Seneca, in his lost book
"Against Superstitions,"[17] openly sneered at the old mythological
legends of gods married and gods unmarried, and at the gods Panic and
Paleness, and at Cloacina, the goddess of sewers, and at other deities
whose cruelty and license would have been infamous even in mankind. And
yet the priests, and Salii, and Flamens, and Augurs continued to fulfil
their solemn functions, and the highest title of the Emperor himself was
that of _Pontifex Maximus_, or Chief Priest, which he claimed as the
recognized head of the national religion. "The common worship was
regarded," says Gibbon, "by the people as equally true, by the
philosophers as equally false, and by the magistrates as equally
useful." And this famous remark is little more than a translation from
Seneca, who, after exposing the futility of the popular beliefs, adds:
"And yet the wise man will observe them all, not as pleasing to the
gods, but as commanded by the laws. We shall so adore _all that ignoble
crowd of gods_ which long superstition has heaped together in a long
period of years, as to remember that their worship has more to do with
custom than with reality.
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