which the Italians entertained for mother earth."

It is a little surprising, to us on first thought, that the Roman did not
interpose some concrete personalities between himself and this vague
conception of fate, some personal agencies, at least, to carry out the
decrees of destiny. But it will not seem so strange after all when we
recall the fact that the deities of the early Italians were without form
or substance. The anthropomorphic teachings of Greek literature, art, and
religion found an echo in the Jupiter and Juno, the Hercules and Pan of
Virgil and Horace, but made no impress on the faith of the common people,
who, with that regard for tradition which characterized the Romans,
followed the fathers in their way of thinking.

A disbelief in personal gods hardly accords with faith in a life after
death, but most of the Romans believed in an existence of some sort in the
world beyond. A Dutch scholar has lately established this fact beyond
reasonable doubt, by a careful study of the epitaphs in verse.[36] One
tombstone reads:[37]


"Into nothing from nothing how quickly we go,"

and another:[38]


"Once we were not, now we are as we were,"

and the sentiment, "I was not, I was, I am not, I care not" (non fui, fui,
non sum, non euro) was so freely used that it is indicated now and then
merely by the initial letters N.f.f.n.s.n.c., but compared with the great