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Rh of the goddess,—since nowhere else is she thus represented. The Venus of Paphos. [sic] did not require a sculptor; an ordinary stone-mason sufficed. "Her image does not bear a human shape; it is a rounded mass, rising like a cone from a broad base to a small circumference." Hers was a primitive and humane worship. It was "forbidden to pour blood on the altar. The place of sacrifice was served only with prayers and pure flame; and though it stands in the open air it is never wet with rain." Animals, indeed, were offered, according to the whim of the worshippers; but they were always of "the male sex—and the surest prognostics were seen in the entrails of kids." These bloody rites were evidently of more recent date than the original sacrifices, just as the sanguinary oblations of the Aztecs supplanted the fruit and flower offerings of the original Mexicans.

Two causes for the ignorance or the indolence of Tacitus in this account of the Jews may be surmised. One, a general repugnance to the Hebrew race, that pervaded the Gentile world, and which is manifested by Roman satirists as well as by a sarcastic historian. The other is the arrogance displayed by Romans generally towards their Asiatic subjects, especially to the Syrians and Egyptians, with whom they were wont to confound the followers of Moses. Of each of these races the religious observances were often, though in vain, proscribed by the Roman Government, whether republican or imperial; and the worshippers of Isis, Astartè, and Jehovah were driven from the capital and Italy. In the 'Annals' Tacitus never mentions the Jews without some expression of contempt; and when some thousands of them were sent, in the reign of Tiberius, to vol. xvii. L