CHAP. VII.
_____illuminated with innumerable lamps and torches. Slaves and strangers were excluded from any participation in these national ceremonies. A chorus of twenty-seven youths and as many virgins, of noble families, and whose parents were both alive, implored the propitious gods in favour of the present, and for the hope of the rising generation ; requesting, in religious hymns, that, according to the faith of their ancient oracles, they would still maintain the virtue, the fehcity, and the empire of the Roman people[1]. The magnificence of Phihp's shows and entertainments dazzled the eyes of the multitude. The devout were employed in the rites of superstition, whilst the reflecting few revolved in their anxious minds the past history and the future fate of the empire.
- ↑ The idea of the secular games is best understood from the poem of Horace, and the description of Zosimus, 1. ii. p. 167, etc.
- ↑ The received calculation of Varro assigns to the foundation of Rome an era that corresponds with the seven hundred and fifty-fourth year before Christ. But so little is the chronology of Rome to be depended on in the more early ages, that sir Isaac Newton has brought the same event as low as the year 627.