The beginnings of lyric poetry among the Romans reach back to the prehistoric period of the city, and were as rude and shapeless as was the life of her people. Amid the rough farmer-populace of the turf-walled village by the Tiber the Arval Brethren and the Salii chanted their rude litanies to the rustic deities, -for even then religion was a prime cause in moving men toward poetry.