It can thus be easily imagined how close the connection between the social depravity and the religion of the Greeks and Romans. What was right in the conduct of the gods, men could not deem sinful in their own behavior. Indeed, lewd and lascivious acts were frequently proclaimed not only right, but sacred, because they had been both sanctioned and committed by the gods themselves. "As impurity," says Döllinger, "formed a part of religion, people had no scruples in using the temple and its adjoining buildings for the satisfaction of their lust. The construction of many of the temples and the prevalent gloom favored this. 'It is a matter of general notoriety,' Tertullian says, 'that the temples are the very places where adulteries were arranged, and procuresses pursue their victims between the altars.' In the chambers of the priests and ministers of the temple, impurity was committed amid clouds of incense; and this, Minucius adds, more frequently than in the privileged haunts of this sin. The sanctuaries and priests of Isis at Rome were specially notorious in this respect. 'As this Isis was the concubine of Jove herself, she also makes prostitutes of others,' Ovid said. Still more shameful sin was practiced in the temples of the Pessinuntine mother of the gods, where men prostituted themselves and made a boast of their shame afterwards."[177] _The Bacchanalian Orgies._--The most interesting passage of ancient literature dealing with social life in its relation to religious observances, is an extract from Livy, the most elegant of Roman historians. This passage describes the bacchanalian orgies, and gives exquisite touches to certain phases of ancient Roman social life. Its insertion here entire is excused on the ground of its direct bearing upon the subject matter of this chapter: