Chap. 5.] ACCOTOT OF THE WOELD. 21 
and Fidelity ; or, according to tlie 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 difierent 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 Tever, at the public expense, on the Palatine 
HilP, 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 hum an 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 ns 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 PHnio coelum est aut 
mundus ; ejusque singulas partes, aut, ut philosophi aiunt, attributa, sepa- 
ratim coluit ; " Alexandre in Lemaire, i. 231. 
2 " Febrem autem ad minus nocendum, temphs celebrant, quorum ad- 
huc unum in Palatio . . . . " Yal. Max. ii. 6 ; see also ^5]han, Yar. Hist, 
xii. 11. It is not easy to ascertain the precise meaning of the terms 
Fanum^ ^des, and Templum, which are employed in this place by PHny 
and Yal. Maximu.s. Gresner defines Fanum " area templi et solium, 
templum vero sedificium ; " but this distinction, as he informs us, is not 
always accm^ately observed; there appears to be still less distinction 
between JEdes and Templum j see his Thesaurus in loco, also Bailey's 
Pacciolati in loco. 
" Orbona est Orbitalis dea." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 231. 
5 " Appositos sibi statim ab ortu custodes credebant, quos viri Grenios, 
Junones foeminse vocabant." Hardouin in Lemaire, i. 232. See TibuHus, 
4. 6. 1, and Seneca, Epist. 110, suh init. 
^ We may suppose that our author here refers to the popular mythology 
of the Egyptians ; the " fcetidi cibi " are mentioned by ef iivenal ; " Porrum 
et csepe nefas violare et fraugere morsu," xv. 9 ; and Phny, in a subsequent 
part of his work, xix. 32, remarks, " Allium csepeque inter Deos in jure- 
jurando habet ^gyptus." 
