The Roman religion has been ably discussed in general terms by several writers of note in the century just closing. Mommsen’s chapters in the early books of his Roman History are familiar to every one. The introduction to Marquardt’s volume on our subject is indispensable; and Preller, less exact perhaps, but more sympathetic and inspiring, still holds the field with the opening chapters of his work on Roman Mythology. To these classical works may be added the section on the Roman religion in the second volume of the _Religionsgeschichte_ of Chantepie de la Saussaye, and the first chapter of Boissier’s work on the Roman religion from Augustus onwards. Professor Granger’s _Worship of the Romans_ also contains here and there some suggestive remarks, though as a rule these are not based upon any elaborate investigation of the cult. Lastly I may mention a small but valuable treatise, published as long ago as 1837 by Leopold Krahner, on the history of the decay of the Roman religion down to the time of Augustus, which fell into my hands many years ago, and is in almost every sentence of value to the student of Roman history. In all these works the one point insisted on at the outset is this: that the Romans were more interested in the cult of their deities, that is, in the ritual and routine by which they could be rightly and successfully propitiated, than in the character and personality of the deities themselves. This is indeed a truth which has been abundantly borne out in our examination of the Calendar, and might be further illustrated in almost every public act of procedure in the Roman State. Cicero himself expresses it well in the second book of his _De Natura Deorum_ (2. 3. 8) ‘Si conferre volumus nostra cum externis, ceteris rebus aut pares aut etiam inferiores reperiemur, religione, id est cultu deorum, multo superiores.’ The second book of his work _De Legibus_ is also an invaluable witness to the conviction, lasting on even in an age of scepticism and indifference among the educated, that the due performance of sacred rites was a necessary function of the State, on which its very existence depended. The Christian Fathers, some of whom, like St. Augustine and Tertullian, were men of learning who had studied the voluminous works of Varro, were well aware of this character; and Tertullian in a curious passage went so far as to suggest that the Devil had here perpetrated an imitation or parody of the minute ritual of Leviticus[1502]. So far as externals go, the comparison he suggested is a useful one; but there is an essential difference in the religious spirit which lay at the root of the two ceremonial systems—a difference that makes it impossible that any work should be written on the Roman religion as inspiring for the student of religious history as _The Religion of the Semites_ so often quoted in these pages.