" Even in the aridity of a chronicle
the accusation and rejoinder are dramatic. Fancy what they must
have been when mother and daughter hissed them in each other's
teeth. Whether the argument continued is immaterial. Both could
have claimed the sanction of religion. In those days a sin was a
prayer. Religion was then, as it always had been, purely
political. With the individual, with his happiness or aspirations,
it concerned itself not at all. It was the prosperity of the
empire, its peace and immortality, for which sacrifices were made,
and libations offered. The god of Rome was Rome, and religion was
patriotism. The antique virtues, courage in war, moderation in
peace, and honor at all times, were civic, not personal. It was
the state that had a soul, not the individual. Man was ephemeral;
it was the nation that endured. It was the permanence of its
grandeur that was important, nothing else.
To ensure that permanence each citizen labored. As for the
citizen, death was near, and he hastened to live; before the roses
could fade he wreathed himself with them. Immortality to him was
in his descendants, the continuation of his name, respect to his
ashes. Any other form of future life was a speculation, infrequent
at that. In anterior epochs Fright had peopled Tartarus, but
Fright had gone. The Elysian Fields were vague, wearisome to
contemplate; even metempsychosis had no adherents.
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