Luciano Perelli

"The only great prose writer of the age of Augustus, Titus Livy [...], is the only man of letters who truly makes the ideals of Romanism the center of his art. He is moved to write the history of Rome by love for the traditions and institutions of the republic; his republican ideals did not prevent him from fully sharing the Augustan program of moral and religious restoration. It is above all to Livy that we owe the idealization of the ancient history of Rome and its characters as models of moral and political virtues."

"In the field of religion the Romans have a tradition that is completely different from the mythological one of the Greeks; the divine is a dark and impersonal force that is present in nature and objects and which presides over all human activities; the sphere of the sacred is taboo, it is clearly distinct from thatof the profane, and when faced with manifestations of the divine man feels a shiver of religious horror. Religion is aimed at warding off the harmful influences of divine forces with rituals and magical formulas, at interpreting their will through wonders. This dark and mysterious conception of faceless and figureless gods makes its influence felt even on writers of cultured and skeptical ages, through the typically Latin feeling of horror."