Numa
Pompilius
(legendary,
died 7th century B.C.E.)
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
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
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
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;
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
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
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
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
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
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
After Numa had in this manner instituted these several orders of priests,
he erected, near the
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
"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