No department of human action or thought remained unaffected by this struggle between the old fashion and the new. Even political relations were largely influenced by it The whimsical project of emancipating the Hellenes, the well deserved failure of which has already been described, the kindred, likewise Hellenic, idea of a common interest of republics in opposition to kings, and the desire of propagating Hellenic polity at the expense of eastern despotism - the two principles that helped to regulate, for instance, the treatment of Macedonia - were fixed ideas of the new school, just as dread of the Carthaginians was the fixed idea of the old; and, if Cato pushed the latter to a ridiculous excess, Philhellenism now and then indulged in extravagances at least quite as foolish. For example, the conqueror of king Antiochus not only had a statue of him self in Greek costume erected on the Capitol, but also, instead of calling himself in good Latin Asiaticus, assumed the unmeaning and anomalous, but yet magnificent and almost Greek, surname of Asiagenus[1]. A more important consequence of this attitude of the ruling nation towards Hellenism was, that the process of Latinizing gained ground everywhere in Italy except where it encountered the Hellenes. The cities of the Greeks in Italy, so far as the war had not destroyed them, remained Greek. Apulia, about which, it is true, the Romans gave themselves little concern, appears at this very epoch to have been thoroughly pervaded by Hellenism, and the local civilization there seems to have attained the level of the decaying Hellenic culture by its side. Tradition is silent on the matter; but the numerous coins of cities, uniformly furnished with Greek inscriptions, and the manufacture of painted clay-vases after the Greek style, which was carried on in that part of Italy alone with more ambition and gaudiness than taste, show that Apulia had completely adopted Greek habits and Greek art. But the real struggle between Hellenism and its national antagonists during the present period was carried on in the field of faith, of manners, and of art and literature; and we must not omit to attempt some delineation of this great strife of principles, however difficult it may be to present a summary view of the myriad forms and aspects which the conflict assumed.

The extent to which the old simple faith still retained a living hold on the Italians is shown very clearly by the admiration or astonishment which this problem of Italian piety excited among the contemporary Greeks. On occasion of the quarrel with the Aetolians it was reported of the Roman commander-in-chief that during battle he was solely occupied in praying and sacrificing like a priest; whereas Polybius with his somewhat stale moralizing calls the attention of his countrymen to the political usefulness of this piety, and admonishes them that a state cannot consist of wise men alone, and that such ceremonies are very convenient for the sake of the multitude.

But if Italy still possessed - what had long been a mere antiquarian curiosity in Hellas - a national religion, it was already visibly beginning to be ossified into theology. The torpor creeping over faith is nowhere perhaps so distinctly apparent as in the alterations in the economy of divine service and of the priesthood. The public service of the gods became not only more tedious, but above all more and more costly. In 558 there was added to the three old colleges of the augurs, pontifices, and keepers of oracles, a fourth consisting of three "banquet-masters" (tres viri epulones), solely for the important purpose of superintending the banquets of the gods. The priests, as well as the gods, were in fairness entitled to feast; new institutions, however, were not needed with that view, as every college applied itself with zeal and devotion to its convivial affairs. The clerical banquets were accompanied by the claim of clerical immunities. The priests even in times of grave embarrassment claimed the right of exemption from public burdens, and only after very troublesome controversy submitted to make payment of the taxes in arrear (558). To the individual, as well as to the community, piety became a more and more costly article. The custom of instituting endowments, and generally of undertaking permanent pecuniary obligations, for religious objects prevailed among the Romans in a manner similar to that of its prevalence in Roman Catholic countries at the present day. These endowments - particularly after they came to be regarded by the supreme spiritual and at the same time the supreme juristic authority in the state, the pontifices, as a real burden devolving de jure on every heir or other person acquiring the estate - began to form an extremely oppressive charge on property; "inheritance without sacrificial obligation" was a proverbial saying among the Romans somewhat similar to our "rose without a thorn". The dedication of a tenth of their substance became so common, that twice every month a public entertainment was given from the proceeds in the Forum Boarium at Rome. With the Oriental worship of the Mother of the Gods there was imported to Rome among other pious nuisances the practice, annually recurring on certain fixed days, of demanding penny-collections from house to house (stipem cogere). Lastly, the subordinate class of priests and soothsayers, as was reasonable, rendered no service without being paid for it; and beyond doubt the Roman dramatist sketched from life, when in the curtain-conversation between husband and wife he represents the account for pious services as ranking with the accounts for the cook, the nurse, and other customary presents:

The Romans did not create a "God of gold", as they had formerly created a "God of silver"[2]; nevertheless he reigned in reality alike over the highest and lowest spheres of religious life. The old pride of the Latin national religion - the moderation of its economic demands - was irrevocably gone.

At the same time its ancient simplicity also departed. Theology, the spurious offspring of reason and faith, was already occupied in introducing its own tedious prolixity and solemn inanity into the old homely national faith, and thereby expelling the true spirit of that faith. The catalogue of the duties and privileges of the priest of Jupiter, for instance, might well have a place in the Talmud. They pushed the natural rule - that no religious service can be acceptable to the gods unless it is free from flaw - to such an extent in practice, that a single sacrifice had to be repeated thirty times in succession on account of mistakes again and again committed, and that the games, which also formed a part of divine service, were regarded as undone if the presiding magistrate had committed any slip in word or deed or if the music even had paused at a wrong time, and so had to be begun afresh, frequently for several, even as many as seven, times in succession.