ABSTRACT
St Augustine has preserved for us a profound saying of Mucius Scaevola, the Pontifex Maximus, whom Cicero had known in his youth. “There are,” this official representative of Roman religion declared, “three kinds of religion: the poet’s, the philosopher’s, and the statesman’s. The two first are futile or superfluous or positively harmful; only the third can be accepted.” 1 Here we have a perfect expression of the Roman political tradition in respect of religion. The gods were made to serve the State. This was certainly how Augustus understood it. The religious restoration which he strove to bring about was essentially political.
