II. The Early Character of Roman Religion
The fundamental principle on which the religion of the Romans used to be interpreted was the idea that the Romans were an unusually conservative society. In some respects, this is perfectly true: we can for instance show that some of the rituals that were still being practised regularly in the first century BC, and even later than that, were already in place in the sixth century BC; again we know from later Roman orators such as Cicero that they placed a great emphasis on the ancestral customs and ways of the Roman people (the mos maiorum) and it is a reasonable guess that this was not a new idea in Cicero’s day but a long-cherished attitude; again, it is quite clear that the Romans placed a great deal of emphasis on getting their rituals precisely right in every detail, so that the slightest error invalidated the whole ceremony of which it formed part. If so, and if they did this year after year, there should have been no change at all. How could conservatism be taken further?