But these legends must not be compared to those of Greece, in which the
religious sentiment gave a supernatural glory to the effusions of the
bard, painted men as heroes and heroes as deities, and, while it was the
natural growth of the Greek intellect, twined itself around the affections
of the people. The Roman religion was a ceremonial for the priests, and
not for the people, and in Roman tradition there are no traces of elevated
genius or poetical inspiration. The Romans possessed the germs of those
faculties which admit of cultivation and improvement, such as taste and
genius, and the appreciation of the beautiful; but they did not possess
those natural gifts of fancy and imagination which formed part of the
Greek mind, and which made that nation in a state of infancy, almost of
barbarism, a poetical people. With them literature was not of spontaneous
growth; it was chiefly the result of the influence exerted by the
Etruscans, who were their teachers in everything mental and spiritual.
The tendency of the Roman mind was essentially utilitarian.
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