The civil troubles of the age of revolution completed the work of disintegration. Men became careless, reckless, self-regarding; the δεισιδαιμονία of which Polybius could say only just before the revolution began, that more than anything else it served to knit the Roman state together, was lost to view in the tumult of political passion and personal greed. Not indeed that it was altogether extinct; that could never be, and never has been the case in Italy. Augustus, who came by degrees to know the people he governed better than any statesman in Italian history, was well aware that to inspire the Roman world once more with confidence, he must bring the religious instinct into play again. The task he thus set himself he accomplished with extraordinary skill and tact; the old religion seemed to live again, the old priesthoods were revived, the old minutiae of worship were restored. He did what he could to bring to life again even the spirit and the principles of the old _religio_; and in the _Carmen Saeculare_ of Horace, written to his order at a moment when he wished to make these things obvious to the eyes of all Romans, we probably have the best succinct exposition of them to be found in Roman literature[1509]. But of the Augustan revival, and of the reasons why it could not be permanent, I must forbear here to speak further. * * * * * I have yet to say a few words in answer to the interesting question whether the religious system we have been examining had any appreciable influence on the character of the Roman people: whether it contributed to build up that _virtus_ of the State and the individual which enabled them to subdue and govern the world, as the _pietas_ of Aeneas in the poem armed him for the subjugation and civilization of the wild Italian tribes. The question may at first sight seem a superfluous one, since the religion of a people is rather the expression of its own genius for dealing with the perplexities of human life, than a _vera causa_ in determining its character; yet it is worth asking, for it is unquestionable that the peculiar turn taken by a nation’s religious beliefs and practices does in course of time come to react upon its character and morals.