At, quos prostraverant, detriumphatos colere coeperunt: quid autem isti dii pro Romanis possunt, qui nihil pro suis adversus eorum arma valuerunt? Romanorum enim vernaculos deos novimus: Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus et Consus et Pilumnus ac Volumnus dii; Cloacinam Tatius et invenit et coluit, Pavorem Hostilius atque Pallorem; mox a nescio quo Febris dedicata: haec alumna urbis istius superstitio, morbi et malae valetudines! Sane et Acca Larentia et Flora, meretrices propudiosae, inter morbos Romanorum et deos computandae.
A triumph over trampled gods is the preliminary to their worship; yet what can such gods do for Romans, when they could not help their own votaries against the arms of Rome? The indigenous gods of the Romans we know; Romulus, Picus, Tiberinus, and Consus and Pilumnus and Volumnus; Tatius invented and worshipped Cloacina; Hostilius Pavor (Panic) and Pallor; some one or another canonized Febris (Fever); such, in superstition, is the foster-child of your city of diseases and maladies. Presumably Acca Larentia too and Flora, prostitutes lost to shame, may be numbered among the diseases'and the gods'of Rome.
final_alignments\Minucius_Felix_Octavius.json