TITHE-GIVING AMONGST ANCIENT PAGAN NATIONS. 133 



Hercules is the god most frequently mentioned among them 

 as the receiver of tithes. He was one of their chief and 

 most ancient deities, his rites, as Livy testifies,* having been 

 first taken into use by Romulus, who founded Rome BC 

 753. 



Soon afterwards we come to the King, Tarquinius Superbus 

 (616-578 B.C.), who, upon taking Suessa, is said to have 

 paid a tithe of at least 400 talents of silver to the gods in 

 general.f 



Next in order of time, perhaps, should be mentioned an 

 incident, as recorded by Plutarch and Livy, Avhich speaks 

 volumes for the reverence and sacredness with which the 

 payment of tithes was regarded by early Romans and 

 Grecians alike. 



It happened after the conquest by Camillus of the City 

 of Veii (396 B.C.), that the augurs, or temple proguosticators, 

 made report that the gods were greatly otfended, though 

 they knew not for what, but the fact they professed to 

 have discovered by the marks and observation of their 

 sacrifices. 



Camillus having infoi-med the senate that, in the sackin^- 

 of Veii, the soldiers had taken the spoil without giving the 

 tenth to the gods, and that the soldiers had, most of them, 

 spent or disposed of what they had taken, the senate ordered 

 every man to give in, upon oath, how much he had received 

 of the booty, and to pay a tenth of it, or the value of this 

 tenth, if it was spent, to the gods. 



Towards this the women brought in jewels and gold of 

 their own free Avill so readily, that the senate gave them 

 the privilege of having orations in their praise niade at 

 their funerals, which honour formerly had been alio wed- 

 only to great and eminent men. And they appointed 

 three, of the first quality in Rome, to carry this present with 

 the tithe, in a triumphal maimer to Delphi. 



On the way they were taken, and made a prize by the 

 Liparians, or Greeks wlio colonized the Lipari Islands, nortli 

 of Sicily. But, when brought to their cit}-, and Avlien the 

 Liparian governor understood that so great a bootv con- 

 sisted of tithes due to the gods, he not only restored' it all, 

 and sent them aAvay with it, but gave them a convoy of his 



* ffisL, ]ih. 1. 



t Dioiiysius of Haiicarnassus, lib. 4. 



