When we are advising a change to greater magnificence in the celebration of sacred rites, we shall have a plausible pretext for altering ancestral usages, if we urge that an addition to existing rites involves not their destruction but their extension; again, that it is reasonable to suppose that the gods too are more favourably disposed to those who honour them more; again, that even our fathers used not to perform their sacrifices always in the same way, but regulated their service to the gods, both as a community and as private individuals, according to the occasion and their own prosperity; again, that this is a principle which we follow in all other matters in the government of our cities and our private establishments.