18
The justice and piety of Numa Pompilius was at that time celebrated. He dwelt at Cures, a city of the Sabines, and was as eminently learned in all laws human and divine, as any man could be in that age. They falsely represent that Pythagoras of Samos was his instructor in philosophy, because there appears no other person to refer to. Now it is certain that this philosopher, in the reign of Servius Tullius, more than a hundred years after this, held assemblies of young men, who eagerly imbibed his doctrine, in the most distant part of Italy, about Metapontus, Heraclea, and Croton. But[23]from these places, even had he flourished at the same time, what fame of his (extending) to the Sabines could have aroused any one to a desire of learning, or by what intercourse of language (could such a thing have been effected)? Besides, how could a single man have safely passed through so many nations differing in language and customs? I presume, therefore, that his mind was naturally furnished with virtuous dispositions, and that he was not so much versed in foreign sciences as in the severe and rigid discipline of the ancient Sabines, than which class none was in former times more strict. The Roman fathers, upon hearing the name of Numa, although they perceived that the scale of power would incline to the Sabines if a king were chosen from them, yet none of them ventured to prefer himself, or any other of his party, or any of the citizens or fathers, to that person, but unanimously resolved that the kingdom should be conferred on Numa Pompilius. Being sent for, just as Romulus before the building of the city obtained the throne by an augury, he commanded the gods to be consulted concerning himself also. Upon this, being conducted into the citadel by an augur, (to which profession that office was made a public one and perpetual by way of honour,) he sat down on a stone facing the south: the augur took his seat on his left hand with his head covered, holding in his right a crooked wand free from knots, which they called lituus; then taking a view towards the city and country, after offering a prayer to the gods, he marked out the regions from east to west, the parts towards the south he called the right, those towards the north, the left; and in front of him he set out in his mind a sign as far as ever his eye could reach. Then having shifted the lituus into his left hand, placing his right hand on the head of Numa, he prayed in this manner: "O father Jupiter, if it is thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be king of Rome, I beseech thee to give sure and evident signs of it within those bounds which I have marked." Then he stated in set terms the omens which he wished to be sent; and on their being sent, Numa was declared king and came down from the stand.
19
Having thus obtained the kingdom, he sets about establishing anew, on the principles of laws and morals, the city recently established by violence and arms. When he saw that their minds, as having been rendered ferocious by military life, could not be reconciled to those principles during the continuance of wars, considering that a fierce people should be mollified by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of Argiletum a temple of Janus, as an index of peace and war; that when open, it might show the state was engaged in war, and when shut, that all the neighbouring nations were at peace with it. Twice only since the reign of Numa hath this temple been shut; once when T. Manlius was consul, at the end of the first Punic war; and a second time, which the gods granted our age to see, by the emperor Augustus Cæsar, after the battle of Actium, peace being established by sea and land. This being shut, after he had secured the friendship of the neighbouring states around by alliance and treaties, all anxiety regarding dangers from abroad being removed, lest their minds, which the fear of enemies and military discipline had kept in check, should become licentious by tranquillity, he considered, that, first of all, an awe of the gods should be instilled into them, a principle of the greatest efficacy with a multitude ignorant and uncivilized as in those times. But as it could not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he pretends that he holds nightly interviews with the goddess Egeria; that by her direction he instituted the sacred rites which would be most acceptable to the gods, and appointed proper priests for each of the deities. And, first of all, he divides the year into twelve months, according to the course of the moon; and because the moon does not make up thirty days in each month, and some days are wanting to the complete year as constituted by the solstitial revolution, he so portioned it out by inserting intercalary months, that every twenty-fourth year, the lengths of all the intermediate years being completed, the days should correspond to the same place of the sun (in the heavens) whence they had set out.[24] He likewise made a distinction of the days[25] into profane and sacred, because on some it was likely to be expedient that no business should be transacted with the people.
20
Next he turned his attention to the appointment of priests, though he performed many sacred rites himself, especially those which now belong to the flamen of Jupiter. But, as he imagined that in a warlike nation there would be more kings resembling Romulus than Numa, and that they would go to war in person, he appointed a residentiary priest as flamen to Jupiter, that the sacred functions of the royal office might not be neglected, and he distinguished him by a fine robe, and a royal curule chair. To him he added two other flamines, one for Mars, another for Quirinus. He also selected virgins for Vesta, a priesthood derived from Alba, and not foreign to the family of the founder. That they might be constant attendants in the temple, he appointed them salaries out of the public treasury; and by enjoining virginity, and other religious observances, he made them sacred and venerable. He selected twelve Salii for Mars Gradivus, and gave them the distinction of an embroidered tunic, and over the tunic a brazen covering for the breast. He commanded them to carry the celestial shields called[26]Ancilia, and to go through the city singing songs, with leaping and solemn dancing. Then he chose out of the number of the fathers Numa Marcius, son of Marcus, as pontiff,[27] and consigned to him an entire system of religious rites written out and sealed, (showing) with what victims, upon what days, and in what temples the sacred rites were to be performed; and from what funds the money was to be taken for these expenses. He placed all religious institutions, public and private, under the cognisance of the pontiff to the end that there might be some place where the people should come to consult, lest any confusion in the divine worship might be occasioned by neglecting the ceremonies of their own country, and introducing foreign ones. (He ordained) that the same pontiff should instruct the people not only in the celestial ceremonies, but also in (the manner of performing) funeral solemnities, and of appeasing the manes of the dead; and what prodigies sent by lightning or any other phenomenon were to be attended to and expiated. To elicit such knowledge from the divine mind, he dedicated an altar on the Aventine to Jupiter[28]Elicius, and consulted the god by auguries as to what (prodigies) should be expiated.
21
The whole multitude having been diverted from violence and arms to the considering and adjusting these matters, both their minds had been engaged in doing something, and the constant watchfulness of the gods now impressed upon them, as the deity of heaven seemed to interest itself in human concerns, had filled the breasts of all with such piety, that faith and religious obligations governed the state, no less than fear of the laws and of punishment. And while[29] the people were moulding themselves after the morals of the king, as their best example, the neighbouring states also, who had formerly thought that it was a camp, not a city, situate in the midst of them to disturb the general peace, were brought (to feel) such respect for them that they considered it impious that a state, wholly occupied in the worship of the gods, should be molested. There was a grove, the middle of which was irrigated by a spring of running water, issuing from a dark grotto. As Numa went often thither alone, under pretence of conferring