The authority of ancestral religion
Caecilius is still speaking, arguing that since fortune or nature is blind, it is better to follow the traditional worship of the gods handed down by ancestors.
Since blind fortune or uncertain nature rules, then, how much more reverent and better it is to accept the teaching of our ancestors as the priest of truth, to observe the religions handed down, to worship the gods whom you were steeped by your parents in fearing before you knew them more intimately, and not to pass judgment on deities but to believe those who came before us. In a still uncultivated age, at the very birth of the world, they deserved to have gods who were either easy to serve or their kings. That is why we see throughout all empires, provinces, and towns that each people has its own rites of worship and worships its own local gods: the Eleusinians worship Ceres, the Phrygians the Mother, the Epidaurians Aesculapius, the Chaldeans Belus, the Syrians Astarte, the Taurians Diana, the Gauls Mercury, and the Romans all deities.
Thus their power and authority has seized the circuit of the whole world; thus they have extended their empire beyond the paths of the sun and the very limits of Ocean. They exercise religious virtue in arms. They fortify their city with the religions of sacred rites, with chaste virgins, with many honors and titles of priests. When they were besieged and captured except for the Capitol alone, they worshiped gods whom anyone else would already have spurned in their anger. Through the Gauls' battle lines, who marveled at the audacity of such devotion, they advance unarmed against weapons but armed with the worship of religion. While victory still raged, they venerated the conquered deities from enemy walls. They seek foreign gods everywhere and make them their own. They build altars sometimes even to unknown deities and to the shades.
Thus while they take up the sacred rites of all nations, they have also earned their kingdoms. From this the unbroken continuity of veneration has remained, which is not weakened by long age but increased: indeed antiquity has always been accustomed to grant as much sanctity to ceremonies and shrines as age has accumulated.
Latin
Cum igitur aut fortuna caeca aut incerta natura sit, quanto uenerabilius ac melius antistitem ueritatis maiorum excipere disciplinam, religiones traditas colere, deos, quos a parentibus ante inbutus es timere quam nosse familiarius, adorare, nec de numinibus ferre sententiam, sed prioribus credere, qui adhuc rudi saeculo in ipsis mundi natalibus meruerunt deos uel faciles habere uel reges? inde adeo per uniuersa imperia, prouincias, oppida uidemus singulos sacrorum ritus gentiles habere et deos colere municipes, ut Eleusinios Cererem, Phrygas Matrem, Epidaurios Aesculapium, Chaldaeos Belum, Astarten Syros, Dianam Taurios, Gallos Mercurium, numina uniuersa Romanos.
sic eorum potestas et auctoritas totius orbis ambitum occupauit, sic imperium suum ultra solis uias et ipsius Oceani limites propagauit, dum exercent in armis uirtutem religiosam, dum urbem muniunt sacrorum religionibus, castis uirginibus, multis honoribus ac nominibus sacerdotum, dum obsessi et citra solum Capitolium capti colunt deos, quos alius iam spreuisset iratos, et per Gallorum acies mirantium superstitionis audaciam pergunt telis inermes, sed cultu religionis armati, dum captis hostilibus moenibus adhuc ferociente uictoria numina uicta uenerantur, dum undique hospites deos quaerunt et suos faciunt, dum aras extruunt interdum etiam ignotis numinibus et manibus.
sic dum uniuersarum gentium sacra suscipiunt, etiam regna meruerunt. hinc perpetuus uenerationis tenor mansit, quae longa aetate non infringitur, sed augetur: quippe antiquitas caerimoniis atque fanis tantum sanctitatis tribuere consueuit quantum adstruxerit uetustatis.