Note 976 — Chapter II · THE ROMAN EMPIRE UNDER ANASTASIUS: THE INHERITANCE OF JUSTINIAN (continued 2)
Reading edition
Polybius complains of the rising scepticism at Rome in his time; vi, 56. I need not reproduce the oft-quoted lines of Juvenal (ii, 149), but the following are not generally brought forward:
Sunt, in fortunae qui casibus omnia ponunt, Et nullo credant mundum rectore moveri, etc. xiii, 86.
Such unbelief, however, did not penetrate beyond the upper social stratum; and even at Athens in the second century those who scouted the ancient myths were considered to be impious and senseless by the multitude; see Lucian, Philopseudes, 2, etc. The voluminous dialogues of Cicero are sufficient to prove how practised the Romans had become in tearing the old mythology to pieces. But the pretence of piety was kept up in the highest places. “The soul of Augustus is not in those stones,” exclaimed Agrippina in a moment of vexation when she found Tiberius sacrificing to the statues of his predecessor; Tacitus, Ann., iv, 52.