CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/A Short History of the WorldPublic
Page 310 of 773
Table of Contents

XXXVI RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS UNDER THE ROMAN EMPIRE

BUST OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS, A.D. 180-192
BUST OF THE EMPEROR COMMODUS, A.D. 180-192 Represented as the God Mithras, Roman, Circa A.D. 190 (In the British Museum)

These new private immortality religions took all the heart and emotion out of the old state religions, but they did not actually replace them. A typical city under the earlier Roman emperors would have a number of temples to all sorts of gods. There might be a temple to Jupiter of the Capitol, the great god of Rome, and there would probably be one to the reigning Cæsar. For the Cæsars had learnt from the Pharaohs the possibility of being gods. In such temples a cold and stately political worship went on; one would go and make an offering and burn a pinch of incense to show one’s loyalty. But it would be to the temple of Isis, the dear Queen of Heaven, one would go with the

310