--ED.
CHAPTER XVIII
ROMAN RELIGION
=The Roman Gods.=--The Romans, like the Greeks, believed that
everything that occurs in the world was the work of a deity. But in
place of a God who directs the whole universe, they had a deity for
every phenomenon which they saw. There was a divinity to make the seed
sprout, another to protect the bounds of the fields, another to guard
the fruits. Each had its name, its sex, and its functions.
The principal gods were Jupiter, god of the heaven; Janus, the
two-faced god (the deity who opens); Mars, god of war; Mercury, god of
trade; Vulcan, god of fire; Neptune, god of the sea; Ceres, goddess of
grains, the Earth, the Moon, Juno, and Minerva.
Below these were secondary deities. Some personified a quality--for
example, Youth, Concord, Health, Peace. Others presided over a certain
act in life: when the infant came into the world there were a god to
teach him to speak, a goddess to teach him to drink, another charged
with knitting his bones, two to accompany him to school, two to take
him home again. In short, there was a veritable legion of minor
special deities.
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