[568] But the Roman had
never been conscious of individual duty, except in relation to his
State, or to the family, which was a living cell in the organism of
the State. In his eyes law was rather the source of morality than
morality the cause and the reason of law; and as his religion was a
part of the law of his State, and thus had but an indirect connection
with morality, it would not naturally occur to him that even the great
Jupiter himself, thus glorified as the Reason in the universe, could
really help him in the conduct of his life _qua_ individual. It is
only as the source of legalised morality that we can think of Varro's
Jupiter as "making for righteousness."
Less than twenty-five years after Cicero's death, in the imagination
of the greatest of Roman poets, Jupiter was once more brought before
the Roman world, and now in a form comprehensible by all educated men,
whether or no they had dabbled in philosophy. What are we to say of
the Jupiter of the _Aeneid_? We do not need to read far in the first
book of the poem to find him spoken of in terms which remind us of
Varro: "O qui res hominumque deumque Aeternis regis imperiis," are the
opening words of the address of Venus; and when she has finished,
Olli subridens hominum sator atque deorum
Vultu, quo caelum tempestatesque serenat,
Oscula libavit natae, dehine talia fatur;
"Parce metu, Cytherea, manent immota tuorum
Fata tibi.
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