1 Earliest Rome

9- I N D I V I D U A L S A N D G O D S
association of traditional deities with personal concerns may well have
extended much more widely than the areas of trouble and illness attested in the
inscribed vows.
In the quotations selected by Augustine here, Seneca seems to be attacking
pagan religious practice as a whole. But it is more likely that he is, in common
with other pagan writers, really attacking excessive attachment to religious
practices, the mark of the superstitious person, repugnant to the Stoic sage that
Seneca himself aspired to be.
See further: Vol. 1, 217-19; Lausberg (1970) 197-227.
Augustine, The City ofGodvi.10 {= Seneca, On Superstition frr. 35-7, Haase)
He goes on to describe the rituals customarily held on the Capitol itself, revealing the
truth about them without any reservation. It would be impossible to believe (as he
implies) that these could be carried out by anybody but a madman, unless it were with
the purpose of mockery. He writes derisively about the Egyptian mysteries, in which
Osiris first receives mourning and then joy at his rediscovery; for, while both the loss and
the recovery are total fictions, the grief and the rejoicing are expressed with the most
convincingly real emotion by people who have not really lost or found anything at all.
Seneca goes on: 'But at least there Is a fixed term for this lunacy - it is not unacceptable
to go mad once a year. But if ever you go up on the Capitol, it will make you feel
ashamed just to see the crazy performances put on for the public's benefit, all represented
as duties by light-hearted lunacy. So Jupiter has a special attendant to announce callers
and another one to tell him the time; one to wash him and another to oil him, who in
fact only mimes the movements with his hands. Juno and Minerva have special women
hairdressers^ who operate some distance away, not just from the statue, but from the
temple; they move their fingers in the style of hairdressers, while others again hold up
mirrors. You find some people who are praying to the gods to put up bail for them, and
others again who are handing over their writs and expounding the lawsuits they are
involved in. There used to be an old, decrepit but very experienced pantomime artist who
put on his act every day on the Capitol as if the gods were enjoying the show - now that
they had been abandoned by human beings. Meanwhile craftsmen of every trade stand
around waiting for work on behalf of the immortal gods.' Soon afterwards, Seneca adds:
'At least the services they offer are not indecent or dishonourable, however unnecessary.
But there are some women who hang around on the Capitol because they believe that
Jupiter is in love with them, totally undeterred by fear of Juno's anger and jealousy -
formidable enough, if you believe the poets.'
Here is a freedom of speech not known to Varro. The only type of theology Varro
could bring himself to criticize was the poetic' type; the 'civil' type he did not dare; it was
Seneca who tore that to pieces. 1
But if we are looking for the real truth, the temples where
the civil rituals go on are even worse than the theatres where the poetic fictions are acted
out. In the rituals of'civil' theology, the role for the wise man 2
advocated by Seneca is to
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