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Arnobius
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1. We would ask you, and you above all, O Romans, lords and princes of the world, whether you think that Piety, Concord, Safety, Honour, Virtue, Happiness, and other such names, to which we see you rear[4079] altars and splendid temples, have divine power, and live in heaven?[4080] or, as is usual, have you classed them with the deities merely for form’s sake, because we desire and wish these blessings to fall to our lot? For if, while you think them empty names without any substance, you yet deify them with divine honours,[4081] you will have to consider whether that is a childish frolic, or tends to bring your deities into contempt,[4082] when you make equal, and add to their number vain and feigned names. But if you have loaded them with temples and couches, holding with more assurance that these, too, are deities, we pray you to teach us in our ignorance, by what course, in what way, Victory, Peace, Equity, and the others mentioned among the gods, can be understood to be gods, to belong to the assembly of the immortals?
2. For we—but, perhaps, you would rob and deprive us of common-sense—feel and perceive that none of these has divine power, or possesses a form of its own;[4083] but that, on the contrary, they are the excellence of manhood,[4084] the safety of the safe, the honour of the respected, the victory of the conqueror, the harmony of the allied, the piety of the pious, the recollection of the observant, the good fortune, indeed, of him who lives happily and without exciting any ill-feeling. Now it is easy to perceive that, in speaking thus, we speak most reasonably when we observe[4085] the contrary qualities opposed to them, misfortune, discord, forgetfulness, injustice, impiety, baseness of spirit, and unfortunate[4086] weakness of body. For as these things happen accidentally, and[4087] depend on human acts and chance moods, so their contraries, named[4088] after more agreeable qualities, must be found in others; and from these, originating in this wise, have arisen those invented names.
3. With regard, indeed, to your bringing forward to us other bands of unknown[4089] gods, we cannot determine whether you do that seriously, and from a belief in its certainty; or, merely playing with empty fictions, abandon yourselves to an unbridled imagination. The goddess Luperca, you tell us on the authority of Varro, was named because the fierce wolf spared the exposed children. Was that goddess, then, disclosed, not by her own power, but by the course of events? and was it only after the wild beast restrained its cruel teeth, that she both began to be herself and was marked by[4090] her name? or if she was already a goddess long before the birth of Romulus and his brother, show us what was her name and title. Præstana was named, according to you, because, in throwing the javelin, Quirinus excelled all in strength;[4091] and the goddess Panda, or Pantica, was named because Titus Tatius was allowed to open up and make passable a road, that he might take the Capitoline. Before these events, then, had the deities never existed? and if Romulus had not held the first place in casting the javelin, and if the Sabine king had been unable to take the Tarpeian rock, would there be no Pantica, no Præstana? And if you say that they[4092] existed before that which gave rise to their name, a question which has been discussed in a preceding section,[4093] tell us also what they were called.
4. Pellonia is a goddess mighty to drive back enemies. Whose enemies, say, if it is convenient? Opposing armies meet, and fighting together, hand to hand, decide the battle; and to one this side, to another that, is hostile. Whom, then, will Pellonia turn to flight, since on both sides there will be fighting? or in favour of whom will she incline, seeing that she should afford to both sides the might and services of her name? But if she indeed[4094] did so, that is, if she gave her good-will and favour to both sides, she would destroy the meaning of her name, which was formed with regard to the beating back of one side. But you will perhaps say, She is goddess of the Romans only, and, being on the side of the Quirites alone, is ever ready graciously to help them.[4095] We wish, indeed, that it were so, for we like the name; but it is a very doubtful matter. What! do the Romans have gods to themselves, who do not help[4096] other nations? and how can they be gods, if they do not exercise their divine power impartially towards all nations everywhere? and where, I pray you, was this goddess Pellonia long ago, when the national honour was brought under the yoke at the Caudine Forks? when at the Trasimene lake the streams ran with blood? when the plains of Diomede[4097] were heaped up with dead Romans when a thousand other blows were sustained in countless disastrous battles? Was she snoring and sleeping;[4098] or, as the base often do, had she deserted to the enemies’ camp?
5. The sinister deities preside over the regions on the left hand only, and are opposed to those[4099] on the right. But with what reason this is said, or with what meaning, we do not understand ourselves; and we are sure that you cannot in any degree cause it to be clearly and generally understood.[4100] For in the first place, indeed, the world itself has in itself neither right nor left, neither upper nor under regions, neither fore nor after parts. For whatever is round, and bounded on every side by the circumference[4101] of a solid sphere, has no beginning, no end; where there is no end and beginning, no part can have[4102] its own name and form the beginning. Therefore, when we say, This is the right, and that the left side, we do not refer to anything[4103] in the world, which is everywhere very much the same, but to our own place and position, we being[4104] so formed that we speak of some things as on our right hand, of others as on our left; and yet these very things which we name left, and the others which we name right, have in us no continuance, no fixedness, but take their forms from our sides, just as chance, and the accident of the moment, may have placed us. If I look towards the rising sun, the north pole and the north are on my left hand; and if I turn my face thither, the west will be on my left, for it will be regarded as behind the sun’s back. But, again, if I turn my eyes to the region of the west, the wind and country of the south are now said to be on[4105] my left. And if I am turned to this side by the necessary business of the moment, the result is, that the east is said to be on the left, owing to a further change of position,[4106]—from which it can be very easily seen that nothing is either on our right or on our left by nature, but from position, time,[4107] and according as our bodily position with regard to surrounding objects has been taken up. But in this case, by what means, in what way, will there be gods of the regions of the left, when it is clear that the same regions are at one time on the right, at another on the left? or what have the regions of the right done to the immortal gods, to deserve that they should be without any to care for them, while they have ordained that these should be fortunate, and ever accompanied by lucky omens?
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