Epictetus seemed to have no consistent view either of the unity of God or of the possibility of plural Gods. In Rome, we have three altars to the Goddess Febris, or Fever. Epictetus once referred to Febris in the reply of a philosopher to a tyrant. The latter says, “I have power to cut off your head”; the former replies, “You are in the right. I quite forgot that I must pay you homage as people do to Fever and Cholera, and erect an altar to you, _as indeed in Rome there is an altar to Fever_.” It was hardly possible to mistake the Master’s mockery of this worship. On the other hand, he was bitterly sarcastic against those who denied the existence of Demeter, the Koré her daughter, and Pluto the husband of the Koré. These deities our Master regarded as representing bread. “O, the gratitude,” he exclaimed, “O, the reverence of these creatures! Day by day they eat bread; and yet they have the face to say ‘We do not know whether there is any such a being as Demeter, or the Koré, or Pluto!’” It never seemed to occur to him that the worshippers of Febris might retort on him, “Day by day scores of people in Rome have the fever, and yet you have the face to say to us Romans, ‘I do not know whether there is any such a being as Febris or Cholera!’” I think he never spoke of Poseidon, Ares, or Aphrodite, and hardly ever of Apollo. Even Athene he mentioned only thrice in Arrian’s hearing (so he told me), twice speaking of her statue by Phidias, and once representing Zeus as bemoaning His solitude (according to some notion, which he ridiculed) after a universal conflagration of gods and men and things, “Miserable me! I have neither Hera, nor Athene, nor Apollo!” It was for Zeus alone, as God, that our Teacher reserved his devotion. And for Him he displayed a passionate enthusiasm, the absolute sincerity of which it never entered into my mind to question; nor do I question it now. Under this God he served as a soldier, or lived as a citizen. To this God he testified as a witness that others might believe and worship. In this view of human life—as being a testimony to God—his teaching was most convincing to me, even when I felt, as I always did, that something was wanting in any conception of God that regarded Him as ever being “alone.”