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Though the pedigrees of noble families of Rome go back in exact form asfar as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst historiansconcerning the time in which he reigned; a certain writer called Clodius,in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology, avers that the ancientregisters of Rome were lost when the city was sacked by the Gauls, andthat those which are now extant were counterfeited, to flatter and servethe humour of some men who wished to have themselves derived from someancient and noble lineage, though in reality with no claim to it. And thoughit be commonly reported that Numa was a scholar and a familiar acquaintanceof Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted by others, who affirm thathe was acquainted with neither the Greek language nor learning, and thathe was a person of that natural talent and ability as of himself to attainto virtue, or else that he found some barbarian instructor superior toPythagoras. Some affirm, also, that Pythagoras was not contemporary withNuma, but lived at least five generations after him; and that some otherPythagoras, a native of Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olympiad, in thethird 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 thatmany Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions. Yet,in any case, Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselvesto be a colony of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain;especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games, whichwere published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on no positiveauthority. Commencing, however, at a convenient point, we will proceedto give the most noticeable events that are recorded of the life ofNuma.
It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation ofRome, when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month ofJuly, called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat'sMarsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky wasdarkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the commonpeople fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this whirlwind Romulusdisappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. A foul suspicionpresently attached to the patricians, and rumours were current among thepeople as if that they, weary of kingly government, and exasperated oflate by the imperious deportment of Romulus towards them, had plotted againsthis life and made him away, that so they might assume the authority andgovernment into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn asideby decreeing divine honours to Romulus, as to one not dead but translatedto a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he sawRomulus 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 nameof Quirinus.
This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about theelection of a new king; for the minds of the original Romans and the newinhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, butthat there were diversities of factions amongst the commonalty and jealousiesand emulations amongst the senators; for though all agreed that it wasnecessary to have a king, yet what person or of which nation was matterof dispute. For those who had been builders of the city with Romulus, andhad 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 kingTatius'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 thename of a city.
Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest meanwhilediscord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general confusion,it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators should interchangeablyexecute the office of supreme magistrate, and each in succession, withthe ensigns of royalty, should offer the solemn sacrifices and despatchpublic business for the space of six hours by day and six by night; whichvicissitude and equal distribution of power would preclude all rivalryamongst the senators and envy from the people, when they should beholdone, elevated to the degree of a king, levelled within the space of a dayto the condition of a private citizen. This form of government is termed,by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet could they, by this plausible and modestway of rule, escape suspicion and clamour of the vulgar, as though theywere changing the form of government to an oligarchy, and designing tokeep the supreme power in a sort of wardship under themselves, withoutever proceeding to choose a king. Both parties came at length to the conclusionthat the one should choose a king out of the body of the other; the Romansmake a choice of a Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman; this was esteemedthe best expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince whoshould be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as hiselectors and to the other as his kinsmen. The Sabines remitted the choiceto the original Romans, and they, too, on their part, were more inclinableto receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to see a Roman exaltedby 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 nominatedthan accepted by the Sabines, with acclamation almost greater than thatof the electors themselves.
The choice being declared and made known to the people, principalmen of both parties were appointed to visit and entreat him, that he wouldaccept the administration of the government. Numa resided at a famous cityof the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines gave themselvesthe 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 studyof philosophy; means which had not only succeeded in expelling the baserpassions, but also the violent and rapacious temper which barbarians areapt to think highly of; true bravery, in his judgment, was regarded asconsisting in the subjugation of our passions by reason.
He banished all luxury and softness from his own home, and whilecitizens alike and strangers found in him an incorruptible judge and counsellor,in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre, but to the worshipof the immortal gods, and rational contemplation of their divine powerand nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the colleague of Romulus, chosehim 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-lawat Rome; he rather chose to inhabit with his Sabines, and cherish his ownfather in his old age; and Tatia, also, preferred the private conditionsof her husband before the honours and splendour she might have enjoyedwith her father. She is said to have died after she had been married thirteenyears, and then Numa, leaving the conversation of the town, betook himselfto a country life, and in a solitary manner frequented the groves and fieldsconsecrated to the gods, passing his life in desert places. And this inparticular gave occasion to the story about the goddess, namely, that Numadid not retire from human society out of any melancholy or disorder ofmind, but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse,and, admitted to celestial wedlock in the love and converse of the goddessEgeria, had attained to blessedness, and to a divinewisdom.
The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which thePhrygians have received and still recount of Attis, the Bithynians of Herodotus,the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others who were thoughtblessed 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 virtuousand converse with the wise and temperate soul, though it be altogetherhard, indeed, to believe, that any god or daemon is capable of a sensualor bodily love and passion for any human form or beauty. Though, indeed,the wise Egyptians do not plausibly make the distinction, that it may bepossible 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 otherside they conclude it impossible for the male kind to have any intercourseor mixture by the body with any divinity, not considering, however, thatwhat 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 befittingto suppose that the gods feel towards men affection, and love, in the senseof affection, and in the form of care and solicitude for their virtue andtheir good dispositions. And, therefore, it was no error of those who feigned,that Phorbas, Hyacinthus, and Admetus were beloved by Apollo; or that Hippolytusthe Sicyonian was so much in his favour, that, as often as he sailed fromSicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess uttered this heroic verse expressiveof 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 hisverses, and the divine power rendered honour to Hesiod and Archilochusafter their death for the sake of the Muses; there is a statement, also,that Aesculapius sojourned with Sophocles in his lifetime, of which manyproofs still exist, and that, when he was dead, another deity took carefor 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 shouldvisit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycurgus, and Numa, the controllers ofkingdoms, and the legislators for commonwealths? Nay, it may be reasonableto believe, that the gods, with a serious purpose, assist at the councilsand serious debates of such men, to inspire and direct them; and visitpoets and musicians, if at all in their more sportive moods; but for differenceof opinion here, as Bacchylides said, "the road is broad." For there isno absurdity in the account also given, that Lycurgus and Numa, and otherfamous lawgivers, having the task of subduing perverse and refractory multitudes,and of introducing great innovations, themselves made this pretension todivine authority, which, if not true, assuredly was expedient for the interestsof those it imposed upon.
Numa was about forty years of age when the ambassadors came tomake 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 theirnew king; the original Romans being for Proculus, and the Sabines for Velesus.Their speech was very short, supposing that, when they came to tender akingdom, there needed little to persuade to an acceptance; but, contraryto their expectations, they found that they had to use many reasons andentreaties to induce one, that lived in peace and quietness, to acceptthe government of a city whose foundation and increase had been made, ina manner, in war. In presence of his father and his kinsman Marcius hereturned answer that "Every alteration of a man's life is dangerous tohim; but madness only could induce one who needs nothing, and is satisfiedwith everything, to quit a life he is accustomed to; which, whatever elseit is deficient in, at any rate has the advantage of certainty over onewholly doubtful and unknown. Though, indeed, the difficulties of this governmentcannot even be called unknown; Romulus, who first held it, did not escapethe 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 miraculouslypreserved and nurtured. My birth was mortal; I was reared and instructedby men that are known to you. The very points of my character that aremost commended mark me as unfit to reign, love of retirement and of studiesinconsistent with business, a passion that has become inveterate in mefor peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whosemeetings are but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose livesin general are spent upon their farms and their pastures. I should butbe, methinks, a laughingstock, while I should go about to inculcate theworship of the gods and give lessons in the love of justice and the abhorrenceof violence and war, to a city whose needs are rather for a captain thanfor a king."
The Romans, perceiving by these words that he was declining toaccept the kingdom, were the more instant and urgent with him that he wouldnot forsake and desert them in this condition, and suffer them to relapse,as they must, into their former sedition and civil discord, there beingno 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 giftso noble in itself, and tendered to him rather from heaven than from men."Though," said they, "you neither desire riches, being content with whatyou have, nor court the fame of authority, as having already the more valuablefame of virtue, yet you will consider that government itself is a serviceof 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 fieldfor great and honourable actions, for the magnificent worship of the gods,and for the introduction of habits of piety, which authority alone caneffect amongst a people. Tatius, though a foreigner, was beloved, and thememory of Romulus has received divine honours; and who knows but that thispeople, being victorious, may be satiated with war, and, content with thetrophies and spoils they have acquired, may be, above all things, desirousto have a pacific and justice-loving prince to lead them to good orderand quiet? But if, indeed, their desires are uncontrollably and madly seton war, were it not better, then, to have the reins held by such a moderatinghand as is able to divert the fury another way, and that your native cityand the whole Sabine nation should possess in you a bond of goodwill andfriendship with this young and growing power?"
With these reasons and persuasions several auspicious omens aresaid to have concurred, and the zeal, also, of his fellow-citizens, who,on understanding what message the Roman ambassadors had brought him, entreatedhim to accompany them, and to accept the kingdom as a means to unanimityand concord between the nations.
Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first performed divinesacrifice, 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 forhim in all the temples, and so universal was the joy, that they seemedto be receiving, not a new king, but a new kingdom. In this manner he descendedinto the forum, where Spurius Vettius, whose turn it was to be interrexat that hour, put it to the vote; and all declared him king. Then the regalitiesand robes of authority were brought to him; but he refused to be investedwith 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 chiefof 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 fromthe gods. It was wonderful, meantime, with what silence and devotion themultitude stood assembled in the forum, in similar expectation and suspense,till auspicious birds appeared and passed on the right. Then Numa, apparellinghimself in his royal robes, descended from the hill to the people, by whomhe 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 dismissthe band of three hundred men which had been Romulus's life-guard, calledby him Celeres, saying that he would not distrust those who put confidencein him; nor rule over a people that distrusted him. The next thing he didwas to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third, in honour ofRomulus, whom he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans anciently calledtheir priests Flamines, by corruption of the word Pilamines, from a certaincap which they wore, called Pileus. In those times Greek words were moremixed with the Latin than at present; thus also the royal robe, which iscalled, Laena, Juba says, is the same as the Greek Chlaena; and that thename of Camillus, given to the boy with both his parents living, who servesin the temple of Jupiter, was taken from the name given by some Greeksto Mercury, denoting his office of attendance on thegods.
When Numa had, by such measures, won the favour and affection ofthe people, he set himself without delay to the task of bringing the hardand iron Roman temper to somewhat more of gentleness and equity. Plato'sexpression of a city in high fever was never more applicable than to Romeat that time; in its origin formed by daring and warlike spirits, whombold and desperate adventure brought thither from every quarter, it hadfound in perpetual wars and incursions on its neighbours its after sustenanceand 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 topeace the presumptuous and stubborn spirits of this people, began to operateupon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often and usedprocessions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiatedin person; by such combinations of solemnity with refined and humanizingpleasures, seeking to win over and mitigate their fiery and warlike tempers.At times, also, he filled their imaginations with religious terrors, professingthat strange apparitions had been seen, and dreadful voices heard; thussubduing and humbling their minds by a sense of supernaturalfears.
This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been muchconversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in thepolicy 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 gestureswas adopted by him from the same feeling with Pythagoras. For it is saidof Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his call, and stoopdown to him in his flight; and that, as he passed among the people assembledat the Olympic games, he showed them his golden thigh; besides many otherstrange and miraculous seeming practices, on which Timon the Philasianwrote 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 nymphthat was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related; andprofessed that he entertained familiar conversation with the Muses, towhose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his revelations; and amongstthem, above all, he recommended to the veneration of the Romans one inparticular, whom he named Tacita, the silent; which he did perhaps in imitationand honour of the Pythagorean silence. His opinion, also, of images isvery agreeable to the doctrine of Pythagoras; who conceived of the firstprinciple of being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt,and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade theRomans to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there anypainted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the spaceof the first hundred and seventy years, all of which time their templesand chapels were kept free and pure from images; to such baser objectsthey 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 greatsimilitude to the ceremonial of Pythagoras, for they were not celebratedwith effusion of blood, but consisted of flour, wine, and the least costlyofferings. Other external proofs, too, are urged to show the connectionNuma 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 toone of his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of one ofthe sons of Pythagoras; from whence, as they say, sprang that ancient patricianfamily of the Aemilli, for that the king gave him in sport the surnameof 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 directedtwo statues to be raised, one to the wisest and another to the most valiantman 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 andnot so important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the originalconstitution of the priests, called Pontifices, is ascribed unto Numa,and he himself was, it is said, the first of them; and that they have thename of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the serviceof the gods, who have power to command over all. Others make the word referto exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all theduties possible to them; if anything lay beyond their power, the exceptionwas 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 ofbridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst themost sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached,like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. It was accountednot simply unlawful, but a positive sacrilege, to pull down the woodenbridge; which moreover is said, in obedience to an oracle, to have beenbuilt entirely of timber and fastened with wooden pins, without nails orcramps of iron. The stone bridge was built a very long time after whenAemilius was quaestor, and they do, indeed, say also that the wooden bridgewas not so old as Numa's time, but was finished by Ancus Marcius, whenhe was king, who was the grandson of Numa by his daughter.
The office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, was to declareand interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites;he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the sacrificesof private persons, not suffering them to vary from established custom,and giving information to every one of what was requisite for purposesof worship or supplication. He was also guardian of the vestal virgins,the institution of whom, and of their perpetual fire, was attributed toNuma, who, perhaps, fancied the charge of pure and uncorrupted flames wouldbe fitly intrusted to chaste and unpolluted persons, or that fire, whichconsumes, but produces nothing, bears an analogy to the virgin estate.In Greece, wherever a perpetual holy fire is kept, as at Delphi and Athensthe charge of it is committed, not to virgins, but widows past the timeof marriage. And in case by any accident it should happen that this firebecame 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 thetime of the Mithridatic and Roman civil war, when not only the fire wasextinguished, but the altar demolished, then, afterwards, in kindling thisfire again, it was esteemed an impiety to light it from common sparks orflame, or from anything but the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun, whichthey usually effect by concave mirrors, of a figure formed by the revolutionof an isosceles rectangular triangle, all the lines from the circumferenceof which meeting in a centre, by holding it in the light of the sun theycan collect and concentrate all its rays at this one point of convergence;where the air will now become rarefied, and any light, dry, combustiblematter will kindle as soon as applied, under the effect of the rays, whichhere acquired the substance and active force of fire. Some are of opinionthat these vestals had no other business than the preservation of thisfire; but others conceive that they were keepers of other divine secretsconcealed from all but themselves, of which we have told all that may lawfullybe 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 numberof four has continued the present time.
The statutes prescribed by Numa for the vestals were these: thatthey should take a vow of virginity for the space of thirty years, thefirst ten of which they were to spend in learning their duties, the secondten in performing them, and the remaining ten in teaching and instructingothers. Thus the whole term being completed, it was lawful for them tomarry, and, leaving the sacred order, to choose any condition of life thatpleased them; but this permission few, as they say, made use of; and incases where they did so, it was observed that their change was not a happyone, but accompanied ever after with regret and melancholy; so that thegreater number, from religious fears and scruples, forbore, and continuedto old age and death in the strict observance of a singlelife.
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 guardianor tutor, which was the privilege of women who were the mothers of threechildren; 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 chairon which they are carried, is put to death. If these vestals commit anyminor fault, they are punishable by the high priest only, who scourgesthe offender, sometimes with her clothes off, in a dark place, with a curtaindrawn between; but she that has broken her vow is buried alive near thegate called Collina, where a little mound of earth stands inside the city,reaching some little distance, called in Latin agger; under it a narrowroom is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs; here they preparea bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small quantity of victuals, such asbread, water, a pail of milk, and some oil; that so that body which hadbeen consecrated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion mightnot be said to perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself isput in a litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords onit, so that nothing she utters may be heard. They then take her to theforum; all people silently go out of the way as she passes, and such asfollow accompany the bier with solemn and speechless sorrow; and indeed,there is not any spectacle more appalling, nor any day observed by thecity with greater appearance of gloom and sadness. When they come to theplace of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high priest,lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to himself beforethe act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still covered, and placingher upon the steps that lead down to the cell, turns away his face withthe 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, soas to prevent it from being distinguished from the rest of the mound. Thisis the punishment of those who break their vow of virginity.
It is said, also, that Numa built the temple of Vesta, which wasintended for a repository of the holy fire, of a circular form, not torepresent the figure of the earth, as if that were the same as Vesta, butthat of the general universe, in the centre of which the Pythagoreans placethe element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta and the unit; and donot hold that the earth is immovable, or that it is situated in the centreof 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 withthe opinion of Plato, who, they say, in his later life, conceived thatthe earth held a lateral position, and that the central and sovereign spacewas reserved for some nobler body.
There was yet a farther use of the priests, and that was to givepeople directions in the national usages at funeral rites. Numa taughtthem to regard these offices, not as a pollution, but as a duty paid tothe gods below, into whose hands the better part of us is transmitted;especially they were to worship the goddess Libitina, who presided overall the ceremonies performed at burials; whether they meant hereby Proserpina,or, as the most learned of the Romans conceive, Venus, not inaptly attributingthe 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, accordingto certain times and ages. As, for example, a child of three years wasnot to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten years, for as many monthsas it was years old; and the longest time of mourning for any person whatsoeverwas not to exceed the term of ten months; which was the time appointedfor women that lost their husbands to continue in widowhood. If any marriedagain before that time, by the laws of Numa, she was to sacrifice a cowbig with calf.
Numa, also, was founder of several other orders of priests, twoof which I shall mention, the Salii and the Fecials, which are among theclearest proofs of the devoutness and sanctity of his character. TheseFecials, or guardians of peace, seem to have had their name from theiroffice, which was to put a stop to disputes by conference and speech; forit was not allowable to take up arms until they had declared all hopesof accommodation to be at an end, for in Greek, too, we call it peace whendisputes are settled by words, and not by force. The Romans commonly despatchedthe Fecials, or heralds, to those who had offered them injury, requestingsatisfaction; and, in case they refused, they then called the gods to witness,and, with imprecations upon themselves and their country should they beacting unjustly, so declared war; against their will, or without theirconsent, it was lawful neither for soldier nor king to take up arms; thewar was begun with them, and when they had first handed it over to thecommander as a just quarrel, then his business was to deliberate of themanner and ways to carry it on. It is believed that the slaughter and destructionwhich the Gauls made of the Romans was a judgment on the city for neglectof this religious proceeding; for that when these barbarians besieged theClusinians, Fabius Ambustus was despatched to their camp to negotiate peacefor the besieged; and, on their returning a rude refusal, Fabius imaginedthat his office of ambassador was at an end, and, rashly engaging on theside of the Clusinians, challenged the bravest of the enemy to a singlecombat. It was the fortune of Fabius to kill his adversary, and to takehis spoils; but when the Gauls discovered it, they sent a herald to Rometo complain against him; since, before war was declared, he had, againstthe law of nations, made a breach of the peace. The matter being debatedin the senate, the Fecials were of opinion that Fabius ought to be consignedinto 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 takenthe capitol, they sacked the city. The particulars of all which are fullygiven in the history of Camillus.
The origin of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reignof Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewisethe city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, abrazen target, they say, fell from heaven into hands of Numa, who gavethem this marvellous account of it: that Egeria and the Muses had assuredhim 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 likein dimensions and form to the original that no thief should be able todistinguish the true from the counterfeit. He farther declared, that hewas commanded to consecrate to the Muses the place, and the fields aboutit, where they had been chiefly wont to meet with him, and that the springwhich 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 thoseholy waters. The truth of all which was speedily verified by the cessationof the pestilence. Numa displayed the target to the artificers and badethem show their skill in making others like it; all despaired, until atlength 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 couldnot distinguish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the chargeof certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their name, as sometell the story, from Salius, a dancing-master, born in Samothrace, or atMantinea who taught the way of dancing in arms; but more truly from thatjumping dance which the Salii themselves use, when in the month of Marchthey carry the sacred targets through the city; at which procession theyare habited in short frocks of purple, girt with a broad belt studded withbrass; on their heads they wear a brass helmet and carry in their handsshort 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 greatdisplay of strength and agility. The targets were called Ancilia from theirform; for they are not made round, nor like proper targets, of a completecircumference, but are cut out into a wavy line, the ends of which arerounded off and turned in at the thickest part towards each other; so thattheir shape is curvilinear, or, in Greek, ancylon; or the name may comefrom ancon, the elbow, on which they are carried. Thus Juba writes, whois eager to make it Greek. But it might be, for that matter, from its havingcome 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. Thereward which Mamurius received for his art was to be mentioned and commemoratedin the verses which the Salii sang, as they danced in their arms throughthe 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 ofpriests, he erected, near the temple of Vesta, what is called to this dayRegia, or king's house, where he spent the most part of his time performingdivine service, instructing the priests, or conversing with them on sacredsubjects. He had another house upon the Mount Quirinalis, the site of whichthey show to this day. In all public processions and solemn prayers, crierswere sent before to give notice to the people that they should forbeartheir work, and rest. They say that the Pythagoreans did not allow peopleto worship and pray to their gods by the way, but would have them go outfrom their houses direct, with their minds set upon the duty, and Numa,in like manner, wished that his citizens should neither see nor hear anyreligious service in a perfunctory and inattentive manner, but, layingaside all other occupations, should apply their minds to religion as toa most serious business; and that the streets should be free from all noisesand 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 consulbegins to take auspices or do sacrifice, they call out to the people, Hocage, Attend to this, whereby the auditors then present are admonished tocompose and recollect themselves. Many other of his precepts resemble thoseof the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans said, for example, "Thou shalt notmake a peck-measure thy seat to sit on. Thou shalt not stir the fire witha sword. When thou goest out upon a journey, look not behind thee. Whenthou sacrificest to the celestial gods, let it be with an odd number, andwhen to the terrestrial, with even." The significance of each of whichprecepts they would not commonly disclose. So some of Numa's traditionshave no obvious meaning. "Thou shalt not make libation to the gods of winefrom an unpruned vine. No sacrifices shall be performed without meal. Turnround to pay adoration to the gods; sit after you have worshipped." Thefirst two directions seem to denote the cultivation and subduing of theearth as a part of religion; and as to the turning which the worshippersare to use in divine adoration, it is said to represent the rotatory motionof 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 bothdivinities. Unless, indeed, this change of posture may have a mysticalmeaning, like the Egyptian wheels, and signify to us the instability ofhuman fortune, and that, in whatever way God changes and turns our lotand 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 omenof their petitions being granted, and the blessing they asked assured tothem. Again, as different courses of actions are divided by intervals ofrest, they might seat themselves after the completion of what they haddone, to seek favour of the gods for beginning something else. And thiswould very well suit with what we had before; the lawgiver wants to habituateus 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 leisureto attend to it. By such discipline and schooling in religion, the citypassed insensibly into such a submissiveness of temper, and stood in suchawe and reverence of the virtue of Numa, that they received, with an undoubtedassurance, whatever he delivered though never so fabulous, and thoughtnothing incredible or impossible from him.
There goes a story that he once invited a great number of citizensto an entertainment, at which the dishes in which the meat was served werevery homely and plain, and the repast itself poor and ordinary fare; theguests seated, he began to tell them that the goddess that consulted withhim was then at that time come to him; when on a sudden the room was furnishedwith all sorts of costly drinking-vessels, and the tables loaded with richmeats, and a most sumptuous entertainment. But the dialogue which is reportedto have passed between him and Jupiter surpasses all the fabulous legendsthat were ever invented. They say that before Mount Aventine was inhabitedor enclosed within the walls of the city, two demigods, Picus and Faunus,frequented the springs and thick shades of that place; which might be twosatyrs, or Pans except that they went about Italy playing the same sortsof tricks, by skill in drugs and magic, as are ascribed by the Greeks tothe 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 usuallydrank. On finding themselves ensnared, they changed themselves into variousshapes, dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual andhideous appearance; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and inno possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and futureevents; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning, still in use,performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say they did not tellhim the charm, but by their magic brought down Jupiter out of heaven; andthat 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, "ofmen." But Numa, willing to elude the cruelty of this receipt, turned itanother 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 mannereffected.
These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings whichpeople then, by force of habit, entertained towards the deity. And Numa'sown 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 builtthe temples of Faith and Terminus, and taught the Romans that the nameof Faith was the most solemn oath that they could swear. They still useit; and to the god Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to this day both publicand private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-marks of their land;living victims now, though anciently those sacrifices were solemnized withoutblood; for Numa reasoned that the god of boundaries, who watched over peace,and testified to fair dealing, should have no concern with blood. It isvery clear that it was this king who first prescribed bounds to the territoryof Rome; for Romulus would but have openly betrayed how much he had encroachedon his neighbours' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundariesare, indeed, a defence to those who choose to observe them, but are onlya testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them. Thetruth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at the beginningwas very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war; all those acquisitionsNuma now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing to do away withthat extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty, and, by turningthe people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their lands, into betterorder. For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relishfor peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all thatkind 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 andrapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture would be a sort of charmto captivate the affections of his people to peace, and viewing it ratheras a means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands intoseveral parcels, to which he gave the name of pagus, or parish, and overevery one of them he ordained chief overseers; and, taking a delight sometimesto inspect his colonies in person, he formed his judgment of every man'shabits by the results; of which being witness himself, he preferred thoseto honours and employments who had done well, and by rebukes and reproachesincited the indolent and careless to improvement. But of all his measuresthe most commended was his distribution of the people by their trades intocompanies or guilds; for as the city consisted, or rather did not consistof, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity between whichcould not be effaced and in the meantime prevented all unity and causedperpetual tumult and ill-blood, reflecting how hard substances that donot readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten into powder, in thatminute form he combined, he resolved to divide the whole population intoa number of small divisions, and thus hoped, by introducing other distinctions,to obliterate the original and great distinction, which would be lost amongthe smaller. So, distinguishing the whole people by the several arts andtrades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers,shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmenhe composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one theirproper courts, councils, and religious observances. In this manner allfactious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, noperson any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notionof a Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division becamea 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 exemptedsuch as were married, conditionally that it had been with the liking andconsent of their parents; for it seemed a hard thing that a woman who hadgiven herself in marriage to a man whom she judged free should afterwardsfind herself living with a slave.
He attempted, also, the formation of a calendar, not with absoluteexactness, yet not without some scientific knowledge. During the reignof Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equalterm; 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 sunand moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the yearcontained three hundred and sixty days. Numa, calculating the differencebetween the lunar and the solar year at eleven days, for that the mooncompleted her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty-four days,and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruitydoubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month,to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romansthe 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; andJanuary, which was the eleventh, he made the first; and February, whichwas 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 beginningthey had had a year of ten months; as there are barbarians who count onlythree; the Arcadians, in Greece, had but four; the Acarnanians, six. TheEgyptian 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 thecredit of being a more ancient nation than any, and reckon, in their genealogies,a prodigious number of years, counting months, that is, as years. Thatthe Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelvemonths, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning thetenth month; and that March was the first is likewise evident, for thefifth month after it was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, andso the rest; whereas, if January and February had, in this account, precededMarch, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning.It was also natural that March, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus'sfirst and April, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in itthey sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first dayof it, with myrtle garlands on their heads. But others, because of itsbeing p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word fromAphrodite, but say it is called April from aperio, Latin for to open, becausethat 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 issacred; then June follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive themfrom the two ages, old and young, majores, being their name for older,and juniores for younger men. To the other months they gave denominationsaccording to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis thesixth, and the rest, September, October, November, and December. AfterwardsQuintilis received the name of Julius, from Caesar, who defeated Pompey;as also Sextilis that of Augustus, from the second Caesar, who had thattitle. Domitian, also, in imitation, gave the two other following monthshis own names, of Germanicus and Domitianus; but, on his being slain, theyrecovered their ancient denominations of September and October. The twolast are the only ones that have kept their names throughout without anyalteration. Of the months which were added or transposed in their orderby 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 fromjanus, and precedence given to it by Numa before March, which was dedicatedto the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every opportunityof intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred beforethose of war. For this Janus, whether in remote antiquity he were a demigodor a king, was certainly a great lover of civil and social unity, and onewho reclaimed men from brutal and savage living; for which reason theyfigure him with two faces, to represent the two states and conditions outof the one of which he brought mankind, to lead them into the other. Histemple at Rome has two gates, which they call the gates of war, becausethey stand open in the time of war, and shut in the times of peace; ofwhich latter there was very seldom an example, for, as the Roman empirewas enlarged and extended, it was so encompassed with barbarous nationsand enemies to be resisted, that it was seldom or never at peace. Onlyin the time of Augustus Caesar, after he had overcome Antony, this templewas shut; as likewise once before, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manliuswere consuls; but then it was not long before, wars breaking out, the gateswere again opened. But, during the reign of Numa, those gates were neverseen open a single day, but continued constantly shut for a space of forty-threeyears together; such an entire and universal cessation of war existed.For not only had the people of Rome itself been softened and charmed intoa peaceful temper by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince, but eventhe neighbouring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air had blownfrom Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling, and partookin the general longing for the sweets of peace and order, and for lifeemployed in the quiet tillage of soil, bringing up of children, and worshipof the gods. Festival days and sports, and the secure and peaceful interchangeof friendly visits and hospitalities prevailed all through the whole ofItaly. The love of virtue and justice flowed from Numa's wisdom as froma 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 expresswhat then existed; as that-
"Over the iron shield the spiders hang their threads," orthat-
"Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edgedsword.
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, norsedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to hisperson, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition. Either fear of thegods 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 ofthat saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured to pronounce, that thesole and only hope of respite or remedy for human evils was in some happyconjunction of events which should unite in a single person the power ofa king and the wisdom of a philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to controland mastery over vice. The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessedalso are the auditors who can bear and receive those words which flow fromhis mouth; and perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menacesto affect the multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and conspicuousexample of virtue in the life of their prince will bring them spontaneouslyto virtue, and to a conformity with that blameless and blessed life ofgood-will and mutual concord, supported by temperance and justice, whichis the highest benefit that human means can confer; and he is the truestruler 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 thisso clearly as he.
As to his children and wives, there is a diversity of reports byseveral authors; some will have it that he never had any other wife thanTatia; nor more children than one daughter called Pompilia; others willhave it that he left also four sons, namely, Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, andMamercus, every one of whom had issue, and from them descended the nobleand illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci,which for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But thereis a third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a pieceof flattery used by writers who, to gain favour with these great families,made them fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and that Pompiliawas not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom he marriedafter he came to his kingdom; however, all of them agree in opinion thatshe was married to the son of that Marcius who persuaded him to acceptthe 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 incompetition with Tullus Hostilius for the kingdom, and being disappointedof 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 ofage 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 ofold age and by a gradual and gentle decline. At his funeral all the gloriesof his life were consummated, when all the neighbouring states in allianceand amity with Rome met to honour and grace the rites of his intermentwith garlands and public presents; the senators carried the bier on whichhis corpse was laid, and the priests followed and accompanied the solemnprocession; while a general crowd, in which women and children took part,followed with such cries and weeping as if they had bewailed the deathand loss of some most dear relation taken away in the flower of age, andnot an old and worn-out king. It is said that his body, by his particularcommand, was not burnt, but that they made, in conformity with his order,two stone coffins, and buried both under the hill Janiculum, in one ofwhich his body was laid, and the other his sacred books, which, as theGreek legislators their tables, he had written out for himself, but hadso long inculcated the contents of them, whilst he lived, into the mindsand hearts of the priests, that their understandings became fully possessedwith the whole spirit and purpose of them; and he therefore bade that theyshould be buried with his body, as though such holy precepts could notwithout irreverence he left to circulate in mere lifeless writings. Forthis very reason, they say, the Pythagoreans bade that their precepts shouldnot be committed to paper, but rather preserved in the living memoriesof those who were worthy to receive them; and when some of their out-of-the-wayand abstruse geometrical processes had been divulged to an unworthy person,they said the gods threatened to punish this wickedness and profanity bya signal and wide-spreading calamity. With these several instances concurringto show a similarity in the lives of Numa and Pythagoras, we may easilypardon those who seek to establish the fact of a real acquaintance betweenthem.
Valerius Antias writes that the books which were buried in theaforesaid chest or coffin of stone were twelve volumes of holy writ andtwelve 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, withoutthe 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 publicto 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 gloryafter their deaths, and that the envy which evil men conceive against themnever outlives them long; some have the happiness even to see it die beforethem; but in Numa's case, also, the fortunes of the succeeding kings servedas foils to set off the brightness of his reputation. For after him therewere five kings, the last of whom ended his old age in banishment, beingdeposed from his crown; of the other four, three were assassinated andmurdered by treason; the other, who was Tullus Hostilius, that immediatelysucceeded Numa, derided his virtues, and especially his devotion to religiousworship, as a cowardly and mean-spirited occupation, and diverted the mindsof the people to war; but was checked in these youthful insolences, andwas himself driven by an acute and tormenting disease into superstitionswholly different from Numa's piety, and left others also to participatein these terrors when he died by the stroke of a thunderbolt.THE END
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