                                      75 AD
                                 NUMA POMPILIUS
                        Legendary, 8th-7th Century B.C.
                                  by Plutarch
                           translated by John Dryden

  THOUGH the pedigrees of noble families of Rome go back in exact form
as far as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst
historians concerning the time in which he reigned; a certain writer
called Clodius, in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology,
avers that the ancient registers of Rome were lost when the city was
sacked by the Gauls, and that those which are now extant were
counterfeited, to flatter and serve the humour of some men who
wished to have themselves derived from some ancient and noble lineage,
though in reality with no claim to it. And though it be commonly
reported that Numa was a scholar and a familiar acquaintance of
Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted by others, who affirm that he
was acquainted with neither the Greek language nor learning, and
that he was a person of that natural talent and ability as of
himself to attain to virtue, or else that he found some barbarian
instructor superior to Pythagoras. Some affirm, also, that
Pythagoras was not contemporary with Numa, but lived at least five
generations after him; and that some other Pythagoras, a native of
Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olympiad, in the third year of which
Numa became king, won a prize at the Olympic race, might, in his
travel through Italy, have gained acquaintance with Numa, and assisted
him in the constitution of his kingdom; whence it comes that many
Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions.
Yet, in any case, Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare
themselves to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in
general, is uncertain; especially when fixed by the lists of victors
in the Olympic games, which were published at a late period by Hippias
the Elean, and rest on no positive authority. Commencing, however,
at a convenient point, we will proceed to give the most noticeable
events that are recorded of the life of Numa.
  It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation of Rome,
when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of
July, called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the
Goat's Marsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly
the sky was darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the
earth; the common people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and
in this whirlwind Romulus disappeared, his body being never found
either living or dead. A foul suspicion presently attached to the
patricians, and rumours were current among the people as if that they,
weary of kingly government, and exasperated of late by the imperious
deportment of Romulus towards them, had plotted against his life and
made him away, that so they might assume the authority and
government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn
aside by decreeing divine honours to Romulus, as to one not dead but
translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took
oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and
vestments, and heard him, as he ascended, cry out that they should
hereafter style him by the name of Quirinus.
  This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about the
election of a new king; for the minds of the original Romans and the
new inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of
temper, but that there were diversities of factions amongst the
commonalty and jealousies and emulations amongst the senators; for
though all agreed that it was necessary to have a king, yet what
person or of which nation was matter of dispute. For those who had
been builders of the city with Romulus, and had already yielded a
share of their lands and dwellings to the Sabines, were indignant at
any pretension on their part to rule over their benefactors. On the
other side, the Sabines could plausibly allege, that, at their king
Tatius's decease, they had peaceably submitted to the sole command
of Romulus; so now their turn was come to have a king chosen out of
their own nation; nor did they esteem themselves to have combined with
the Romans as inferiors, nor to have contributed less than they to the
increase of Rome, which, without their numbers and association,
could scarcely have merited the name of a city.
  Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest
meanwhile discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion
general confusion, it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators
should interchangeably execute the office of supreme magistrate, and
each in succession, with the ensigns of royalty, should offer the
solemn sacrifices and despatch public business for the space of six
hours by day and six by night; which vicissitude and equal
distribution of power would preclude all rivalry amongst the
senators and envy from the people, when they should behold one,
elevated to the degree of a king, levelled within the space of a day
to the condition of a private citizen. This form of government is
termed, by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet could they, by this
plausible and modest way of rule, escape suspicion and clamour of
the vulgar, as though they were changing the form of government to
an oligarchy, and designing to keep the supreme power in a sort of
wardship under themselves, without ever proceeding to choose a king.
Both parties came at length to the conclusion that the one should
choose a king out of the body of the other; the Romans make a choice
of a Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman; this was esteemed the best
expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who should
be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as his
electors and to the other as his kinsmen. The Sabines remitted the
choice to the original Romans, and they, too, on their part, were more
inclinable to receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to
see a Roman exalted by the Sabines. Consultations being accordingly
held, they named Numa Pompilius, of the Sabine race, a person of
that high reputation for excellence, that, though he were not actually
residing at Rome, yet he was no sooner nominated than accepted by
the Sabines, with acclamation almost greater than that of the electors
themselves.
  The choice being declared and made known to the people, principal
men of both parties were appointed to visit and entreat him, that he
would accept the administration of the government. Numa resided at a
famous city of the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines
gave themselves the joint name of Quirites. Pomponius, an
illustrious person, was his father, and he the youngest of his four
sons, being (as it had been divinely ordered) born on the twenty-first
day of April, the day of the foundation of Rome. He was endued with
a soul rarely tempered by nature, and disposed to virtue, which he had
yet more subdued by discipline, a severe life, and the study of
philosophy; means which had not only succeeded in expelling the
baser passions, but also the violent and rapacious temper which
barbarians are apt to think highly of; true bravery, in his
judgment, was regarded as consisting in the subjugation of our
passions by reason.
  He banished all luxury and softness from his own home, and while
citizens alike and strangers found in him an incorruptible judge and
counsellor, in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre,
but to the worship of the immortal gods, and rational contemplation of
their divine power and nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the
colleague of Romulus, chose him for his son-in-law, and gave him his
only daughter, which, however, did not stimulate his vanity to
desire to dwell with his father-in-law at Rome; he rather chose to
inhabit with his Sabines, and cherish his own father in his old age;
and Tatia, also, preferred the private conditions of her husband
before the honours and splendour she might have enjoyed with her
father. She is said to have died after she had been married thirteen
years, and then Numa, leaving the conversation of the town, betook
himself to a country life, and in a solitary manner frequented the
groves and fields consecrated to the gods, passing his life in
desert places. And this in particular gave occasion to the story about
the goddess, namely, that Numa did not retire from human society out
of any melancholy or disorder of mind, but because he had tasted the
joys of more elevated intercourse, and, admitted to celestial
wedlock in the love and converse of the goddess Egeria, had attained
to blessedness, and to a divine wisdom.
  The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which the
Phrygians have received and still recount of Attis, the Bithynians
of Herodotus, the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others
who were thought blessed and beloved of the gods; nor does it seem
strange if God, a lover, not of horses or birds, but men, should not
disdain to dwell with the virtuous and converse with the wise and
temperate soul, though it be altogether hard, indeed, to believe, that
any god or daemon is capable of a sensual or bodily love and passion
for any human form or beauty. Though, indeed, the wise Egyptians do
not plausibly make the distinction, that it may be possible for a
divine spirit so to apply itself to the nature of a woman, as to
imbreed in her the first beginnings of generation, while on the
other side they conclude it impossible for the male kind to have any
intercourse or mixture by the body with any divinity, not considering,
however, that what takes place on the one side must also take place on
the other; intermixture, by force of terms, is reciprocal. Not that it
is otherwise than befitting to suppose that the gods feel towards
men affection, and love, in the sense of affection, and in the form of
care and solicitude for their virtue and their good dispositions. And,
therefore, it was no error of those who feigned, that Phorbas,
Hyacinthus, and Admetus were beloved by Apollo; or that Hippolytus the
Sicyonian was so much in his favour, that, as often as he sailed
from Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess uttered this heroic
verse expressive of the god's attention and joy:

        "Now doth Hippolytus return again,
         And venture his dear life upon the main."

  It is reported, also, that Pan became enamoured of Pindar for his
verses, and the divine power rendered honour to Hesiod and Archilochus
after their death for the sake of the Muses; there is a statement,
also, that Aesculapius sojourned with Sophocles in his lifetime, of
which many proofs still exist, and that, when he was dead, another
deity took care for his funeral rites. And so if any credit may be
given to these instances, why should we judge it incongruous, that a
like spirit of the gods should visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster,
Lycurgus, and Numa, the controllers of kingdoms, and the legislators
for commonwealths? Nay, it may be reasonable to believe, that the
gods, with a serious purpose, assist at the councils and serious
debates of such men, to inspire and direct them; and visit poets and
musicians, if at all in their more sportive moods; but for
difference of opinion here, as Bacchylides said, "the road is
broad." For there is no absurdity in the account also given, that
Lycurgus and Numa, and other famous lawgivers, having the task of
subduing perverse and refractory multitudes, and of introducing
great innovations, themselves made this pretension to divine
authority, which, if not true, assuredly was expedient for the
interests of those it imposed upon.
  Numa was about forty years of age when the ambassadors came to
make him offers of the kingdom; the speakers were Proculus and
Velesus, one or other of whom it had been thought the people would
elect as their new king; the original Romans being for Proculus, and
the Sabines for Velesus. Their speech was very short, supposing
that, when they came to tender a kingdom, there needed little to
persuade to an acceptance; but, contrary to their expectations, they
found that they had to use many reasons and entreaties to induce
one, that lived in peace and quietness, to accept the government of
a city whose foundation and increase had been made, in a manner, in
war. In presence of his father and his kinsman Marcius he returned
answer that "Every alteration of a man's life is dangerous to him; but
madness only could induce one who needs nothing, and is satisfied with
everything, to quit a life he is accustomed to; which, whatever else
it is deficient in, at any rate has the advantage of certainty over
one wholly doubtful and unknown. Though, indeed, the difficulties of
this government cannot even be called unknown; Romulus, who first held
it, did not escape the suspicion of having plotted against the life of
his colleague Tatius; nor the senate the like accusation, of having
treasonably murdered Romulus. Yet Romulus had the advantage to be
thought divinely born and miraculously preserved and nurtured. My
birth was mortal; I was reared and instructed by men that are known to
you. The very points of my character that are most commended mark me
as unfit to reign, love of retirement and of studies inconsistent with
business, a passion that has become inveterate in me for peace, for
unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whose meetings are
but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose lives in general
are spent upon their farms and their pastures. I should but be,
methinks, a laughingstock, while I should go about to inculcate the
worship of the gods and give lessons in the love of justice and the
abhorrence of violence and war, to a city whose needs are rather for a
captain than for a king."
  The Romans, perceiving by these words that he was declining to
accept the kingdom, were the more instant and urgent with him that
he would not forsake and desert them in this condition, and suffer
them to relapse, as they must, into their former sedition and civil
discord, there being no person on whom both parties could accord but
on himself. And, at length, his father and Marcius, taking him
aside, persuaded him to accept a gift so noble in itself, and tendered
to him rather from heaven than from men. "Though," said they, "you
neither desire riches, being content with what you have, nor court the
fame of authority, as having already the more valuable fame of virtue,
yet you will consider that government itself is a service of God,
who now calls out into action your qualities of justice and wisdom,
which were not meant to be left useless and unemployed. Cease,
therefore, to avoid and turn your back upon an office which, to a wise
man, is a field for great and honourable actions, for the
magnificent worship of the gods, and for the introduction of habits of
piety, which authority alone can effect amongst a people. Tatius,
though a foreigner, was beloved, and the memory of Romulus has
received divine honours; and who knows but that this people, being
victorious, may be satiated with war, and, content with the trophies
and spoils they have acquired, may be, above all things, desirous to
have a pacific and justice-loving prince to lead them to good order
and quiet? But if, indeed, their desires are uncontrollably and
madly set on war, were it not better, then, to have the reins held
by such a moderating hand as is able to divert the fury another way,
and that your native city and the whole Sabine nation should possess
in you a bond of goodwill and friendship with this young and growing
power?"
  With these reasons and persuasions several auspicious omens are said
to have concurred, and the zeal, also, of his fellow-citizens, who, on
understanding what message the Roman ambassadors had brought him,
entreated him to accompany them, and to accept the kingdom as a
means to unanimity and concord between the nations.
  Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first performed divine
sacrifice, proceeded to Rome, being met in his way by the senate and
people, who, with an impatient desire, came forth to receive him;
the women, also, welcomed him with joyful acclamations, and sacrifices
were offered for him in all the temples, and so universal was the joy,
that they seemed to be receiving, not a new king, but a new kingdom.
In this manner he descended into the forum, where Spurius Vettius,
whose turn it was to be interrex at that hour, put it to the vote; and
all declared him king. Then the regalities and robes of authority were
brought to him; but he refused to be invested with them until he had
first consulted and been confirmed by the gods; so being accompanied
by the priests and augurs, he ascended the Capitol, which at that time
the Romans called the Tarpeian Hill. Then the chief of the augurs
covered Numa's head, and turned his face towards the south, and,
standing behind him, laid his right hand on his head, and prayed,
turning his eyes every way, in expectation of some auspicious signal
from the gods. It was wonderful, meantime, with what silence and
devotion the multitude stood assembled in the forum, in similar
expectation and suspense, till auspicious birds appeared and passed on
the right. Then Numa, apparelling himself in his royal robes,
descended from the hill to the people, by whom he was received and
congratulated with shouts and acclamations of welcome, as a holy king,
and beloved of all the gods.
  The first thing he did at his entrance into government was to
dismiss the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus's
life-guard, called by him Celeres, saying that he would not distrust
those who put confidence in him; nor rule over a people that
distrusted him. The next thing he did was to add to the two priests of
Jupiter and Mars a third, in honour of Romulus, whom he called the
Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans anciently called their priests Flamines,
by corruption of the word Pilamines, from a certain cap which they
wore, called Pileus. In those times Greek words were more mixed with
the Latin than at present; thus also the royal robe, which is
called, Laena, Juba says, is the same as the Greek Chlaena; and that
the name of Camillus, given to the boy with both his parents living,
who serves in the temple of Jupiter, was taken from the name given
by some Greeks to Mercury, denoting his office of attendance on the
gods.
  When Numa had, by such measures, won the favour and affection of the
people, he set himself without delay to the task of bringing the
hard and iron Roman temper to somewhat more of gentleness and
equity. Plato's expression of a city in high fever was never more
applicable than to Rome at that time; in its origin formed by daring
and warlike spirits, whom bold and desperate adventure brought thither
from every quarter, it had found in perpetual wars and incursions on
its neighbours its after sustenance and means of growth, and in
conflict with danger the source of new strength; like piles, which the
blows of the hammer serve to fix into the ground. Wherefore Numa,
judging it no slight undertaking to mollify and bend to peace the
presumptuous and stubborn spirits of this people, began to operate
upon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often and used
processions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiated
in person; by such combinations of solemnity with refined and
humanizing pleasures, seeking to win over and mitigate their fiery and
warlike tempers. At times, also, he filled their imaginations with
religious terrors, professing that strange apparitions had been
seen, and dreadful voices heard; thus subduing and humbling their
minds by a sense of supernatural fears.
  This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much
conversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in
the policy of the other, man's relations to the deity occupy a great
place. It is said, also, that the solemnity of his exterior garb and
gestures was adopted by him from the same feeling with Pythagoras. For
it is said of Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his
call, and stoop down to him in his flight; and that, as he passed
among the people assembled at the Olympic games, he showed them his
golden thigh; besides many other strange and miraculous seeming
practices, on which Timon the Philasian wrote the distich-

        "Who, of the glory of a juggler proud,
         With solemn talk imposed upon the crowd."

  In like manner Numa spoke of a certain goddess or mountain nymph
that was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related;
and professed that he entertained familiar conversation with the
Muses, to whose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his
revelations; and amongst them, above all, he recommended to the
veneration of the Romans one in particular, whom he named Tacita,
the silent; which he did perhaps in imitation and honour of the
Pythagorean silence. His opinion, also, of images is very agreeable to
the doctrine of Pythagoras; who conceived of the first principle of
being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt,
and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade
the Romans to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there
any painted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the
space of the first hundred and seventy years, all of which time
their temples and chapels were kept free and pure from images; to such
baser objects they deemed it impious to liken the highest, and all
access to God impossible, except by the pure act of the intellect. His
sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the ceremonial of
Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with effusion of blood, but
consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly offerings. Other
external proofs, too, are urged to show the connection Numa had with
Pythagoras. The comic writer Epicharmus, an ancient author, and of the
school of Pythagoras, in a book of his dedicated to Antenor, records
that Pythagoras was made a freeman of Rome. Again, Numa gave to one of
his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of one of the
sons of Pythagoras; from whence, as they say, sprang that ancient
patrician family of the Aemilli, for that the king gave him in sport
the surname of Aemilius, for his engaging and graceful manner in
speaking. I remember, too, that when I was at Rome, I heard many
say, that, when the oracle directed two statues to be raised, one to
the wisest and another to the most valiant man in Greece, they erected
two of brass, one representing Alcibiades, and the other Pythagoras.
  But to pass by these matters, which are full of uncertainty and
not so important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the
original constitution of the priests, called Pontifices, is ascribed
unto Numa, and he himself was, it is said, the first of them; and that
they have the name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they
attend the service of the gods, who have power to command over all.
Others make the word refer to exceptions of impossible cases; the
priests were to perform all the duties possible to them; if anything
lay beyond their power, the exception was not to be cavilled at. The
most common opinion is the most absurd, which derives this word from
pons, and assigns the priests the title of bridge-makers. The
sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the most sacred and
ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached, like
any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. It was accounted
not simply unlawful, but a positive sacrilege, to pull down the wooden
bridge; which moreover is said, in obedience to an oracle, to have
been built entirely of timber and fastened with wooden pins, without
nails or cramps of iron. The stone bridge was built a very long time
after when Aemilius was quaestor, and they do, indeed, say also that
the wooden bridge was not so old as Numa's time, but was finished by
Ancus Marcius, when he was king, who was the grandson of Numa by his
daughter.
  The office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, was to declare
and interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred
rites; he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated
the sacrifices of private persons, not suffering them to vary from
established custom, and giving information to every one of what was
requisite for purposes of worship or supplication. He was also
guardian of the vestal virgins, the institution of whom, and of
their perpetual fire, was attributed to Numa, who, perhaps, fancied
the charge of pure and uncorrupted flames would be fitly intrusted
to chaste and unpolluted persons, or that fire, which consumes, but
produces nothing, bears an analogy to the virgin estate. In Greece,
wherever a perpetual holy fire is kept, as at Delphi and Athens the
charge of it is committed, not to virgins, but widows past the time of
marriage. And in case by any accident it should happen that this
fire became extinct, as the holy lamp was at Athens under the
tyranny of Aristion, and at Delphi, when that temple was burnt by
the Medes, as also in the time of the Mithridatic and Roman civil war,
when not only the fire was extinguished, but the altar demolished,
then, afterwards, in kindling this fire again, it was esteemed an
impiety to light it from common sparks or flame, or from anything
but the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun, which they usually effect
by concave mirrors, of a figure formed by the revolution of an
isosceles rectangular triangle, all the lines from the circumference
of which meeting in a centre, by holding it in the light of the sun
they can collect and concentrate all its rays at this one point of
convergence; where the air will now become rarefied, and any light,
dry, combustible matter will kindle as soon as applied, under the
effect of the rays, which here acquired the substance and active force
of fire. Some are of opinion that these vestals had no other
business than the preservation of this fire; but others conceive
that they were keepers of other divine secrets concealed from all
but themselves, of which we have told all that may lawfully be asked
or told, in the life of Camillus. Gegania and Verenia, it is recorded,
were the names of the first two virgins consecrated and ordained by
Numa; Canuleia and Tarpeia succeeded: Servius afterwards added two,
and the number of four has continued the present time.
  The statutes prescribed by Numa for the vestals were these: that
they should take a vow of virginity for the space of thirty years, the
first ten of which they were to spend in learning their duties, the
second ten in performing them, and the remaining ten in teaching and
instructing others. Thus the whole term being completed, it was lawful
for them to marry, and, leaving the sacred order, to choose any
condition of life that pleased them; but this permission few, as
they say, made use of; and in cases where they did so, it was observed
that their change was not a happy one, but accompanied ever after with
regret and melancholy; so that the greater number, from religious
fears and scruples, forbore, and continued to old age and death in the
strict observance of a single life.
  For this condition he compensated by great privileges and
prerogatives; as that they had power to make a will in the lifetime of
their father; that they had a free administration of their own affairs
without guardian or tutor, which was the privilege of women who were
the mothers of three children; when they go abroad, they have the
fasces carried before them; and if in their walks they chance to
meet a criminal on his way to execution, it saves his life, upon
oath made that the meeting was an accidental one, and not concerted or
of set purpose. Any one who presses upon the chair on which they are
carried, is put to death. If these vestals commit any minor fault,
they are punishable by the high priest only, who scourges the
offender, sometimes with her clothes off, in a dark place, with a
curtain drawn between; but she that has broken her vow is buried alive
near the gate called Collina, where a little mound of earth stands
inside the city, reaching some little distance, called in Latin agger;
under it a narrow room is constructed, to which a descent is made by
stairs; here they prepare a bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small
quantity of victuals, such as bread, water, a pail of milk, and some
oil; that so that body which had been consecrated and devoted to the
most sacred service of religion might not be said to perish by such
a death as famine. The culprit herself is put in a litter, which
they cover over, and tie her down with cords on it, so that nothing
she utters may be heard. They then take her to the forum; all people
silently go out of the way as she passes, and such as follow accompany
the bier with solemn and speechless sorrow; and indeed, there is not
any spectacle more appalling, nor any day observed by the city with
greater appearance of gloom and sadness. When they come to the place
of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high
priest, lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to
himself before the act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still
covered, and placing her upon the steps that lead down to the cell,
turns away his face with the rest of the priests; the stairs are drawn
up after she has gone down, and a quantity of earth is heaped up
over the entrance to the cell, so as to prevent it from being
distinguished from the rest of the mound. This is the punishment of
those who break their vow of virginity.
  It is said, also, that Numa built the temple of Vesta, which was
intended for a repository of the holy fire, of a circular form, not to
represent the figure of the earth, as if that were the same as
Vesta, but that of the general universe, in the centre of which the
Pythagoreans place the element of fire, and give it the name of
Vesta and the unit; and do not hold that the earth is immovable, or
that it is situated in the centre of the globe, but that it keeps a
circular motion about the seat of fire, and is not in the number of
the primary elements; in this agreeing with the opinion of Plato, who,
they say, in his later life, conceived that the earth held a lateral
position, and that the central and sovereign space was reserved for
some nobler body.
  There was yet a farther use of the priests, and that was to give
people directions in the national usages at funeral rites. Numa taught
them to regard these offices, not as a pollution, but as a duty paid
to the gods below, into whose hands the better part of us is
transmitted; especially they were to worship the goddess Libitina, who
presided over all the ceremonies performed at burials; whether they
meant hereby Proserpina, or, as the most learned of the Romans
conceive, Venus, not inaptly attributing the beginning and end of
man's life to the agency of one and the same diety. Numa also
prescribed rules for regulating the days of mourning, according to
certain times and ages. As, for example, a child of three years was
not to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten years, for as
many months as it was years old; and the longest time of mourning
for any person whatsoever was not to exceed the term of ten months;
which was the time appointed for women that lost their husbands to
continue in widowhood. If any married again before that time, by the
laws of Numa, she was to sacrifice a cow big with calf.
  Numa, also, was founder of several other orders of priests, two of
which I shall mention, the Salii and the Fecials, which are among
the clearest proofs of the devoutness and sanctity of his character.
These Fecials, or guardians of peace, seem to have had their name from
their office, which was to put a stop to disputes by conference and
speech; for it was not allowable to take up arms until they had
declared all hopes of accommodation to be at an end, for in Greek,
too, we call it peace when disputes are settled by words, and not by
force. The Romans commonly despatched the Fecials, or heralds, to
those who had offered them injury, requesting satisfaction; and, in
case they refused, they then called the gods to witness, and, with
imprecations upon themselves and their country should they be acting
unjustly, so declared war; against their will, or without their
consent, it was lawful neither for soldier nor king to take up arms;
the war was begun with them, and when they had first handed it over to
the commander as a just quarrel, then his business was to deliberate
of the manner and ways to carry it on. It is believed that the
slaughter and destruction which the Gauls made of the Romans was a
judgment on the city for neglect of this religious proceeding; for
that when these barbarians besieged the Clusinians, Fabius Ambustus
was despatched to their camp to negotiate peace for the besieged; and,
on their returning a rude refusal, Fabius imagined that his office
of ambassador was at an end, and, rashly engaging on the side of the
Clusinians, challenged the bravest of the enemy to a single combat. It
was the fortune of Fabius to kill his adversary, and to take his
spoils; but when the Gauls discovered it, they sent a herald to Rome
to complain against him; since, before war was declared, he had,
against the law of nations, made a breach of the peace. The matter
being debated in the senate, the Fecials were of opinion that Fabius
ought to be consigned into the hands of the Gauls; but he, being
forewarned of their judgment, fled to the people, by whose
protection and favour he escaped the sentence. On this, the Gauls
marched with their army to Rome, where having taken the capitol,
they sacked the city. The particulars of all which are fully given
in the history of Camillus.
  The origin of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign
of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged
likewise the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and
despondent, a brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into hands
of Numa, who gave them this marvellous account of it: that Egeria
and the Muses had assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and
safety of the city, and that, to keep it secure, he was ordered by
them to make eleven others, so like in dimensions and form to the
original that no thief should be able to distinguish the true from the
counterfeit. He farther declared, that he was commanded to
consecrate to the Muses the place, and the fields about it, where they
had been chiefly wont to meet with him, and that the spring which
watered the fields should be hallowed for the use of the vestal
virgins, who were to wash and cleanse the penetralia of their
sanctuary with those holy waters. The truth of all which was
speedily verified by the cessation of the pestilence. Numa displayed
the target to the artificers and bade them show their skill in
making others like it; all despaired, until at length one Mamurius
Veturius, an excellent workman, happily hit upon it, and made all so
exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss and could not
distinguish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the
charge of certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their
name, as some tell the story, from Salius, a dancing-master, born in
Samothrace, or at Mantinea who taught the way of dancing in arms;
but more truly from that jumping dance which the Salii themselves use,
when in the month of March they carry the sacred targets through the
city; at which procession they are habited in short frocks of
purple, girt with a broad belt studded with brass; on their heads they
wear a brass helmet and carry in their hands short daggers, which they
clash every now and then against the targets. But the chief thing is
the dance itself. They move with much grace, performing, in quick time
and close order, various intricate figures, with a great display of
strength and agility. The targets were called Ancilia from their form;
for they are not made round, nor like proper targets, of a complete
circumference, but are cut out into a wavy line, the ends of which are
rounded off and turned in at the thickest part towards each other;
so that their shape is curvilinear, or, in Greek, ancylon; or the name
may come from ancon, the elbow, on which they are carried. Thus Juba
writes, who is eager to make it Greek. But it might be, for that
matter, from its having come down anecathen, from above; or from its
akesis, or cure of diseases; or auchmon lysis, because it put an end
to a drought; or from its anaschesis, or relief from calamities, which
is the origin of the Athenian name Anaces, given to Castor and Pollux;
if we must, that is, reduce it to Greek. The reward which Mamurius
received for his art was to be mentioned and commemorated in the
verses which the Salii sang, as they danced in their arms through
the city; though some will have it that they do not say Veturium
Mamuium, but Veterem Memoriam, ancient remembrance.
  After Numa had in this manner instituted these several orders of
priests, he erected, near the temple of Vesta, what is called to
this day Regia, or king's house, where he spent the most part of his
time performing divine service, instructing the priests, or conversing
with them on sacred subjects. He had another house upon the Mount
Quirinalis, the site of which they show to this day. In all public
processions and solemn prayers, criers were sent before to give notice
to the people that they should forbear their work, and rest. They
say that the Pythagoreans did not allow people to worship and pray
to their gods by the way, but would have them go out from their houses
direct, with their minds set upon the duty, and Numa, in like
manner, wished that his citizens should neither see nor hear any
religious service in a perfunctory and inattentive manner, but, laying
aside all other occupations, should apply their minds to religion as
to a most serious business; and that the streets should be free from
all noises and cries that accompany manual labour, and clear for the
sacred solemnity. Some traces of this custom remain at Rome to this
day, for, when the consul begins to take auspices or do sacrifice,
they call out to the people, Hoc age, Attend to this, whereby the
auditors then present are admonished to compose and recollect
themselves. Many other of his precepts resemble those of the
Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans said, for example, "Thou shalt not make
a peck-measure thy seat to sit on. Thou shalt not stir the fire with a
sword. When thou goest out upon a journey, look not behind thee.
When thou sacrificest to the celestial gods, let it be with an odd
number, and when to the terrestrial, with even." The significance of
each of which precepts they would not commonly disclose. So some of
Numa's traditions have no obvious meaning. "Thou shalt not make
libation to the gods of wine from an unpruned vine. No sacrifices
shall be performed without meal. Turn round to pay adoration to the
gods; sit after you have worshipped." The first two directions seem to
denote the cultivation and subduing of the earth as a part of
religion; and as to the turning which the worshippers are to use in
divine adoration, it is said to represent the rotatory motion of the
world. But, in my opinion, the meaning rather is, that the worshipper,
since the temples front the east, enters with his back to the rising
sun; there, faces round to the east, and so turns back to the god of
the temple, by this circular movement referring the fulfilment of
his prayers to both divinities. Unless, indeed, this change of posture
may have a mystical meaning, like the Egyptian wheels, and signify
to us the instability of human fortune, and that, in whatever way
God changes and turns our lot and condition, we should rest contented,
and accept it as right and fitting. They say, also, that the sitting
after worship was to be by way of omen of their petitions being
granted, and the blessing they asked assured to them. Again, as
different courses of actions are divided by intervals of rest, they
might seat themselves after the completion of what they had done, to
seek favour of the gods for beginning something else. And this would
very well suit with what we had before; the lawgiver wants to
habituate us to make our petitions to the deity not by the way, and,
as it were, in a hurry, when we have other things to do, but with time
and leisure to attend to it. By such discipline and schooling in
religion, the city passed insensibly into such a submissiveness of
temper, and stood in such awe and reverence of the virtue of Numa,
that they received, with an undoubted assurance, whatever he delivered
though never so fabulous, and thought nothing incredible or impossible
from him.
  There goes a story that he once invited a great number of citizens
to an entertainment, at which the dishes in which the meat was
served were very homely and plain, and the repast itself poor and
ordinary fare; the guests seated, he began to tell them that the
goddess that consulted with him was then at that time come to him;
when on a sudden the room was furnished with all sorts of costly
drinking-vessels, and the tables loaded with rich meats, and a most
sumptuous entertainment. But the dialogue which is reported to have
passed between him and Jupiter surpasses all the fabulous legends that
were ever invented. They say that before Mount Aventine was
inhabited or enclosed within the walls of the city, two demigods,
Picus and Faunus, frequented the springs and thick shades of that
place; which might be two satyrs, or Pans except that they went
about Italy playing the same sorts of tricks, by skill in drugs and
magic, as are ascribed by the Greeks to the Dactyli of Mount Ida. Numa
contrived one day to surprise these demigods, by mixing wine and honey
in the waters of the spring of which they usually drank. On finding
themselves ensnared, they changed themselves into various shapes,
dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual and hideous
appearance; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and in no
possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and
future events; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning,
still in use, performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say
they did not tell him the charm, but by their magic brought down
Jupiter out of heaven; and that he then, in an angry manner
answering the inquiries, told Numa, that, if he would charm the
thunder and lightning, he must do it with heads. "How," said Numa,
"with the heads of onions?" "No," replied Jupiter, "of men." But Numa,
willing to elude the cruelty of this receipt, turned it another way,
saying, "Your meaning is, the hairs of men's heads." "No," replied
Jupiter, "with living"- "pilchards," said Numa, interrupting him.
These answers he had learnt from Egeria. Jupiter returned again to
heaven, pacified and ileos, or propitious. The place was, in
remembrance of him, called Ilicium, from this Greek word; and the
spell in this manner effected.
  These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings which
people then, by force of habit, entertained towards the deity. And
Numa's own thoughts are said to have been fixed to that degree on
divine objects, that he once, when a message was brought to him that
"Enemies are approaching," answered with a smile, "And I am
sacrificing." It was he, also, that built the temples of Faith and
Terminus, and taught the Romans that the name of Faith was the most
solemn oath that they could swear. They still use it; and to the god
Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to this day both public and
private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-marks of their land;
living victims now, though anciently those sacrifices were
solemnized without blood; for Numa reasoned that the god of
boundaries, who watched over peace, and testified to fair dealing,
should have no concern with blood. It is very clear that it was this
king who first prescribed bounds to the territory of Rome; for Romulus
would but have openly betrayed how much he had encroached on his
neighbours' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries
are, indeed, a defence to those who choose to observe them, but are
only a testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through
them. The truth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at
the beginning was very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war; all
those acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty,
wishing to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to
dishonesty, and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as
well as their lands, into better order. For there is no employment
that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a
country life, which leave in men all that kind of courage that makes
them ready to fight in defence of their own, while it destroys the
licence that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa,
therefore, hoping agriculture would be a sort of charm to captivate
the affections of his people to peace, and viewing it rather as a
means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands into
several parcels, to which he gave the name of pagus, or parish, and
over every one of them he ordained chief overseers; and, taking a
delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in person, he formed his
judgment of every man's habits by the results; of which being
witness himself, he preferred those to honours and employments who had
done well, and by rebukes and reproaches incited the indolent and
careless to improvement. But of all his measures the most commended
was his distribution of the people by their trades into companies or
guilds; for as the city consisted, or rather did not consist of, but
was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity between which
could not be effaced and in the meantime prevented all unity and
caused perpetual tumult and ill-blood, reflecting how hard
substances that do not readily mix when in the lump may, by being
beaten into powder, in that minute form he combined, he resolved to
divide the whole population into a number of small divisions, and thus
hoped, by introducing other distinctions, to obliterate the original
and great distinction, which would be lost among the smaller. So,
distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and trades, he
formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers,
shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other
handicraftsmen he composed and reduced into a single company,
appointing every one their proper courts, councils, and religious
observances. In this manner all factious distinctions began, for the
first time, to pass out of use, no person any longer being either
thought of or spoken of under the notion of a Sabine or a Roman, a
Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division became a source of
general harmony and intermixture.
  He is also much to be commended for the repeal, or rather amendment,
of that law which gives power to fathers to sell their children; he
exempted such as were married, conditionally that it had been with the
liking and consent of their parents; for it seemed a hard thing that a
woman who had given herself in marriage to a man whom she judged
free should afterwards find herself living with a slave.
  He attempted, also, the formation of a calendar, not with absolute
exactness, yet not without some scientific knowledge. During the reign
of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or
equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five,
others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the
motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the
whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days. Numa,
calculating the difference between the lunar and the solar year at
eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in
three hundred and fifty-four days, and the sun in three hundred and
sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and
every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February,
consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans the month
Mercedinus. This amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came
to need other amendments. He also altered the order of the months; for
March, which was reckoned the first he put into the third place; and
January, which was the eleventh, he made the first; and February,
which was the twelfth and last, the second. Many will have it, that it
was Numa, also, who added the two months of January and February;
for in the beginning they had had a year of ten months; as there are
barbarians who count only three; the Arcadians, in Greece, had but
four; the Acarnanians, six. The Egyptian year at first, they say,
was of one month; afterwards, of four; and so, though they live in the
newest of all countries, they have the credit of being a more
ancient nation than any, and reckon, in their genealogies, a
prodigious number of years, counting months, that is, as years. That
the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and
not twelve months, plainly appears by the name of the last,
December, meaning the tenth month; and that March was the first is
likewise evident, for the fifth month after it was called Quintilis,
and the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest; whereas, if January and
February had, in this account, preceded March, Quintilis would have
been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning. It was also natural
that March, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus's first and April,
named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it they sacrifice
to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day of it, with
myrtle garlands on their heads. But others, because of its being p and
not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from
Aphrodite, but say it is called April from aperio, Latin for to
open, because that this month is high spring, and opens and
discloses the buds and flowers. The next is called May, from Maia, the
mother of Mercury, to whom it is sacred; then June follows, so
called from Juno; some, however, derive them from the two ages, old
and young, majores, being their name for older, and juniores for
younger men. To the other months they gave denominations according
to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the sixth,
and the rest, September, October, November, and December. Afterwards
Quintilis received the name of Julius, from Caesar, who defeated
Pompey; as also Sextilis that of Augustus, from the second Caesar, who
had that title. Domitian, also, in imitation, gave the two other
following months his own names, of Germanicus and Domitianus; but,
on his being slain, they recovered their ancient denominations of
September and October. The two last are the only ones that have kept
their names throughout without any alteration. Of the months which
were added or transposed in their order by Numa, February comes from
februa; and is as much a Purification month; in it they make offerings
to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which, in most points,
resembles a purification. January was also called from janus, and
precedence given to it by Numa before March, which was dedicated to
the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every
opportunity of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be
preferred before those of war. For this Janus, whether in remote
antiquity he were a demigod or a king, was certainly a great lover
of civil and social unity, and one who reclaimed men from brutal and
savage living; for which reason they figure him with two faces, to
represent the two states and conditions out of the one of which he
brought mankind, to lead them into the other. His temple at Rome has
two gates, which they call the gates of war, because they stand open
in the time of war, and shut in the times of peace; of which latter
there was very seldom an example, for, as the Roman empire was
enlarged and extended, it was so encompassed with barbarous nations
and enemies to be resisted, that it was seldom or never at peace. Only
in the time of Augustus Caesar, after he had overcome Antony, this
temple was shut; as likewise once before, when Marcus Atilius and
Titus Manlius were consuls; but then it was not long before, wars
breaking out, the gates were again opened. But, during the reign of
Numa, those gates were never seen open a single day, but continued
constantly shut for a space of forty-three years together; such an
entire and universal cessation of war existed. For not only had the
people of Rome itself been softened and charmed into a peaceful temper
by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince, but even the
neighbouring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air had blown
from Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling, and
partook in the general longing for the sweets of peace and order,
and for life employed in the quiet tillage of soil, bringing up of
children, and worship of the gods. Festival days and sports, and the
secure and peaceful interchange of friendly visits and hospitalities
prevailed all through the whole of Italy. The love of virtue and
justice flowed from Numa's wisdom as from a fountain, and the serenity
of his spirit diffused itself, like a calm, on all sides; so that
the hyperboles of poets were flat and tame to express what then
existed; as that-

        "Over the iron shield the spiders hang their threads,"

or that-

        "Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edged sword.
         No more is heard the trumpet's brazen roar,
         Sweet sleep is banished from our eyes no more."

  For during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor
sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to his
person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition. Either fear
of the gods that were thought to watch over him, or reverence for
his virtue, or divine felicity of fortune that in his days preserved
human innocence, made his reign, by whatever means, a living example
and verification of that saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured
to pronounce, that the sole and only hope of respite or remedy for
human evils was in some happy conjunction of events which should unite
in a single person the power of a king and the wisdom of a
philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to control and mastery over vice.
The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessed also are the
auditors who can bear and receive those words which flow from his
mouth; and perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menaces
to affect the multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and
conspicuous example of virtue in the life of their prince will bring
them spontaneously to virtue, and to a conformity with that
blameless and blessed life of good-will and mutual concord,
supported by temperance and justice, which is the highest benefit that
human means can confer; and he is the truest ruler who can best
introduce it into the hearts and practice of his subjects. It is the
praise of Numa that no one seems ever to have discerned this so
clearly as he.
  As to his children and wives, there is a diversity of reports by
several authors; some will have it that he never had any other wife
than Tatia; nor more children than one daughter called Pompilia;
others will have it that he left also four sons, namely, Pompo, Pinus,
Calpus, and Mamercus, every one of whom had issue, and from them
descended the noble and illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii,
Calpurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took also the surname of
Rex, or King. But there is a third set of writers who say that these
pedigrees are but a piece of flattery used by writers who, to gain
favour with these great families, made them fictitious genealogies
from the lineage of Numa; and that Pompilia was not the daughter of
Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom he married after he came to his
kingdom; however, all of them agree in opinion that she was married to
the son of that Marcius who persuaded him to accept the government,
and accompanied him to Rome, where, as a mark of honour, he was chosen
into the senate, and after the death of Numa, standing in
competition with Tullus Hostilius for the kingdom, and being
disappointed of the election, in discontent killed himself; his son
Marcius, however, who had married Pompilia, continuing at Rome, was
the father of Ancus Marcius, who succeeded Tullus Hostilius in the
kingdom, and was but five years of age when Numa died.
  Numa lived something above eighty years, and then, as Piso writes,
was not taken out of the world by a sudden or acute disease, but
died of old age and by a gradual and gentle decline. At his funeral
all the glories of his life were consummated, when all the
neighbouring states in alliance and amity with Rome met to honour
and grace the rites of his interment with garlands and public
presents; the senators carried the bier on which his corpse was
laid, and the priests followed and accompanied the solemn
procession; while a general crowd, in which women and children took
part, followed with such cries and weeping as if they had bewailed the
death and loss of some most dear relation taken away in the flower
of age, and not an old and worn-out king. It is said that his body, by
his particular command, was not burnt, but that they made, in
conformity with his order, two stone coffins, and buried both under
the hill Janiculum, in one of which his body was laid, and the other
his sacred books, which, as the Greek legislators their tables, he had
written out for himself, but had so long inculcated the contents of
them, whilst he lived, into the minds and hearts of the priests,
that their understandings became fully possessed with the whole spirit
and purpose of them; and he therefore bade that they should be
buried with his body, as though such holy precepts could not without
irreverence he left to circulate in mere lifeless writings. For this
very reason, they say, the Pythagoreans bade that their precepts
should not be committed to paper, but rather preserved in the living
memories of those who were worthy to receive them; and when some of
their out-of-the-way and abstruse geometrical processes had been
divulged to an unworthy person, they said the gods threatened to
punish this wickedness and profanity by a signal and wide-spreading
calamity. With these several instances concurring to show a similarity
in the lives of Numa and Pythagoras, we may easily pardon those who
seek to establish the fact of a real acquaintance between them.
  Valerius Antias writes that the books which were buried in the
aforesaid chest or coffin of stone were twelve volumes of holy writ
and twelve others of Greek philosophy, and that about four hundred
years afterwards, when P. Cornelius and M. Baebius were consuls, in
a time of heavy rains, a violent torrent washed away the earth, and
dislodged the chests of stone; and, their covers falling off, one of
them was found wholly empty, without the least relic of any human
body; in the other were the books before mentioned, which the
praetor Petilius having read and perused, made oath in the senate,
that, in his opinion, it was not fit for their contents to be made
public to the people; whereupon the volumes were all carried to the
Comitium, and there burnt.
  It is the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory
after their deaths, and that the envy which evil men conceive
against them never outlives them long; some have the happiness even to
see it die before them; but in Numa's case, also, the fortunes of
the succeeding kings served as foils to set off the brightness of
his reputation. For after him there were five kings, the last of
whom ended his old age in banishment, being deposed from his crown; of
the other four, three were assassinated and murdered by treason; the
other, who was Tullus Hostilius, that immediately succeeded Numa,
derided his virtues, and especially his devotion to religious worship,
as a cowardly and mean-spirited occupation, and diverted the minds
of the people to war; but was checked in these youthful insolences,
and was himself driven by an acute and tormenting disease into
superstitions wholly different from Numa's piety, and left others also
to participate in these terrors when he died by the stroke of a
thunderbolt.


                              THE END
