ABSTRACT
Roman religion was so free from the baser forms of magic and taboo that it is probable that these were deliberately excluded by the state. Contact with Greek religious ideas, which came to Rome through Etruria and Latin towns and later by direct intercourse with the Greek cities of southern Italy, had a far greater influence on Roman religion. The development of spirits into god's beginnings cannot be traced, but they go back in part to the Indo-European period before the Italian and Greek races separated. Morality was the concern of the state rather than of Roman religion from which it was divorced. It is unlikely that the magistrates realized at first the ecstatic and orgiastic nature of the cult; later Roman citizens were forbidden to take part. The old Roman religion might develop into formal sacerdotalism upheld by an urban aristocracy, but its vitality was not extinguished among the common people of the countryside.
