and he sends his friend Sura an elaborate account of the romance of a haunted house at Athens.(2333) His friend Suetonius had been disturbed by a dream as to the success of a cause in which he was to appear. Pliny consoled him with the hackneyed interpretation of dreams by contraries.(2334) The biographer of the Caesars may contend with Dion Ca.s.sius for the honour of being probably the most superst.i.tious chronicler who ever dealt with great events. Suetonius is shocked by the arrogance of Julius Caesar when he treated with disdain the warning of a diviner from the inspection of a victim's entrails.(2335) He glorifies the pious Augustus by a long catalogue of signs and celestial omens which foretold the events of his career.(2336) Suetonius must have been as keen in collecting these old wives' tales as the more sober facts of history,(2337) and, if we may believe him, the palace of the Caesars for a hundred years was as full of supernatural wonders and the terrors of magic and dark prophecy as the Thessalian villages of Apuleius.(2338) The superst.i.tions of the Claudian and Flavian Caesars could nowhere have found a more sympathetic chronicler.

Immensely superior in genius as Tacitus is to Suetonius, even he is not emanc.i.p.ated from the superst.i.tion of the age. But he wavers in his superst.i.tion, just as he wavers in his conception of the Divine government of the world.(2339) Although he occasionally mentions, and briefly discusses, the tenets of the Epicurean and the Stoic schools, it does not seem probable that Tacitus had much taste for philosophy. Full of the old senatorial ideals, he considered such a study, if carried to any depth, or pursued with absorbing earnestness, to be unbecoming the gravity and dignity of a man of rank and affairs.(2340) Moreover, his views of human destiny and the Divine government were coloured and saddened by the Terror. Having lived himself through the reign of Domitian, and seen all the horrors of its close, having witnessed, in humiliating silence, the excesses of frenzied power and the servility of cringing compliance, Tacitus had little faith either in Divine benevolence or in tempted human virtue.(2341) Even the quiet and security of Trajan's reign seemed to him but a precarious interval, not to be too eagerly or confidently enjoyed, between the terror of the past and the probable dangers of a coming age.(2342) The corruption of Roman virtue has justly earned the anger of G.o.ds, who no longer visit to protect, but only to avenge.(2343) And, in the chaos of human affairs, the Divine justice is confused; the good suffer equally with the guilty.(2344) Amid obscure and guarded utterances, we can divine that, to Tacitus, the ruling force in human fortunes is a destiny which is blind to the deserts of those who are its sport.(2345) He probably held the widespread belief that the fate of each man was fixed for him at his birth, and, although he has a profound scorn for the venality and falsehood of the Chaldaean tribe, he probably had a wavering faith in the efficacy of their lore.(2346) Nor did he reject miracle and supernatural portent on any ground of a scientific conception of the universe.(2347) His language on such subjects is often perhaps studiously ambiguous. Sometimes he appears to report the tale of a portent, as a mere piece of vulgar superst.i.tion. But at other times, he records the marvel with no expression of scepticism.(2348) And in his narrative of Otho's death and the miracles of Vespasian, the threats of heaven which ushered in Galba's brief reign in darkness broken by lurid lightnings, the neglected signs of the coming doom of Jerusalem, the glare of arms from contending armies in the sky, the ghostly voices, as of G.o.ds departing from the Holy of Holies, as in the tale of many another omen, dream, or oracle, the historian gives an awe and grandeur to a superst.i.tion which he does not explicitly reject.(2349)

Nor need we be superciliously surprised that the greatest master of historic tragedy, born into such an age, should have had the balance of his faith disturbed. His infancy and boyhood coincided with the last years of Nero.(2350) His youthful imagination must have been disordered and inflamed by the tales, circulating in grave old Senatorial houses, of wild excess or mysterious crime on the Palatine, the daring caprice of imperial harlots, the regal power and fabulous wealth and luxury of the imperial freedmen, the lunacy of the great line which had founded the Empire, and which seemed destined to end it in shame and universal ruin. That the destinies of the world should be at the mercy of a Pallas, a Caligula, or an Agrippina was a cruel trial to any faith. The carnival of l.u.s.t and carnage in which the dynasty disappeared,(2351) the shock of the fierce struggle on the Po, in which the legions of the East and the West fought with demoniac force for the great prize, deepened the horrors of the tragedy and the gloomy doubts of its future historian. The dawn of a timorous hope, which broke under the calm, strong rule of Vespasian, was overcast, during the early manhood of Tacitus, by the old insanity of power which seemed to revive in the last of the Flavians. Such an experience and such an atmosphere were enough to disorder any imagination.

The wild t.i.tanic ambition in the Claudian Caesars, a strange mixture of vicious, hereditary insanity,(2352) with a fevered imagination which, intoxicated with almost superhuman power, dreamt of unheard of conquests over nature, made the Julio-Claudian emperors, in the eyes of men, a race half-fiend, half-G.o.d. Men hated and loathed them, yet were ready to deify them. It did not seem unnatural that Caligula should throw a gigantic arch over the Forum, to link the imperial palace with the temple of Jupiter on the Capitol.(2353) Men long refused to believe in the death of Nero, and his reappearance was expected for generations.(2354) In spite of the Augustan revival, the calm, if rather formal, sanity of old Roman religion had lost its power over cultivated minds. The East, with its fatalist superst.i.tions, its apotheosis of lofty earthly sovereignty, its enthronement of an evil power beside the good, was completing the overthrow of the national faith. The air was full of the lawless and the supernatural. Science, in the modern sense, was yet unborn; it was a mere rudimentary ma.s.s of random guesses, with as little right to command the reason as the legends which sprang from the same lawless imagination.

Philosophic speculation in any high sense had almost disappeared. The most powerful system which still lingered, resolved the G.o.ds into mere names for the various potencies of that dim and awful Power which thrills through the universe, which fixes from the beginning the destinies of men and nations, and which deigns to shadow forth its decrees in omen or oracle. Awestruck and helpless in the face of a cruel and omnipresent despotism, with little light from accredited systems of philosophy or religion, what wonder that even the highest and most cultivated minds were darkened and bewildered, and were even ready to lend an ear to the sorcery of the mysterious East? The hesitating acceptance of the popular belief in clairvoyance hardly surprises us in a man like Tacitus, bewildered by the chaos of the Empire, and possessing few reasoned convictions in religion or philosophy. It is more surprising to find so detached a mind as Epictetus recognising in some sort the power of divination. He admits that men are driven to practise it by cowardice or selfish greed.(2355) He agrees that the diviner can only predict the external changes of fortune, and that on their moral bearing, on the question whether they are really good or evil, he can throw no light. Yet even this preacher of a universal Providence, of the doctrine that our true good and happiness are in our own hands, will not altogether deny that the augur can forecast the future. We should, indeed, Epictetus says, come to consult him, without any selfish pa.s.sion, as a wayfarer asks of a man whom he meets which of two roads leads to his journey's end.(2356) But the field for such guidance is limited, Where the light of reason or conscience is a sufficient guide, the diviner's art is either useless or corrupting. Nor should any ominous signs deter a man from sharing a friend's peril, even though the diviner may give warning of exile or death.

Next to Aristides, there is probably no writer who reveals so strikingly the mingled pietism and superst.i.tion of the time as Aelian. Although he preferred to compose his works in Greek, he was a native of the Latian Praeneste, that cool retreat of the wearied Roman, and the seat of the famous shrine of Fortuna Primigenia.(2357) It is a disputed point whether Aelian belongs to the second century or the third. But the more probable conclusion, favoured by the authority of Suidas, is that he lived shortly after the time of Hadrian.(2358) His historical Miscellanies are a good example of that uncritical treatment of history and love of the sensational which were held up to scorn by Lucian.(2359) But it is in the fragments of his work on Providence, that we have the best ill.u.s.tration of his religious att.i.tude. The immediate interference of the Heavenly Powers, to reward the pious believer, or to punish the defiant sceptic, is triumphantly proclaimed. Miracles, oracles, presages, and warning dreams startle the reader on every page. Aelian wages war _a outrance_ with the effeminate and profane crew of the Epicureans, whom he would certainly have handed over pitilessly to the secular arm, if he had had the power.(2360) He records with delight the physical maladies which are said to have afflicted Epicurus and his brothers, and the persecution of their sect at Messene and in Crete.(2361) After the tale of some specially impressive interference of Providence, he launches ferocious anathemas at the most famous sceptics, Xenophanes, Diagoras, and Epicurus.(2362) He pursues Epicurus even to the tomb, and pours all his scorn on the unbelieving voluptuary's arrangements for biennial banquets to his shade.(2363) He exults in the fate of one who, without initiation, tried to get a sight of the holy spectacle at Eleusis, and perished by falling from his secret point of observation.(2364) It is needless to say that miraculous cures by Asclepius are related with the most exuberant faith.

Aristarchus the tragic poet, and Theopompus the comedian, were restored from wasting and hopeless sickness by the G.o.d.(2365) Another patient of the shrine had the vision, which was probably often a real fact, of a priest standing beside his bed in the night, bringing counsels of healing.(2366) But the climax of ludicrous credulity is reached in the tale of the pious c.o.c.k of Tanagra.(2367) This favoured bird, being maimed in one leg, appeared before the shrine of Asclepius, holding out the injured limb, and, taking his place in the choir that sung the morning paean, begged the G.o.d for relief and healing. It came before the evening, and the grateful bird, with crest erect, with stately tread, and flapping wings, gave voice to his deliverance in his own peculiar notes of praise!

The Divine vengeance is also displayed a.s.serting itself in dreams. A traveller, stopping for the night at Megara, had been murdered for his purse of gold by the keeper of his inn, and his corpse, hidden in a dung-cart, was carried through the gates before dawn. At that very hour his wraith appeared to a citizen of the place, and told him the tale of the tragedy. The treacherous a.s.sa.s.sin was caught at the very point indicated by the ghost.(2368) The last dream of Philemon is of a more pleasing kind.(2369) The poet, being then in his full vigour, and in possession of all his powers, once had a vision in his home at Peiraeus.

He thought he saw nine maidens leaving the house, and heard them bidding him adieu. When he awoke, he told the tale to his boy, and finished the play on which he was at work; then, wrapping himself in his cloak, he lay down to sleep, and when they came to wake him, he was dead. Aelian challenges Epicurus to deny that the maidens of the vision were the nine Muses, quitting an abode which was soon to be polluted by death.

Publius Aelius Aristides is one of the best representatives of the union of high culture with the forces of the religious revival. He saw the beginning and the end of the Antonine age. He was born in 117 A.D. at Adriani, in Mysia, where his family held a high position, his father being priest of Zeus. He received the most complete rhetorical training, and had been a pupil of Herodes Atticus. Travelling through Greece, Italy, and Egypt, and giving exhibitions of his skill in the fas.h.i.+on of the day,(2370) Aristides won a splendid reputation, which swelled his vanity to proportions rare even in a cla.s.s whose vanity was proverbial. He won the restoration of the ruined Smyrna from M. Aurelius, by an oration which moved the Emperor to tears.(2371) With a naturally feeble const.i.tution and epileptic tendencies, the excitement of the sophist's life brought on an illness which lasted thirteen years. During that long ordeal, he developed a mystic superst.i.tion which, along with an ever-growing self-consciousness, inspired the _Sacred Orations_, which appeared in 177, long after his health had been restored. He visited many seats of sacred healing-Smyrna, Pergamum, Cyzicus, Epidaurus-and, often in a cataleptic state, between sleep and waking, he had visitations of the Higher Powers in dreams. They gave him prescriptions of the strangest remedies, along with eulogies on his unrivalled talent, which he was solemnly enjoined to devote to the celebration of his deliverance by the Divine favour.(2372)

Aristides zealously obeyed the Divine command. But whether his sole inspiration was simple grat.i.tude and unsophisticated piety, crossed by superst.i.tion, as has generally been a.s.sumed, may well be doubted.(2373) The truth is, that in Aristides met all the complex influences of his age, both intellectual and spiritual. He was the most elaborate product of the rhetorical school, with its cultivated mastery of phrase, its exuberant pride in the power of words, its indifference to truth, in comparison with rhetorical effect. The whole force of revived h.e.l.lenism was concentrated in this declamatory skill.(2374) At the same time, the religious revival was very far from being a return to the old religion, in its clear firm outlines and simple wholeness.(2375) The Zeus and Athene and Poseidon of the age of Aristides were not the divinities of the great age. Many influences had been at work to blur the clean-cut outlines of h.e.l.lenic imagination, and to sophisticate the ancestral faith both of Greece and Rome. Men wished to believe in the ancient G.o.ds, but they were no longer the G.o.ds of Homer or of Aeschylus, the G.o.ds wors.h.i.+pped by the men who fought in the Samnite or the Punic wars. Greek philosophy for eight centuries had been teaching a doctrine of one Divine force or essence, transcending the powers and limitations of sense, or immanent in the fleeting world of chance and change. Pagan theology had elaborated a celestial hierarchy, in which the Deity, removed to an infinite distance, was remotely linked to humanity by a graduated scale of inferior spiritual beings, daemons, and heroes.(2376) Then came the religions of the East, with their doctrines of expiation for sin and ascetic preparation for communion, and visions of immortality. And, alongside of all these developments, there was a portentous growth of vulgar superst.i.tion, belief in dreams, omens, and oracles, in any avenue to the "Great Mystery."

Sophistic rhetoric, from its very nature and function, was bound to reflect the religious spirit of the age, in all its confusion. The ancient myths, indeed, were revived and decked out with rich poetic colouring. Yet it is not the simple, nave, old pagan faith which inspires the rhetorical artist. The pantheistic or theosophist doctrines, which were in the air, disturbed the antique character of the piece.(2377) But the sophist, if he occasionally catches the tone of new mysticism, or even of rationalist interpretation, is nothing if not orthodox on the whole, and he anathematises the impiety of free-thinking philosophy, with the same energy as Aelian. Above all, Aristides is in harmony with the infinite faith in miracle and heavenly vision which was rife.

From whatever cause, the wors.h.i.+p of Asclepius had attained an extraordinary popularity in the age of the Antonines.(2378) The conditions of health and disease are so obscure, the influences of will and imagination on our bodily states are so marked, that, in all ages, the boundaries between the natural and the unknowable are blurred and may be easily crossed. The science of medicine, even down to the age of Hippocrates, or the age of Galen, had not abandoned all faith in the magical and mysterious.(2379) Incantations long held their ground beside more scientific remedies. Health being the most precious and the most precarious of earthly blessings, it is not strange that, in an age of revived belief in the supernatural, the G.o.d of health should attain a rank even on level with the great Olympian G.o.ds. His temples rose in every land where Greek or Roman culture prevailed. They were generally built with an eye to beauty of scenery, or the virtues of some clear, cold, ancient spring, or other health-giving powers in the site, which might reinforce the more mysterious influences of religion. And in every temple there was a hierarchy of sacred servants, who guarded a tradition of hieratic ceremonial and of medical science.(2380) There was the chief priest, who may or may not have been a trained physician. There were the _daduchi_ and _pyrophori_, who attended to the punctual service of the altars. There were the _neocori_, who were probably physicians, and who waited on the patients, interpreting their visions, and often supplementing them by other visions of their own.(2381) There were also, in a lower rank, nurses, male and female, who, if we may judge from Aristides, performed the sympathetic part of our own hospital-nurses.(2382) The patients came from all parts of the Graeco-Roman world. After certain offerings and rites, the sufferer took his place in the long dormitory, which often contained beds for 200 or 300, with windows open all night long to the winds of the south. The sick man brought his bed-coverings, and made his gift on the altar. The lamps were lighted in the long gallery, a priest recited the vesper prayers. At a later hour, the lights were extinguished, strict silence was enjoined, and a hope for some soothing vision from above was left as a parting gift or salutation by the minister as he retired.(2383)

Divination by dreams was one of the most ancient and universal of superst.i.tions in the pagan world.(2384) It was also one of the most persistent to the last days of paganism in the West. The G.o.d of Epidaurus was still visiting his votaries by night, when S. Jerome was composing his commentary on Isaiah.(2385) Nor is the superst.i.tion unnatural. Sleep, the most mysterious of physical phenomena, gives birth to mental states which are a constant surprise. Thoughts and powers which are latent in the waking hours, then start into life with a strange vividness and energy.

Memory and imagination operate with a force which may well, in an age of faith, be taken for inspiration. The illusion of a double personality, which results from the helplessness of the mind to react on the impressions of sense, also easily pa.s.ses into the illusion of messages and promptings from powers beyond ourselves. Religious hopes and cravings may thus easily and honestly seem to be fulfilled.

But external causes also reinforced in the ancient world the deceptions of the inner spirit. The dream-oracle was generally on a site where nature might touch the awe and imagination of the votary. Few could have descended into the gloom of the cave of Trophonius without having their fancy prepared for visions.(2386) Exhalations from secret chasms, as at Delphi and Lebadea, aided by the weird spells of the Nymphs who haunted such scenes, often produced a physical excitement akin to madness. Opiates and potions administered by the priests, with the effect of solemn religious rites, prepared the votary for voices from another world.(2387) Soul and body were still further prepared for the touch of a Divine hand by rigorous fasting, which was enjoined as a preparatory discipline in so many mysteries of the renascent paganism.(2388) The heavenly vision could only come to the clear spirit, purged as far as might be from the grossness of the flesh.(2389) _??????s??_ for the sake of healing became a great, and probably in the main, a beneficent inst.i.tution in the temples of many deities,(2390) pre-eminently in those of Isis, Serapis, and Asclepius. The temple of Serapis at Canopus in Strabo's time was thronged by patients of the n.o.blest rank, and was famous for its miraculous cures.(2391) Among the many attributes of Queen Isis, none made a deeper impression than her benignant power of healing even the most desperate cases.(2392) Her temples rose everywhere. Her dream interpreters were famous from the days of Cicero.(2393) In her shrine at Smyrna Aristides had many of his most startling experiences. According to Diodorus, her priests could point to numberless proofs of the power of the great G.o.ddess to cure the most inveterate disease. But the great healer was, of course, Asclepius. The remains of his splendid shrine at Epidaurus are a revelation at once of his fame and power, and of the scenes and occupations in which the devout health-seekers pa.s.sed their days and nights. In his temple on the island in the Tiber, dreams of healing were still sought in the time of Iamblichus. His shrine at Pergamum, which was the scene of so many of the strange visions of Aristides, in his many years of struggle with disease, was one of the most famous, and its inspired dreams were sought long afterwards by the emperor Caracalla.(2394)

It would be idle to speculate on the relative effects of sound medical treatment and of superst.i.tion, stimulated by more or less pious arts, upon the const.i.tution of the sufferer. The virtues of herb or mineral drug, of regulated food and abstinence, of bathing in naturally medicated waters, above all of a continual freshness in the air, must have become a tradition in these sacred homes of the G.o.d of health. Physical disease is often rooted in moral disorder, and for such troubled, tainted souls, with hereditary poison in vein and nerve, the bright cheerfulness, the orderly calm and confidence of the ritual, which had such a charm for the soul of Plutarch, may have exorcised, for the time, many an evil spirit, and wiped out the memory of old sins. Soothed and relieved in mind and body, the sufferer lay in the dimly lighted corridor, sinking to sleep, with a confidence that the G.o.d would somehow make his power felt in visions of the night.(2395) Through a sliding panel, hidden in the wall, a dim figure of gracious aspect might glide to the side of his couch, and whisper strange sweet words of comfort. But in many cases, there is no need to a.s.sume the existence of sanctified imposture.(2396) A debilitated frame, nerves shattered by prolonged suffering, an imagination excited by sacred litany, ghostly counsels and tales of miracle, the all-pervading atmosphere of an immemorial faith, may easily have engendered visions which seemed to come from another world.(2397)

But from whatever source the visions came, they had a powerful effect on the imagination, and, through that, on the bodily health. Some of the prescriptions indeed given by these voices of the night may seem to us ludicrous or positively dangerous.(2398) But the tone and surroundings of these shrines, and the sense of being encompa.s.sed by Divine as well as human sympathy, probably counteracted any ill effects of quackery. The calm, serene order, which the hieratic spirit cultivates at its best, the cheerful routine of the sacred service, blending indistinguishably with the ministry to suffering, and consecrating and enn.o.bling it, the confidence inspired by the sedate cheerfulness of the priests and attendants, reinforced by the countless cases of miraculous cures recorded on the walls,(2399)-all this must have had a powerful and beneficent influence. And the visitors were not all invalids. The games and festivals drew together many merely for society and amus.e.m.e.nt. The theatre at Epidaurus must have provided constant entertainment for a far larger concourse than the patients of the temple.(2400) A healthy regimen, which is abundantly attested,(2401) with the charms of art and surrounding beauties of hill and woodland, tended of themselves to restore peace and balance to disordered nerves. And the social life, especially to Greeks, was probably the most potent influence of all. We can see from Aristides that troublesome cases were watched by a circle of curious sympathisers.(2402) In those marble seats, which can still be seen on the site, many a group, through many generations, must have sat listening to music or recitation, or discussing high themes of life and death, or amused with the more trivial gossip of all gatherings of men.

Amid such scenes Aristides spent thirteen years of the prime of his manhood. With all the egotism of the self-pitying invalid, he has recorded the minutest details of his ailments. He seems to have been disordered in every organ, dropsical, asthmatic, dyspeptic, with a tumour of portentous size, and agonising pains which reduced him to the extremity of weakness.(2403) But the extraordinary toughness and vitality of the man is even more striking than his sufferings. Aristides regarded health as the greatest of all blessings, the condition on which the value of all other blessings depends. And he acted on the belief. His hundred days journey to Rome is a miracle of endurance.(2404) Racked with fever and asthma, unable to take any food except milk, he struggled along, alternately through plains turned into lakes, or across the frozen Hebrus, amid storm or rain or freezing cold.

The effects of this journey in aggravated suffering from asthma, dropsy, nervous agony, are described with painful vividness. They were dealt with by the Roman surgeons in a fas.h.i.+on which makes one wonder how the patient survived such laceration.(2405) The invalid hastened home to Asia by sea.

The voyage was long and weary, a very Odyssey of storm and wandering.

Aristides reached Smyrna in mid-winter, and all the physicians were puzzled to find any alleviation for his troubles.(2406) Henceforth he pa.s.sed, for thirteen years, from one temple to another, at the bidding of the G.o.ds-from Smyrna to Pergamum, or Chios, or Cyzicus, or Epidaurus-enduring often frightful hards.h.i.+ps by land or sea. The description of his sufferings sometimes excites the suspicion that a warm imagination and the vanity of the literary artist have heightened the effect. A tumour of monstrous size,(2407) agonies of palpitation and breathlessness, the torture of dyspepsia, vertigo, and neuralgia which doubled up his limbs, and seemed to bend the spine outward like a bow(2408)-these are only a few of the morbid horrors which afflicted him.

The divine prescriptions were often as astounding as the malady was severe. Fresh air, exercise, bathing in the sacred wells, fasting and abstinence, indeed, may often have been sound treatment. But to these were added astonis.h.i.+ng prescriptions of food or drugs, purgings and blood-letting which drained the body of its slight remaining strength, and which horrified the attendant physicians.(2409) But these were not the worst. Again and again, Aristides was enjoined, when in a high fever, to bathe two or three times in an ice-cold river running in full flood, and then race a mile at full speed in the face of a northerly gale. He obeyed in spite of all remonstrance, and the doctors and his anxious friends could only follow him to await the result of such extraordinary remedies.

Strange to relate, their fears and forebodings proved groundless.

Religious excitement, combined with immense vanity and a strange vitality, carried Aristides victoriously through these ordeals,(2410) and his friends received him at their close, with an indescribable genial warmth spreading through his whole body, and a lightness and cheerfulness of spirit which more than rewarded him for these strange hards.h.i.+ps of superst.i.tion.

The faith of Aristides must have been very robust. His tortures lasted for nearly thirteen years, during which the divine prescriptions only seemed to add to their poignancy. But he was upheld by the belief that he was a special object of the Divine favour, and he persistently followed Divine recipes, which ordinary human skill and prudence would have rejected. No doubts, such as troubled his attendants, ever crossed his mind. How far his illness was prolonged by this obstinate adherence to the illusions of sleep and superst.i.tion,(2411) in the face of expert advice, is a matter on which it would be useless to speculate. It is probable that the imagination and exuberant vanity of Aristides made him a more difficult patient than the ordinary people who frequented these shrines of healing.

It is also evident that there was a body of more or less skilled medical opinion connected with the cult of Asclepius. Practical physicians came to the temples,(2412) with the benevolence and the curiosity of their craft in all ages, to observe and study, or to advise a cautious interpretation of the revelations of the night. Aristides has preserved the names of some-Theodotus, Asclepiacus, and Satyrus. Long observation of the freaks of individual temperament and const.i.tution must have suggested to thoughtful minds, with some instincts of scientific method, that the supernatural vision should be interpreted in the light of experience. An awful dream of Aristides that all his bones and sinews must be excised, turned, in the hands of a faithful attendant, into a prediction of renewed vitality.(2413) And although some of the nurses, to whom he is so grateful, confirmed his visions by precisely similar revelations of their own,(2414) others, of the more skilled physicians, openly blamed his too confident reliance on his dreams, and his unwillingness to try the effect of more scientific treatment.(2415) Their proposals, however, were sometimes so severe and heroic that we may excuse him for preferring on the whole the more patient and gentle methods of the G.o.d. The sufferer was sometimes favoured with epiphanies of Athene, Apollo, Serapis, and other great divinities, exalting him far above the rank of common votaries.(2416) And Asclepius himself, to whom his special devotion was given, not only lightened his physical tortures, although after long years, but endowed him with hitherto unknown powers of rhetorical skill and readiness. The G.o.d became the patron of his whole professional life.(2417) And Aristides regarded him as the source of fresh inspiration, in the exercise of that wordcraft of which he was the greatest master in his time. It is not hard to discern the meaning of this self-deception.

Before Aristides began to visit the temples of the G.o.d, he was already a finished rhetor, possessed of all the skill which the Greek schools could impart.(2418) Prostrated by bodily suffering for years, cut off from that life of brilliant display, which was so lavishly rewarded by applauding crowds, the vain and ambitious declaimer had lost not only his bodily health, but all the joy and excitement of rhetorical triumph. Suddenly he found his balance restored; the tide of energy returned to its old channels. He could once more draw music from the almost forgotten instrument. He had once more the full lecture-hall under his spell. What wonder that he should feel his powers redoubled when they were recovered, and that he should regard the G.o.d who had healed his bodily ailments as the author of a fresh literary inspiration?

The debt was repaid in these Sacred Orations.(2419) Some treat them as the expression of a genuine mystical piety, others are inclined to think that the incorrigible rhetorician is quite as evident as the pious votary.(2420) It would be an excess of scepticism to doubt that Aristides believed in his visions, and in the beneficent power of the G.o.d, for which he was full of pious grat.i.tude. Yet the rhetorical spirit of that age was an influence of singular intensity. It mastered not only the faculty of utterance, but the whole mind and life of the rhetorician. The pa.s.sion to produce a startling or seductive effect on the audience had become a second nature. Truth was a secondary matter, not from any moral obliquity, but from the influence of prolonged training. And so, we may retain a belief in the genuine piety or superst.i.tion of Aristides, while we may distrust his narrative. The piety or the mystic superst.i.tion may not have been less sincere, although it was mingled with egregious vanity, and expressed itself in the carefully moulded and highly coloured phrases of the schools. Nor should we doubt the piety of Aristides because he deemed himself the special object of Divine favour. On such a principle all prayer for personal benefits would become profane egotism. And although Aristides was profoundly conscious that he was the first of Greek orators,(2421) he was also profoundly grateful for the Divine grace which had renewed his powers for the glory of G.o.d and the delight and profit of mankind. Whether he would have been content to enjoy his mystic raptures without publis.h.i.+ng them to the world, is a question which will be variously answered according to the charity and spiritual experience of the inquirer.

Many another less famous shrine than that of Epidaurus offered this kind of revelation. The G.o.ds were liberal in their prophetic gifts in that age, and dreams were as freely sent as they were generally expected. There is no more striking example of the superst.i.tion of the age than the treatise of Artemidorus on the interpretation of dreams. Artemidorus lived towards the end of the second century. He was a native of Ephesus, but he called himself Daldia.n.u.s, in order to share his distinction with an obscure little town in Lydia, which was the birthplace of his mother.(2422) The treatise is in five books, three of which are dedicated to Ca.s.sius Maximus, a Roman of rank, who was an adept in this pretended science; the others are inscribed to the son of the author. In spite of absurd credulity, wild and perverted ingenuity and a cold, quasi-scientific tolerance of some of the worst moral enormities of antiquity, Artemidorus seems to have been an earnest and industrious man, who wrote with the mistaken object of doing a service both to his own age and to posterity.(2423) Like other pious men of the time, he was afflicted by the profane att.i.tude of the sceptics,(2424) and determined to refute them by the solid proofs of a sifted experience. He also wished to furnish guidance to the crowd, who believed in their visions, but were bewildered from the want of clear canons of interpretation. There was evidently afloat a voluminous oneirocritic literature. But it was, according to Artemidorus, frequently wanting in depth and system,(2425) and random guesses had too often been the subst.i.tute for minute, exhaustive observation and a clear scientific method. Artemidorus was inspired to supply the want by a vision from Apollo, his ancestral patron.(2426) He procured every known treatise on dreams.(2427) He travelled all over Asia, Greece, and Italy, and the larger islands, visiting the great festivals and centres of population, and consulting with all the seers and diviners, even those of the lowest repute. He took the greatest pains to ascertain the facts of the reported fulfilment of dreams, and to compare and sift the facts of his own observation. No austere scientific student of nature in our day ever took himself more seriously than this collector of the wildest and foulest hallucinations of pagan imagination. Artemidorus really believed that he was founding an enduring science for the guidance of all coming generations.

Yet the foundation of it all is essentially unscientific. To Artemidorus dreams are not the result of natural causes, of physical states, or of the suggestions of memory and a.s.sociation. They are sent directly by some G.o.d, as a promise or warning of the future. Nor should any apparent failure of the prediction tempt us to impeach the truthfulness of the Divine author.

Artemidorus affirms as emphatically as Plato, that the G.o.ds can never lie.(2428) But although they sometimes express themselves plainly, they also frequently veil their meaning in shadowy, enigmatic form, in order to test men's faith and patience.(2429) Hence there is need of skilled interpretation, which demands the widest observation, acute criticism combined with reverent faith, and deference to ancient custom and traditional lore. It is curious to see how this apostle of what, to our minds, is a pestilent superst.i.tion, pours his scorn on the newer or lower forms of divination.(2430) The Pythagorean dream-readers, the interpreters from hand and face and form, the interpreters of sieve and dish and dice, are all deceivers and charlatans. The old formulated and accredited lore of birds and sacrificial entrails, of dreams and stars and heavenly portents, should alone be accepted by an orthodox faith. It is needless to say that Artemidorus believed in astrology as he believed in oneiromancy.

Both beliefs go back to the infancy of the race, and both extended their dominion far into the Middle Ages.(2431)

It would be impossible, in our s.p.a.ce, to give any detailed conception of the treatment of dreams by Artemidorus. Nor would the attempt reward the pains; the curious specialist must read the treatise for himself. He will find in it one of the most astonis.h.i.+ng efforts of besotted credulity to disguise itself under the forms of scientific inquiry. He will find an apparently genuine piety united with an unprotesting record of the most revolting prurience of the lawless fancy. He will find a subtlety and formalism of system and distinction worthy of a finished schoolman of the fourteenth century, and all employed to give order and meaning to the wildest vagaries of vulgar fancy. The cla.s.sification of dreams by Artemidorus is a great effort, and is followed out in an exhaustive order.

Every possible subject, and many that seem to a modern almost inconceivable, are catalogued, each in its proper place, with the appropriate principles of explanation. The hierarchy of G.o.ds and heroes in their various grades, the orbs of the sky, the various parts of the bodily frame, from the hair of the head to the toes and nails, the various occupations and multiform incidents in the life of man from the cradle to the grave,(2432) the whole list of animals, plants, and drugs which serve his uses,-all these things, and many others which might conceivably, or inconceivably, enter into the fabric of a dream, are painfully collected and arranged for the guidance of the future inquirer. And this demands not only an effort of logical cla.s.sification, but also an immense knowledge of the customs and peculiarities of different races,(2433) the special attributes of each of the G.o.ds, and a minute acquaintance with the natural history of the time. For, special circ.u.mstances and details cannot be safely neglected in the interpretation of dreams. It may make the greatest difference whether the same dream comes to a rich man or a poor man,(2434) to a man or a woman, to a married woman or a virgin, to old or young, to king or subject. To one it may mean the greatest of blessings, to another calamity or death. For instance, for a priest of Isis to dream of a shaven head is of good omen; to any other person it is ominous of evil.(2435) To dream that you have the head of a lion or elephant is a prediction of a rise above your natural estate; but to dream that you have the horns of an ox portends violent death.(2436) To dream of shoemaking and carpentry foretells happy marriage and friends.h.i.+p, but the vision of a tanner's yard, from its connection with foul odours and death, may foreshadow disgrace and disaster.(2437) To dream of drinking cold water is a wholesome sign; but a fancied draught of hot fluid, as being unnatural, may forbode disease or failure.(2438) A man dreamt that his mother was bearing him a second time; the issue was that he returned from exile to his motherland, found his mother ill, and inherited her property. Another had a vision of an olive shooting from his head; he developed a vigour and clearness of thought and language worthy of the G.o.ddess to whom the olive is sacred.(2439) It would be wearisome, and even disgusting, to give other examples of this futile and almost idiotic superst.i.tion, masquerading as a science. A painstaking student might easily cla.s.sify the modes of interpretation. They are tolerably uniform, and rest on fanciful but obvious conceits, superficial a.n.a.logies, mere play upon words and impossible etymologies. The interpretations are as dull and monotonous as the dreams are various and fantastic. Many of these visions seem like the wildest hallucinations of prurient lunacy. It is difficult to conceive what was the ordinary state of mind and the habits of a people whose sleep was haunted by visions so lawless. It is perhaps even harder to imagine a father, with the infinite industry of which he is so proud, compiling such a catalogue for the study of his son.(2440)

Lucian, through the mouth of Momus, pours his scorn on the new oracles which were chanting from every rock, vending their lies at two obols apiece, and overshadowing the ancient glories of the more ancient shrines.(2441) In the last century of the Republic, and in the first century of the Empire, the faith in oracles had suffered a portentous decay. The exultation of the Christian Fathers at the desertion of the ancient seats of prophecy seems to find an echo in the record of heathen authors. Cicero speaks as if Delphi were almost silent.(2442) Strabo tells us that Delphi, Dodona, and Ammon had shared in the general contempt which had fallen on oracular divination.(2443) From Plutarch we have seen that in Boeotia, the most famous home of the art, all the oracular shrines were silent and deserted, except that of Trophonius at Lebadea.(2444) And curious inquirers gave various explanations of this waning faith. Strabo thought that, with the spread of Roman power, the Sibylline prophecies and the Etruscan augury eclipsed the Greek and Eastern oracles. The explanation in Plutarch, as we have seen, is involved in an interesting discussion of the various sources of inspiration, and, in particular, of the office of daemons. One theorist of the positive type attributes the failure of the Greek oracles to the growing depopulation of Greece. It is a question of demand and supply. Others find the explanation in physical changes, which have extinguished or diverted the exhalation that used to excite the prophetic powers of the Pythia. Another falls back on the theory of daemonic inspiration, which, mysteriously vouchsafed, may be as mysteriously withdrawn.(2445)

The eclipse of the oracles was really a phase of that pagan unbelief or indifference which tended to disappear towards the end of the first century A.D. And the eclipse perhaps was not so complete as it is represented. Cicero himself consulted the Pythia about his future fame, and received an answer which revealed insight into his character.(2446) Germanicus in the reign of Tiberius visited the shrine of the Clarian Apollo, and that of Apis at Memphis;(2447) Tiberius tried the sacred lottery at Padua,(2448) Caligula that of Fortune at Antium.(2449) Nero, although he is said to have choked the sacred chasm at Delphi with corpses, had previously sought light from the G.o.d on his perilous future.(2450) Before the altar of the unseen G.o.d on Mount Carmel, Vespasian received an impressive prophecy of his coming greatness.(2451) t.i.tus had his hopes confirmed in the shrine of the Paphian Venus.(2452) When these lords of the world, some of whom were notorious sceptics, thus paid deference to the ancient homes of prophecy, it may be doubted whether their prestige had been seriously shaken.

Although Delphi had not for many ages wielded the enormous political, and even international, power which it enjoyed before the Persian wars, still, even in the days of its greatest obscurity, it was the resort of many who came to consult it in the ordinary cares of life. Apollonius of Tyana, in the reign of Nero, visited the old oracular centres, Delphi, Dodona, Abae, and the shrines of Amphiaraus and Trophonius.(2453) They seem to be still active, although the sage had, in fulfilment of his mission, to correct their ritual. The newer foundations, like that at Abonoteichos, found it politic to defer to the authority of oracles, such as those of Clarus and Didyma, with a great past.(2454) If the conquests of Rome for a time obscured their fame, the ease and rapidity of communication along the Roman roads, and the safety of the seas, must have swelled the number of their votaries from all parts of the world. It is a revelation to find a Tungrian cohort at a remote station in Britain setting up a votive inscription in obedience to the voice of the Clarian Apollo.(2455) If new oracles were springing up in the Antonine age, the old were certainly not quite neglected. In the reign of Trajan the shrine of Delphi recovered from its degradation by the violence of Nero.(2456) And Hadrian, as we have seen, tested the inspiration of the Pythia by a question as to the birthplace of Homer, which was answered by a verse tracing his ancestry to Pylos and Ithaca.(2457) The ancient oracles were in full vigour under the emperors of the third century. Some of the greatest and most venerable-Delphi, Didyma, Mallus, and Dodona-were not reduced to silence till the reign of Constantine.(2458)

But the old oracles could not satisfy the omnivorous superst.i.tion of the time. The outburst of new oracles may be compared, perhaps, to the fissiparous tendencies of Protestantism in some countries, at each fresh revival of religious excitement. Any fresh avenue to the "Great Mystery"

was at once eagerly crowded. And the most recent claimant to inspiration sometimes threatened to overshadow the tradition of a thousand years, and to a.s.sert an oec.u.menical power.

One such case has been recorded and exposed with the graphic skill and penetrating observation of the greatest genius of the age. Lucian's description of the foundation of the new oracle of Asclepius at Abonoteichos in Paphlagonia, if it is wanting in the sympathetic handling which modern criticism has attained or can affect, is an unrivalled revelation of the superst.i.tion of the time. And a brief narrative of the imposture will probably give a more vivid idea of it than any abstract dissertation.

Alexander, the founder, was a man of mean parentage, but of remarkable natural gifts. Tall and handsome in no ordinary degree, he had eyes with a searching keenness, a look of inspiration, and a voice most clear and sweet.(2459) His mental gifts were equal to his physical charm. In memory, quick perception, shrewdness, and subtlety, he had few equals. But from his early youth, with the affectation of Pythagorean asceticism, he had all the vices which go to make the finished reprobate.(2460) After a youth of abandoned sensuality, in concert with a confederate of no better character, he determined to found an oracle. The times were favourable for such a venture. Never had selfish desire and terror, twin roots of superst.i.tion, such a hold on mankind.(2461) The problem was, where to establish the new shrine. It must be founded among a cra.s.sly stupid population, ready to accept any tale of the marvellous with the most abandoned credulity.(2462) Paphlagonia seemed to the shrewd observers the readiest prey. Tablets were dug up, which predicted an epiphany of Asclepius at Abonoteichos. A Sibylline oracle, in enigmatic verse, heralded the coming of the G.o.d. Alexander, magnificently attired, appeared upon the scene, with all the signs of mysterious insanity, and the Paphlagonians were thrown into hysterical excitement.(2463) Their last new G.o.d was fished up from a lake in the form of a young serpent, which had been artfully sealed up in a goose's egg. When the broken sh.e.l.l revealed the nascent deity, the mult.i.tude were in an ecstasy of excitement at the honour vouchsafed to their city. The infant reptile was soon replaced by one full grown, to which a very elementary art had attached a human head.

It was displayed to the crowds who trooped through the reception-room of the impostor, and they went away to spread throughout all Asia the tidings of the unheard-of miracle.(2464) Alexander had carefully studied the system of the older oracles, and he proceeded to imitate it. He received inquiries on sealed tablets, and, with all ancient pomp and ceremony of attendance, returned them, apparently untouched, with the proper answer.

But Lucian minutely explains the art with which the seal of the missive was dexterously broken and restored.(2465) A hot needle and a delicate hand could easily reveal the secret of the question, and hide the trick.

The oracle was primarily medical. Prescriptions were given in more or less ambiguous phrases. The charge for each consultation was, in our money, the small fee of a s.h.i.+lling.(2466) Alexander was evidently a shrewd business man, and his moderate charges attracting a crowd of inquirers, the income of the oracle rose, according to Lucian, to the then enormous sum of nearly 7000 a year.(2467) But the manager was liberal to his numerous staff of secretaries, interpreters, and versifiers.(2468) He had, moreover, missionaries who spread his fame in foreign lands, and who offered the service of the oracle in recovering runaway slaves, discovering buried treasure, healing sickness, and raising the dead.(2469) Even the barbarians on the outskirts of civilisation were attracted by his fame, and, after an interval required to find a translator among the motley crowd who thronged from all lands, an answer would be returned even in the Celtic or Syrian tongue.(2470) The fame of the oracle, of course, soon spread to Italy, where the highest n.o.bles, eager for any novelty in religion, were carried away by the pretensions of Alexander. None among them stood higher than Rutilia.n.u.s, either in character or official rank.

But he was the slave of every kind of extravagant superst.i.tion.(2471) He would fall down and grovel along the way before any stone which was s.h.i.+ning with oil or decked with garlands. He sent one emissary after another to Abonoteichos to consult the new G.o.d. They returned, some full of genuine enthusiasm, some hiding their doubts by interested exaggeration of what they had seen. Soon society and the court circle felt all the delight of a new religious sensation. Great n.o.bles hurried away to Paphlagonia, and fell an easy prey to the gracious charm and the ingenious charlatanry of Alexander.(2472) Some, who had consulted the oracle by questions which might have a sinister meaning, and suggest dangerous ambitions, he knew how to terrify into his service by the hint of possible disclosure.(2473) All came back to swell the fame of the Paphlagonian oracle and to make it fas.h.i.+onable in Italy. But none were so besotted as Rutilia.n.u.s. This great Roman n.o.ble, who had been proved in a long career of office,(2474) at the mature age of sixty, stooped to wed the supposed daughter of the vulgar charlatan by Selene, who had honoured him with the love which she gave of old to Endymion!(2475) And Rutilia.n.u.s henceforth became the stoutest champion of Alexander against all a.s.saults of scepticism. For, in spite of the credulity of the crowd and of the visitors from Rome, there was evidently a strong body of st.u.r.dy dissent.

There were, in those days, followers of Epicurus even in Paphlagonia, and, by a strange freak of fortune, the followers of Christ found themselves making common cause against a new outbreak of heathenism with the atheistic philosophy of the Garden.(2476) An honest Epicurean once convicted Alexander of a flagrant deception, and narrowly escaped being stoned to death by the fanatics of Paphlagonia.(2477) One of the books of Epicurus was publicly burnt in the agora by order of Alexander, and the ashes cast into the sea. Lucian himself, with his sly, amused scepticism, tested and exposed the skill of the oracle at the most imminent risk to his life.(2478)

But in spite of all exposure and opposition, the oracle, managed with such art and supported with such blind enthusiasm, conquered for a time the Roman world. It was a period of calamity and gloom. Plague and earthquake added their horrors to the brooding uncertainty of the dim conflict on the Danube.(2479) The emissaries of Alexander went everywhere, exploiting the general terror. Prediction of coming evil was safe at such a time; any shred of comfort or hope was eagerly sought for. A hexameter verse, promising the help of Apollo, was inscribed over every doorway as an amulet against the awful pestilence of 166 A.D. Another ordered two lion's cubs to be flung into the Danube, to check the advance of the Marcomanni.(2480) Both proved dismal failures, but without shaking the authority of the impostor, who found an easy apology in the darkness of old Delphic utterances. He established mysteries after the model of Eleusis, from which Christians and Epicureans were excluded under a solemn ban. Scenes of old and new mythologies were presented with brilliant effects-the labour of Leto, the birth of Apollo, the birth of Asclepius, the epiphany of Glycon, the new wondrous serpent-deity of Abonoteichos, the loves of Alexander and Selene. The second Endymion lay sleeping, as on Latmus in the ancient story, and the moon G.o.ddess, in the person of a great Roman dame, descended from above to woo a too real earthly lover.(2481)

Lucian's history of the rise of the new oracle in Paphlagonia is not, perhaps, free from some suspicion of personal antipathy to the founder of it. He attributes to Alexander not only the most daring deceit and calculating quackery, but also the foulest vices known to the ancient world. These latter charges may or may not be true. Theological or anti-theological hatred has in all ages too often used the poisoned arrow.

And the moral character of Alexander has less interest for us than the spiritual condition of his many admirers and votaries. He can hardly be acquitted of some form of more or less pious imposture. How far it was accompanied by real religious enthusiasm is a problem which will be variously solved, and which is hardly worth the trouble of investigation, even if the materials existed for a certain answer. But the eager readiness of a whole population to hail the appearance of a new G.o.d, and the acceptance of his claims by men the most cultivated and highly placed in the Roman Empire, are facts on which Lucian's testimony, addressed to contemporaries, cannot be rejected. Nor is there anything in our knowledge of the period from other sources which renders the thing doubtful.

Creative mythology had revived its activity. Not long before the epiphany of Glycon, in a neighbouring part of Asia Minor the Apostles Paul and Barnabas, after the miraculous cure of the impotent man, had difficulty in escaping divine honours. The Carpocratians, a Gnostic sect, about the same time built a temple in honour of the youthful son of their founder.(2482) The corn-G.o.ddess Annona first appears in the first century, and inscriptions, both in Italy and Africa, were set up in honour of the power who presided over the commissariat of the Roman mob.(2483) The youthful favourite of Hadrian, after his mysterious death in the waters of the Nile, was glorified by instant apotheosis. His statues rose in every market-place and temple court; his soul was supposed to have found a home in a new star in the region of the milky way; temples were built in his honour, and the strange cult was maintained for at least a hundred years after any motive could be found for adulation.(2484) The Cynic brothers, and the gaping crowd who stood around the pyre of Peregrinus at Olympia were eager, as we have seen, to hail the flight of a great soul to join the heroes and demiG.o.ds in Olympus.(2485) The cult of M. Aurelius was maintained by an enthusiasm very different from the conventional apotheosis of the head of the Roman State. We are told that he was adored, by every age and s.e.x and cla.s.s, long after his death. His sacred image found a place among the _penates_ of every household, and the home where it was not honoured was of more than suspected piety. Down to the time of Diocletian, the saintly and philosophic emperor, who had preached an imperturbable indifference to the chances and changes of life, was believed to visit his anxious votaries with dreams of promise or warning.(2486)

Maximus of Tyre may have been guilty of no exaggeration when he reckoned the heavenly host as thrice ten thousand.(2487) The cynical voluptuary of Nero's reign, who said that a town of Magna Graecia was inhabited by more G.o.ds than men, only used a comic hyperbole to enforce a striking fact.(2488) The anthropomorphic conceptions of Deity, which were prevalent, easily overleapt the interval between the human and Divine. The crowds of the Antonine age were as ready to recognise the G.o.d in human form as the Athenians of the days of Pisistratus, who believed that they saw in the gigantic Phye an epiphany of the great G.o.ddess of their Acropolis, leading the tyrant home.(2489) In the minds of a philosophic minority, nurtured on the theology of Plato, there might be the dim conception of one awful and remote Power, far removed from the grossness of earth, far above the dreams of mythologic poetry and the materialist imagination of the ma.s.ses. Yet even philosophy, as we have already seen, had succ.u.mbed to the craving for immediate contact, or for some means of communication, with the Infinite Spirit. The daemons of Plutarch and Maximus of Tyre were really a new philosophic mythology, created to give meaning and morality to the old G.o.ds. These hosts of baleful or ministering spirits, with which the Platonist surrounded the life of man, divine in the sweep of their power, human in their pa.s.sions or sympathies, belong really to the same order as the Poseidon who pursued Odysseus with tempest, or the Moon G.o.ddess who descended on Latmus to kiss the sleeping Endymion. Anthropomorphic paganism was far from dead; it was destined to live openly for more than three hundred years, and to prolong a secret life of subtle influence under altered forms, the term of which who shall venture to fix?

The daemons of the Platonic philosophers find their counterpart in the popular cult of _genii_. If there was a visible tendency to syncretism and monotheistic faith in the second century, there was a no less manifest drift to the endless multiplication of spiritual powers. The tendency, indeed, to create divine representatives of physical forces and dim abstract qualities was from early ages congenial to the Roman mind. All the phenomena of nature-every act, pursuit, or vicissitude in human life-found a spiritual patron in the Roman imagination.(2490) But the tendency received an immense impulse in the age with which we are dealing, and the inscriptions of the imperial period reveal an almost inexhaustible fertility of religious fancy. Every locality, every society and occupation of men, has its patron genius, to whom divine honours are paid or recorded,-the canton, the munic.i.p.ality, the curia; the spring or grove; the legion or cohort or troop; the college of the paviors or smiths or actors; the emperors, or even the great G.o.ds themselves.(2491)

The old G.o.ds of Latium still retained a firm hold on the devotion of the simple ma.s.ses, as crowds of inscriptions record. But ancient religion, in its cruder forms, divided and localised the Divine power by endless demarcations of place and function. Although the Roman centurion or merchant might believe in the power of his familiar G.o.ds to follow him with their protection, and never forgot them, still each region, to which his wanderings carried him, had its peculiar spirits, who wielded a special potency within their own domain, and whom it was necessary to propitiate. On hundreds of provincial inscriptions we can read the catholic superst.i.tion of the Roman legionary. The mystery of desert or forest, the dangers of march and bivouack, stimulated his devotion. If he does not know the names of the strange deities, he will invoke them collectively side by side with the G.o.ds whom he has been taught to venerate. He will adore the "genius loci,"(2492) or all the G.o.ds of Mauritania or of Britain. And so the deities of Alsace and Dacia and Lusitania, of the Sahara and c.u.mberland, easily took their place in his growing pantheon.(2493) They were constantly identified with the great figures of Greek or Roman mythology. Many an inscription is dedicated to