[1] So great blindness has fallen on the Roman race, that they call their enemy Lord, and preach the filcher of blessings as being their very giver, and to him they give thanks. They call those (deities), then, by human names, not by their own, for their own names they know not. That they are daemons¹ they understand: but they read histories of the old kings, and then, though they see that their character² was mortal, they honour them with a deific name.