Chap. 5.] ACCOUNT OF THE WOELD. 21 



and Fidelity ; or, according to the opinion of Democritus, 

 that there are only two, Punishment and Reward t, indicates 

 still greater folly. Human nature, weak and frail as it is, 

 mindl'ul 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 ofi*. 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 

 HilP, and to Orbona'', near the Temple of the Lares, and 

 that an altar was elected to QA^A 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 Tlie account which Cicero gives us of the opinions of Democritus 

 scarcely agrees w-ith the statement in the text ; see De Nat. Deor. i. 120. 



* " In varios divisit Decs numen unicum, quod PHnio coehim est aut 

 mundus ; ejusque singidas partes, aut, ut philosophi aiunt, attributa, sepa- 

 ratim coluit ; " Alexandre in Lcmaire, i. 231. 



8 ." Febrem aut em ad minus nocendum, temphs celebrant, quonmi ad- 

 huc unmn in Palatio . . . . " Yal. Max. ii. 6 ; see also jEKan, Yar. Hist, 

 xii. 11. It is not easy to ascertain the precise meaning of the terms 

 Fanum^ ^des, and Templum, which are employed in tliis place by Pliny 

 and Val. Maximus. Gesner defines Fanum " area templi et sohum, 

 templum vero sedificium ; " but tliis distinction, as he informs us, is not 

 always accurately obserred; there appears to be still less distinction 

 between ^des and Templum ; see his Thesaurus in loco, also Bailey's 

 Facciolati in loco. 



* " Orbona est Orbitahs dea." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 231. 



^ " Appositos sibi statim ab ortu custodes credebant, quos viri Genios, 

 Junones foeminffi vocabant." Hai-douin in Lemaire, 1. 232. See TibuUus, 

 4. 6. 1, and Seneca, Epist. 110, s^^h init. 



^ We may suppose that our author here refers to the popular mythology 

 of the Egyptians ; the " foetidi cibi " are mentioned by Juvenal ; "Porrum 

 et csepe uelas violare et frangere morsu," xv. 9 ; and Phny, in a subsequent 

 part of his work, xix. 32, remarks, *' Allium csepequ, inter Deos in jure- 

 jurando habet ^gyptus." 



