an incident occurred which threw the whole company into confusion: A
little boy, roving from couch to couch among the guests, came at length to
that in which Livia (the bride) was lying by the side of Augustus, on
which he cried out aloud,--"Lady, what are you doing here? You are
mistaken--this is not your husband--he is there," (pointing to Tiberius,)
"go, go--rise, lady, and recline beside _him_."] For the first 400
years of Rome, not one divorce had been granted or asked, although the
statute which allowed of this indulgence had always been in force. But in
the age succeeding to the civil wars men and women "married," says one
author, "with a view to divorce, and divorced in order to marry. Many of
these changes happened within the year, especially if the lady had a large
fortune, which always went with her, and procured her choice of transient
husbands." And, "can one imagine," asks the same writer, "that the fair
one, who changed her husband every quarter, strictly kept her matrimonial
faith all the three months?" Thus the very fountain of all the "household
charities" and household virtues was polluted. And after that we need
little wonder at the assassinations, poisonings, and forging of wills,
which then laid waste the domestic life of the Romans.

2. A second source of the universal depravity was the growing inefficacy
of the public religion; and this arose from its disproportion and
inadequacy to the intellectual advances of the nation. _Religion_, in
its very etymology, has been held to imply a _religatio_, that is, a
reiterated or secondary obligation of morals; a sanction supplementary to
that of the conscience. Now, for a rude and uncultivated people, the Pagan
mythology might not be too gross to discharge the main functions of a
useful religion. So long as the understanding could submit to the fables
of the Pagan creed, so long it was possible that the hopes and fears built
upon that creed might be practically efficient on men's lives and
intentions. But when the foundation gave way, the whole superstructure of