The Roman attitude toward foreign deities is tolerant; provided one keeps up the outward forms of reverence for the old native deities, it does no serious harm if people feel happier because they burn incense to the dog-headed Anubis, or to the uncouth gods of Phœnicia. Of course these alien rites must not be too gross; such as were the outrageous old Bacchanals who were broken up in 186 B.C., or the Gallic Druids who permitted human sacrifice. Otherwise a “foreign superstition” is a matter merely for a contemptuous shrug or sneer. The result is that the cults seen in Rome under the Empire often appear as a vast jumble of things Greek, Levantine, Oriental, and even Celtic. The Emperor and Senate seldom bother themselves about matters of inward belief; Rome has its gladiators but it has no Inquisition. Nevertheless, the old Italian religion is still the official cultus of the state. Its forms are carefully cherished; it is insensibly modified but it is never repudiated. There are almost the same priesthoods, the same sacred formulas and machinery of religion as in the days of the Punic Wars.[221] They are kept up partly out of patriotic pride in all survivals of the heroic past, partly because they help the government to control the “mob” and the highly superstitious soldiery, partly (it must in fairness be added) because very intelligent persons believe that the ancient Italian religion somehow contributes to the safety and stability of the Empire,--that when Jupiter Capitolinus falls the dominion of Rome will actually fall with him. =349. Superstitious Piety of the City Plebeians.=--As for the multitude, the enormous population in the insulæ, if it has little intelligent faith, it has abundant ignorant credulity. The outward service of the gods brings good luck. If the public rites fail and if blasphemers (like the execrable Christians) arise, the corn ships will not get through from Alexandria, the Tiber will overflow, the pestilence will sweep off thousands and--almost equal calamity--the favorite aurigæ and gladiators on the gamblers’ tablets will lose in the games. If a private man neglects the gods, his shop or business ventures can go bankrupt, his children die, his wife decamps with a freedman, disease can rack him, premature death smite him, and his tomb be demolished to the complete obliteration of his memory. Possibly even his ghost will drift about unhappily in desert places. Every possible motive, therefore, requires governors and governed to stand in well with the gods. Let us, therefore, examine this “Religion of Numa” which is living yet, as the official cultus of Rome; then a few words can be said about its alien competitors.