Page:The Natural History of Pliny.djvu/55

Chap. 5.] ACCOUNT OF THE WORLD. 21 and Fidelity; or, according to the opinion of Democritus, that there are only two, Punishment and Reward, indicates still greater folly. Human nature, weak and frail as it is, mindful of its own infirmity, has made these divisions, so that every one might have recourse to that which he supposed himself to stand more particularly in need of. Hence we find different names employed by different nations; the inferior deities are arranged in classes, and diseases and plagues are deified, in consequence of our anxious wish to propitiate them. It was from this cause that a temple was dedicated to Fever, at the public expense, on the Palatine Hill, and to Orbona , near the Temple of the Lares, and that an altar was elected to Good Fortune on the Esquiline. Hence we may understand how it comes to pass that there is a greater population of the Celestials than of human beings, since each individual makes a separate God for himself, adopting his own Juno and his own Genius. And there are nations who make Gods of certain animals, and even certain obscene things, which are not to be spoken of, swearing by stinking meats and such like. To suppose that marriages are contracted between the Gods, and that, during so long a period, there should have been no issue

1 The account which Cicero gives us of the opinions of Democritus scarcely agrees with the statement in the text; see De Nat. Deor. i. 120.

2 "In varios divisit Deos numen unicum, quod Plinio cœlum est aut mundus; ejusque singulas partes, aut, ut philosophi aiunt, attributa, sepa- ratim coluit;" Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 231.

3 "Febrem autem ad minus nocendum, templis celebrant, quorum ad- huc unum in Palatio. ..." Val. Max. ii. 6; see also Ælian, Var. Hist. xii. 11. It is not easy to ascertain the precise meaning of the terms Fanum, Ædes, and Templum, which are employed in this place by Pliny and Val. Maximus. Gresner defines Fanum "area templi et solium, templum vero ædificium;" but this distinction, as he informs us, is not always accurately observed; there appears to be still less distinction between Ædes and Templum; see his Thesaurus in loco, also Bailey's Facciolati in loco.

4 "Orbona est Orbitalis dea." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 231.

5 "Appositos sibi statim ab ortu custodes credebant, quos viri Genios, Junones fœminæ vocabaut." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 232. See Tibullus, 4. 6. 1, and Seneca, Epist. 110, sub init.

6 We may suppose that our author here refers to the popular mythology of the Egyptians; the "fœtidi cibi " are mentioned by Juvenal; "Porrum et cæpe nefas violare et frangere morsu," xv. 9; and Pliny, in a subsequent part of his work, xix. 32, remarks, "Allium cæpeque inter Deos in jure- jurando habet Ægyptus."