THE ROMAN RELIGION.--The difference between the Greek and Roman mind was manifest in the sphere of religion. Before their separation from one another they had brought from the common hearthstone elements of worship which both retained. _Jupiter_, like _Zeus_, was the old Aryan god of the shining sky. But the Greek conception, even of the chief deity, differed from the Roman. When the Romans came into intercourse with the Greeks, they identified the Greek divinities with their own, and more and more appropriated the tales of the Greek mythology, linking them to their own deities. Of the early worship peculiar to the Romans, we know but little. But certain traits always belonged to the Roman religion. Their mood was too prosaic to invent a theogony, to originate stories of the births, loves, and romantic adventures of the gods, such as the Greek fancy devised. The Roman myths were heroic, not religious: they related to the deeds of valiant men. Their deities were, in the first place, much more abstract, less vividly conceived, less endowed with distinct personal characteristics. And, secondly, their service to the gods was more punctilious and methodical. It was regulated, down to the minutiæ, by fixed rules. Worship was according to law, was something due to the gods, and was discharged, like any other debt, exactly, and at the proper time. The Roman took advantage of technicalities in dealing with his gods: he was legal to the core. The word _religion_ had the same root as _obligation_. It denoted the bondage or service owed by man to the gods in return for their protection and favor; and hence the anxiety, or scrupulous watchfulness against the omission of what is required to avert the displeasure of the powers above. ORIGIN OF THE ROMANS.--The Romans attributed their origin to the mythical _Æneas_, who fled, with a band of fugitives, from the flames of _Troy_, and whose son, _Ascanius_, or _Iulus_, settled in _Alba Longa_, in Latium. What is known of the foundation of Rome is, that it was a settlement of Latin farmers and traders on the group of hills, seven in number, near the border of Latium, on the _Tiber_. It was the head of navigation for small vessels, and Rome was at first, it would seem, the trading-village for the exchange of the products of the farming-district in which it was placed. Such an outpost would be useful to guard Latium against the _Etrurians_ across the river. Of the three townships, or clans, which united to form Rome,--the _Ramnes_, the _Tities_, and the _Luceres_,--the first and third were Latin. The second, which was _Sabine_, blended with the Roman element, as the language proves. The clans, or tribes, in Latium together formed a league, the central meeting-place of which was at first _Alba Longa_. There is some reason to think that the Sabines were from _Cures_ near Rome. Certain it is that Rome, even at the outset, derived its strength from a combination of tribes.