Augustine reinforces this argument by citing Varro, the preeminent Roman antiquarian, who acknowledged that genealogical myths connecting noble families to divine ancestors were deliberate fabrications designed to inspire civic courage. This admission, coming from paganism’s own scholarly authority, devastates the claim that these religious traditions preserve truth. If useful lies form the foundation of state religion, then the entire edifice rests on deception rather than revelation. The door stands open to endless falsification in matters of worship, and the gods themselves become instruments of political manipulation rather than objects of genuine piety.
Having demolished the excuses for Troy’s destruction, Augustine constructs his counter-argument by examining Rome’s own foundational crimes, which the gods not only tolerated but apparently rewarded. The murder of Remus by his twin brother Romulus presents the most damning case. If Paris’s adultery warranted the annihilation of Troy, surely fratricide at the very birth of a city should have provoked even greater divine wrath. Instead, Romulus ruled and was eventually honored as a god. Whether he struck the fatal blow himself or ordered it done, the guilt attaches to Rome, which either chose a murderer as its founder or failed to punish one. The gods’ response to this crime—blessing Romulus’s reign and granting him apotheosis—demonstrates that they care nothing for justice or brotherly affection. Their migration from Troy to Rome reveals not a search for worthier worshippers but a quest for fresh fields in which to practice their characteristic deceptions.
The rape of the Sabine women further exposes the gods’ failure to provide moral guidance to their chosen people. Augustine asks why Venus, the goddess of love, could not have assisted the Romans in securing wives through honorable means rather than through violence and abduction. The resulting conflict forced newly married Roman men to slaughter the fathers and brothers of their brides in battle. Augustine paints a scene of profound misery: women caught between their husbands and their kinsmen, unable to mourn their fallen fathers lest they offend their victors, watching as the men who embraced them at night killed their male relatives by day. This war, fought in Rome’s very streets and forum, stained the city’s origins with blood that no subsequent glory could wash away. The peace that finally ended the conflict came not through divine intervention but through the desperate courage of the Sabine women themselves, who threw themselves between the armies and pleaded for reconciliation. The gods offered no assistance, no wisdom, no moral direction—only silent observation of the carnage their neglect had enabled.
The war against Alba Longa deepens the indictment. This mother-city, founded by Ascanius the son of Aeneas, represented Rome’s direct ancestral lineage. Yet Tullus Hostilius provoked a conflict driven solely by ambition and the desire for dominion. The decision to settle the war through combat between three brothers from each side—the Horatii and the Curiatii—resulted in devastating losses. Two of the Horatii fell before their surviving brother turned the tide, killing all three Curiatii. Augustine emphasizes that this “victory” left Rome with but one survivor returning home from the flower of her youth. The subsequent murder of Horatia by her victorious brother—she had wept for her betrothed, one of the fallen Curiatii—added a final atrocity. Augustine defends the sister’s grief as natural and humane, contrasting her genuine sorrow with Rome’s bloodthirsty celebration. The destruction of Alba itself, despite its status as the third refuge of the Trojan gods after Troy and Lavinium, proved that these deities cannot protect even the cities most sacred to their worship. They abandon their sanctuaries not because of human wickedness but because they possess no power to preserve them.
Augustine reinforces this demonstration of divine impotence by examining the destruction of historical Troy by the Roman general Fimbria during the civil wars. This second annihilation of Ilium proved more thorough and cruel than the legendary Greek conquest. Where the Greeks had allowed survivors and captives, Fimbria ordered complete extermination, burning the city and its inhabitants together. The gods, worshipped by both Romans and Trojans, did nothing. Their silence during this atrocity reveals that they possess no genuine power to defend their cities or their worshippers. The Romans, supposedly the chosen people of these deities, inflicted upon Troy a destruction more complete than any pagan enemy had achieved. The image of Minerva said to have remained standing amid the ruins proves nothing about divine power; it merely demonstrates that the demons associated with these idols were present to witness their own humiliation.
The Gallic sack of Rome provides further evidence of the gods’ inadequacy as guardians. When the barbarians overwhelmed the city, the gods managed to protect only the Capitol—and even that limited success was attributed to the cackling of geese rather than to divine intervention. Augustine mocks the notion that deities swift enough to respond to a bird’s alarm could not be bothered to save the rest of the city. Their tardiness and weakness as protectors stand exposed by Rome’s own historians.
The portent of the weeping statue of Apollo at Cumae receives similar treatment. During Rome’s’ war with Aristonicus, this image was said to have shed tears for four days. Pagan interpreters, scrambling to find a favorable meaning, claimed Apollo wept not for Rome but for Greece, his homeland, which would suffer from Roman victory. Augustine finds this interpretation damning rather than comforting. A god who can only weep passively at impending disaster, who possesses no power to prevent or alter the course of events, is no god at all. Such behavior fits the pattern of the demons described by the poets—beings who observe human suffering with impotent grief but cannot intervene to help their worshippers.
Augustine turns to the reign of Numa Pompilius, often cited as evidence that proper worship of the gods brings peace and prosperity. The forty years of tranquility during Numa’s rule supposedly resulted from his establishment of numerous religious rites and his devotion to the gods. Augustine questions this causal connection. If the gods granted peace as a reward for Numa’s innovations, why did they never grant similar peace during later periods when these same rites had been long established and the pantheon vastly expanded? The gates of Janus, closed throughout Numa’s reign, remained open for nearly all of Rome’s subsequent history. This suggests that Numa’s peace resulted not from divine favor but from the disposition of Rome’s neighbors, who simply chose not to attack during those years. The gods cannot claim credit for a tranquility they did not bestow and could not replicate.
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