From Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend, by Professor H. Steuding, Translated from the German and Edited by Lionel D. Barnett. The Temple Primers, London: J. M. Dent; 1901; p. 106.
106Greek and Roman Mythology & Heroic Legend
ROMAN MYTHOLOGY
Mythology and Religion of the Romans.
§ 187. In religion, as in all other spheres of mental life, Greek influences gradually ousted the native Roman spirit, or at least filled the simple old forms with a new content. This process began as early as the reign of the second Tarquinius, Greek conceptions finding their way into Rome through the medium either of the Etruscans or of colonies in Lower Italy like Cumae. From about the time of the Second Punic War they began, at any rate in cultured circles, to completely destroy the old faith, until finally almost all worships that were in existence anywhere in the mighty empire were transferred to Rome. All statements which we find in authors as to the circumstances of the old Roman religion have already taken their colouring from this Greek tendency; only the festival calendar, which was set up before this period, and the existence of certain priesthoods, the foundation of which goes back to this earliest period, supply reliable if scant information as to what was genuinely Roman. These earliest testimonies shall therefore serve in the following exposition as landmarks, in order to exclude, as far as is possible, all that was imported from Greece into the religion of Rome.
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Mythology and Religion of the Romans :
I. Indeterminately conceived beings.