RELIGION.--Worship in families was conducted by the head of the household, the _paterfamilias_, who offered the regular sacrifices. But, as regards the whole people, worship was under the direction of the pontiffs, with the chief pontiff, the _Pontifex Maximus_, at their head, and in the hands of the priests. These were all officers of the state, elected to their places, and entirely subordinate to the civil magistrates. The _pontiffs_ were not so much priests as they were guardians and interpreters of divine law. They were masters of sacred lore. They looked out that the numberless and complex rules in respect to religious observances should be strictly complied with. At the same time they had enough knowledge of astronomy to enable them to fix the days suitable for the transaction of business, public or private. They had the control of the calendar. The _Augurs_ consulted the will of the gods as disclosed in omens. The augur, his eyes raised to the sky, with his staff marked off the heavens into four quarters, and then watched for the passage of birds, from which he took the auspices. In early times, there was an implicit faith in these supposed indications of the will of the divinities; but this credulity passed away, and the auguries became a political instrument for helping forward the schemes of some person or party. Besides the college of pontiffs and the college of augurs, there was the college of _Fetiales_, who were the guardians of the public faith in relation to other peoples, and performed the rites attending the declaration of war or the conclusion of peace. The _Soothsayers_ (haruspices) were of Etruscan origin. They ascertained the will of the gods by inspecting the entrails of the slaughtered victims. The _Flamens_ were the priests having charge of the worship of particular divinities. The _Vestals_ were virgin priestesses of Vesta, who ministered in her temple, and kept the sacred fire from being extinguished. The chief gods worshiped by the Romans were _Jupiter_, god of the sky; his wife, _Juno_, the goddess of maternity; _Minerva_, the goddess of wisdom; _Apollo_, the god of augury and the arts; _Diana_, the goddess of the chase and archery; _Mars_, the god of war; _Bellona_, the goddess of war; _Vesta_, patron of the Roman state and of the national hearthstone; _Ceres_, the goddess of agriculture; _Saturnus_, the patron of husbandry; _Hercules_, the Greek god, early naturalized in Italy as the god of gain and of mercantile contracts; _Mercury_, the god of trade; _Neptune_ god of the sea. _Venus_ was an old Roman goddess, who presided over gardens, but gradually was identified with the Grecian _Aphrodite_. _Lares_ and _Penates_ were household divinities, guardians of the family.