Plutarch
46-119 A.C.E - Wrote in Greek
Numa Pompilius
Written 75 A.C.E.
Translated by John Dryden
Numa Pompilius
(legendary, died 7th century B.C.E.)
By Plutarch
Though the pedigrees of noble families of Rome go back in exact form as
far as Numa Pompilius, yet there is great diversity amongst historians
concerning the time in which he reigned; a certain writer called Clodius,
in a book of his entitled Strictures on Chronology, avers that the ancient
registers of Rome were lost when the city was sacked by the Gauls, and
that those which are now extant were counterfeited, to flatter and serve
the humour of some men who wished to have themselves derived from some
ancient and noble lineage, though in reality with no claim to it. And though
it be commonly reported that Numa was a scholar and a familiar acquaintance
of Pythagoras, yet it is again contradicted by others, who affirm that
he was acquainted with neither the Greek language nor learning, and that
he was a person of that natural talent and ability as of himself to attain
to virtue, or else that he found some barbarian instructor superior to
Pythagoras. Some affirm, also, that Pythagoras was not contemporary with
Numa, but lived at least five generations after him; and that some other
Pythagoras, a native of Sparta, who, in the sixteenth Olympiad, in the
third year of which Numa became king, won a prize at the Olympic race,
might, in his travel through Italy, have gained acquaintance with Numa,
and assisted him in the constitution of his kingdom; whence it comes that
many Laconian laws and customs appear amongst the Roman institutions. Yet,
in any case, Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves
to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians. And chronology, in general, is uncertain;
especially when fixed by the lists of victors in the Olympic games, which
were published at a late period by Hippias the Elean, and rest on no positive
authority. Commencing, however, at a convenient point, we will proceed
to give the most noticeable events that are recorded of the life of
Numa.
It was the thirty-seventh year, counted from the foundation of
Rome, when Romulus, then reigning, did, on the fifth day of the month of
July, called the Caprotine Nones, offer a public sacrifice at the Goat's
Marsh, in presence of the senate and people of Rome. Suddenly the sky was
darkened, a thick cloud of storm and rain settled on the earth; the common
people fled in affright, and were dispersed; and in this whirlwind Romulus
disappeared, his body being never found either living or dead. A foul suspicion
presently attached to the patricians, and rumours were current among the
people as if that they, weary of kingly government, and exasperated of
late by the imperious deportment of Romulus towards them, had plotted against
his life and made him away, that so they might assume the authority and
government into their own hands. This suspicion they sought to turn aside
by decreeing divine honours to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated
to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw
Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and heard him,
as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name
of Quirinus.
This trouble, being appeased, was followed by another, about the
election of a new king; for the minds of the original Romans and the new
inhabitants were not as yet grown into that perfect unity of temper, but
that there were diversities of factions amongst the commonalty and jealousies
and emulations amongst the senators; for though all agreed that it was
necessary to have a king, yet what person or of which nation was matter
of dispute. For those who had been builders of the city with Romulus, and
had already yielded a share of their lands and dwellings to the Sabines,
were indignant at any pretension on their part to rule over their benefactors.
On the other side, the Sabines could plausibly allege, that, at their king
Tatius's decease, they had peaceably submitted to the sole command of Romulus;
so now their turn was come to have a king chosen out of their own nation;
nor did they esteem themselves to have combined with the Romans as inferiors,
nor to have contributed less than they to the increase of Rome, which,
without their numbers and association, could scarcely have merited the
name of a city.
Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest meanwhile
discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general confusion,
it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators should interchangeably
execute the office of supreme magistrate, and each in succession, with
the ensigns of royalty, should offer the solemn sacrifices and despatch
public business for the space of six hours by day and six by night; which
vicissitude and equal distribution of power would preclude all rivalry
amongst the senators and envy from the people, when they should behold
one, elevated to the degree of a king, levelled within the space of a day
to the condition of a private citizen. This form of government is termed,
by the Romans, interregnum. Nor yet could they, by this plausible and modest
way of rule, escape suspicion and clamour of the vulgar, as though they
were changing the form of government to an oligarchy, and designing to
keep the supreme power in a sort of wardship under themselves, without
ever proceeding to choose a king. Both parties came at length to the conclusion
that the one should choose a king out of the body of the other; the Romans
make a choice of a Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman; this was esteemed
the best expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who
should be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as his
electors and to the other as his kinsmen. The Sabines remitted the choice
to the original Romans, and they, too, on their part, were more inclinable
to receive a Sabine king elected by themselves than to see a Roman exalted
by the Sabines. Consultations being accordingly held, they named Numa Pompilius,
of the Sabine race, a person of that high reputation for excellence, that,
though he were not actually residing at Rome, yet he was no sooner nominated
than accepted by the Sabines, with acclamation almost greater than that
of the electors themselves.
The choice being declared and made known to the people, principal
men of both parties were appointed to visit and entreat him, that he would
accept the administration of the government. Numa resided at a famous city
of the Sabines called Cures, whence the Romans and Sabines gave themselves
the joint name of Quirites. Pomponius, an illustrious person, was his father,
and he the youngest of his four sons, being (as it had been divinely ordered)
born on the twenty-first day of April, the day of the foundation of Rome.
He was endued with a soul rarely tempered by nature, and disposed to virtue,
which he had yet more subdued by discipline, a severe life, and the study
of philosophy; means which had not only succeeded in expelling the baser
passions, but also the violent and rapacious temper which barbarians are
apt to think highly of; true bravery, in his judgment, was regarded as
consisting in the subjugation of our passions by reason.
He banished all luxury and softness from his own home, and while
citizens alike and strangers found in him an incorruptible judge and counsellor,
in private he devoted himself not to amusement or lucre, but to the worship
of the immortal gods, and rational contemplation of their divine power
and nature. So famous was he, that Tatius, the colleague of Romulus, chose
him for his son-in-law, and gave him his only daughter, which, however,
did not stimulate his vanity to desire to dwell with his father-in-law
at Rome; he rather chose to inhabit with his Sabines, and cherish his own
father in his old age; and Tatia, also, preferred the private conditions
of her husband before the honours and splendour she might have enjoyed
with her father. She is said to have died after she had been married thirteen
years, and then Numa, leaving the conversation of the town, betook himself
to a country life, and in a solitary manner frequented the groves and fields
consecrated to the gods, passing his life in desert places. And this in
particular gave occasion to the story about the goddess, namely, that Numa
did not retire from human society out of any melancholy or disorder of
mind, but because he had tasted the joys of more elevated intercourse,
and, admitted to celestial wedlock in the love and converse of the goddess
Egeria, had attained to blessedness, and to a divine
wisdom.
The story evidently resembles those very ancient fables which the
Phrygians have received and still recount of Attis, the Bithynians of Herodotus,
the Arcadians of Endymion, not to mention several others who were thought
blessed and beloved of the gods; nor does it seem strange if God, a lover,
not of horses or birds, but men, should not disdain to dwell with the virtuous
and converse with the wise and temperate soul, though it be altogether
hard, indeed, to believe, that any god or daemon is capable of a sensual
or bodily love and passion for any human form or beauty. Though, indeed,
the wise Egyptians do not plausibly make the distinction, that it may be
possible for a divine spirit so to apply itself to the nature of a woman,
as to imbreed in her the first beginnings of generation, while on the other
side they conclude it impossible for the male kind to have any intercourse
or mixture by the body with any divinity, not considering, however, that
what takes place on the one side must also take place on the other; intermixture,
by force of terms, is reciprocal. Not that it is otherwise than befitting
to suppose that the gods feel towards men affection, and love, in the sense
of affection, and in the form of care and solicitude for their virtue and
their good dispositions. And, therefore, it was no error of those who feigned,
that Phorbas, Hyacinthus, and Admetus were beloved by Apollo; or that Hippolytus
the Sicyonian was so much in his favour, that, as often as he sailed from
Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian prophetess uttered this heroic verse expressive
of the god's attention and joy:
"Now doth Hippolytus return again,
And venture his dear life upon the main."
It is reported, also, that Pan became enamoured of Pindar for his
verses, and the divine power rendered honour to Hesiod and Archilochus
after their death for the sake of the Muses; there is a statement, also,
that Aesculapius sojourned with Sophocles in his lifetime, of which many
proofs still exist, and that, when he was dead, another deity took care
for his funeral rites. And so if any credit may be given to these instances,
why should we judge it incongruous, that a like spirit of the gods should
visit Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Lycurgus, and Numa, the controllers of
kingdoms, and the legislators for commonwealths? Nay, it may be reasonable
to believe, that the gods, with a serious purpose, assist at the councils
and serious debates of such men, to inspire and direct them; and visit
poets and musicians, if at all in their more sportive moods; but for difference
of opinion here, as Bacchylides said, "the road is broad." For there is
no absurdity in the account also given, that Lycurgus and Numa, and other
famous lawgivers, having the task of subduing perverse and refractory multitudes,
and of introducing great innovations, themselves made this pretension to
divine authority, which, if not true, assuredly was expedient for the interests
of those it imposed upon.
Numa was about forty years of age when the ambassadors came to
make him offers of the kingdom; the speakers were Proculus and Velesus,
one or other of whom it had been thought the people would elect as their
new king; the original Romans being for Proculus, and the Sabines for Velesus.
Their speech was very short, supposing that, when they came to tender a
kingdom, there needed little to persuade to an acceptance; but, contrary
to their expectations, they found that they had to use many reasons and
entreaties to induce one, that lived in peace and quietness, to accept
the government of a city whose foundation and increase had been made, in
a manner, in war. In presence of his father and his kinsman Marcius he
returned answer that "Every alteration of a man's life is dangerous to
him; but madness only could induce one who needs nothing, and is satisfied
with everything, to quit a life he is accustomed to; which, whatever else
it is deficient in, at any rate has the advantage of certainty over one
wholly doubtful and unknown. Though, indeed, the difficulties of this government
cannot even be called unknown; Romulus, who first held it, did not escape
the suspicion of having plotted against the life of his colleague Tatius;
nor the senate the like accusation, of having treasonably murdered Romulus.
Yet Romulus had the advantage to be thought divinely born and miraculously
preserved and nurtured. My birth was mortal; I was reared and instructed
by men that are known to you. The very points of my character that are
most commended mark me as unfit to reign, love of retirement and of studies
inconsistent with business, a passion that has become inveterate in me
for peace, for unwarlike occupations, and for the society of men whose
meetings are but those of worship and of kindly intercourse, whose lives
in general are spent upon their farms and their pastures. I should but
be, methinks, a laughingstock, while I should go about to inculcate the
worship of the gods and give lessons in the love of justice and the abhorrence
of violence and war, to a city whose needs are rather for a captain than
for a king."
The Romans, perceiving by these words that he was declining to
accept the kingdom, were the more instant and urgent with him that he would
not forsake and desert them in this condition, and suffer them to relapse,
as they must, into their former sedition and civil discord, there being
no person on whom both parties could accord but on himself. And, at length,
his father and Marcius, taking him aside, persuaded him to accept a gift
so noble in itself, and tendered to him rather from heaven than from men.
"Though," said they, "you neither desire riches, being content with what
you have, nor court the fame of authority, as having already the more valuable
fame of virtue, yet you will consider that government itself is a service
of God, who now calls out into action your qualities of justice and wisdom,
which were not meant to be left useless and unemployed. Cease, therefore,
to avoid and turn your back upon an office which, to a wise man, is a field
for great and honourable actions, for the magnificent worship of the gods,
and for the introduction of habits of piety, which authority alone can
effect amongst a people. Tatius, though a foreigner, was beloved, and the
memory of Romulus has received divine honours; and who knows but that this
people, being victorious, may be satiated with war, and, content with the
trophies and spoils they have acquired, may be, above all things, desirous
to have a pacific and justice-loving prince to lead them to good order
and quiet? But if, indeed, their desires are uncontrollably and madly set
on war, were it not better, then, to have the reins held by such a moderating
hand as is able to divert the fury another way, and that your native city
and the whole Sabine nation should possess in you a bond of goodwill and
friendship with this young and growing power?"
With these reasons and persuasions several auspicious omens are
said to have concurred, and the zeal, also, of his fellow-citizens, who,
on understanding what message the Roman ambassadors had brought him, entreated
him to accompany them, and to accept the kingdom as a means to unanimity
and concord between the nations.
Numa, yielding to these inducements, having first performed divine
sacrifice, proceeded to Rome, being met in his way by the senate and people,
who, with an impatient desire, came forth to receive him; the women, also,
welcomed him with joyful acclamations, and sacrifices were offered for
him in all the temples, and so universal was the joy, that they seemed
to be receiving, not a new king, but a new kingdom. In this manner he descended
into the forum, where Spurius Vettius, whose turn it was to be interrex
at that hour, put it to the vote; and all declared him king. Then the regalities
and robes of authority were brought to him; but he refused to be invested
with them until he had first consulted and been confirmed by the gods;
so being accompanied by the priests and augurs, he ascended the Capitol,
which at that time the Romans called the Tarpeian Hill. Then the chief
of the augurs covered Numa's head, and turned his face towards the south,
and, standing behind him, laid his right hand on his head, and prayed,
turning his eyes every way, in expectation of some auspicious signal from
the gods. It was wonderful, meantime, with what silence and devotion the
multitude stood assembled in the forum, in similar expectation and suspense,
till auspicious birds appeared and passed on the right. Then Numa, apparelling
himself in his royal robes, descended from the hill to the people, by whom
he was received and congratulated with shouts and acclamations of welcome,
as a holy king, and beloved of all the gods.
The first thing he did at his entrance into government was to dismiss
the band of three hundred men which had been Romulus's life-guard, called
by him Celeres, saying that he would not distrust those who put confidence
in him; nor rule over a people that distrusted him. The next thing he did
was to add to the two priests of Jupiter and Mars a third, in honour of
Romulus, whom he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The Romans anciently called
their priests Flamines, by corruption of the word Pilamines, from a certain
cap which they wore, called Pileus. In those times Greek words were more
mixed with the Latin than at present; thus also the royal robe, which is
called, Laena, Juba says, is the same as the Greek Chlaena; and that the
name of Camillus, given to the boy with both his parents living, who serves
in the temple of Jupiter, was taken from the name given by some Greeks
to Mercury, denoting his office of attendance on the
gods.
When Numa had, by such measures, won the favour and affection of
the people, he set himself without delay to the task of bringing the hard
and iron Roman temper to somewhat more of gentleness and equity. Plato's
expression of a city in high fever was never more applicable than to Rome
at that time; in its origin formed by daring and warlike spirits, whom
bold and desperate adventure brought thither from every quarter, it had
found in perpetual wars and incursions on its neighbours its after sustenance
and means of growth, and in conflict with danger the source of new strength;
like piles, which the blows of the hammer serve to fix into the ground.
Wherefore Numa, judging it no slight undertaking to mollify and bend to
peace the presumptuous and stubborn spirits of this people, began to operate
upon them with the sanctions of religion. He sacrificed often and used
processions and religious dances, in which most commonly he officiated
in person; by such combinations of solemnity with refined and humanizing
pleasures, seeking to win over and mitigate their fiery and warlike tempers.
At times, also, he filled their imaginations with religious terrors, professing
that strange apparitions had been seen, and dreadful voices heard; thus
subduing and humbling their minds by a sense of supernatural
fears.
This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much
conversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in the
policy of the other, man's relations to the deity occupy a great place.
It is said, also, that the solemnity of his exterior garb and gestures
was adopted by him from the same feeling with Pythagoras. For it is said
of Pythagoras, that he had taught an eagle to come at his call, and stoop
down to him in his flight; and that, as he passed among the people assembled
at the Olympic games, he showed them his golden thigh; besides many other
strange and miraculous seeming practices, on which Timon the Philasian
wrote the distich-
"Who, of the glory of a juggler proud,
With solemn talk imposed upon the crowd."
In like manner Numa spoke of a certain goddess or mountain nymph
that was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related; and
professed that he entertained familiar conversation with the Muses, to
whose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his revelations; and amongst
them, above all, he recommended to the veneration of the Romans one in
particular, whom he named Tacita, the silent; which he did perhaps in imitation
and honour of the Pythagorean silence. His opinion, also, of images is
very agreeable to the doctrine of Pythagoras; who conceived of the first
principle of being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt,
and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade the
Romans to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there any
painted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the space
of the first hundred and seventy years, all of which time their temples
and chapels were kept free and pure from images; to such baser objects
they deemed it impious to liken the highest, and all access to God impossible,
except by the pure act of the intellect. His sacrifices, also, had great
similitude to the ceremonial of Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated
with effusion of blood, but consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly
offerings. Other external proofs, too, are urged to show the connection
Numa had with Pythagoras. The comic writer Epicharmus, an ancient author,
and of the school of Pythagoras, in a book of his dedicated to Antenor,
records that Pythagoras was made a freeman of Rome. Again, Numa gave to
one of his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of one of
the sons of Pythagoras; from whence, as they say, sprang that ancient patrician
family of the Aemilli, for that the king gave him in sport the surname
of Aemilius, for his engaging and graceful manner in speaking. I remember,
too, that when I was at Rome, I heard many say, that, when the oracle directed
two statues to be raised, one to the wisest and another to the most valiant
man in Greece, they erected two of brass, one representing Alcibiades,
and the other Pythagoras.
But to pass by these matters, which are full of uncertainty and
not so important as to be worth our time to insist on them, the original
constitution of the priests, called Pontifices, is ascribed unto Numa,
and he himself was, it is said, the first of them; and that they have the
name of Pontifices from potens, powerful, because they attend the service
of the gods, who have power to command over all. Others make the word refer
to exceptions of impossible cases; the priests were to perform all the
duties possible to them; if anything lay beyond their power, the exception
was not to be cavilled at. The most common opinion is the most absurd,
which derives this word from pons, and assigns the priests the title of
bridge-makers. The sacrifices performed on the bridge were amongst the
most sacred and ancient, and the keeping and repairing of the bridge attached,
like any other public sacred office, to the priesthood. It was accounted
not simply unlawful, but a positive sacrilege, to pull down the wooden
bridge; which moreover is said, in obedience to an oracle, to have been
built entirely of timber and fastened with wooden pins, without nails or
cramps of iron. The stone bridge was built a very long time after when
Aemilius was quaestor, and they do, indeed, say also that the wooden bridge
was not so old as Numa's time, but was finished by Ancus Marcius, when
he was king, who was the grandson of Numa by his daughter.
The office of Pontifex Maximus, or chief priest, was to declare
and interpret the divine law, or, rather, to preside over sacred rites;
he not only prescribed rules for public ceremony, but regulated the sacrifices
of private persons, not suffering them to vary from established custom,
and giving information to every one of what was requisite for purposes
of worship or supplication. He was also guardian of the vestal virgins,
the institution of whom, and of their perpetual fire, was attributed to
Numa, who, perhaps, fancied the charge of pure and uncorrupted flames would
be fitly intrusted to chaste and unpolluted persons, or that fire, which
consumes, but produces nothing, bears an analogy to the virgin estate.
In Greece, wherever a perpetual holy fire is kept, as at Delphi and Athens
the charge of it is committed, not to virgins, but widows past the time
of marriage. And in case by any accident it should happen that this fire
became extinct, as the holy lamp was at Athens under the tyranny of Aristion,
and at Delphi, when that temple was burnt by the Medes, as also in the
time of the Mithridatic and Roman civil war, when not only the fire was
extinguished, but the altar demolished, then, afterwards, in kindling this
fire again, it was esteemed an impiety to light it from common sparks or
flame, or from anything but the pure and unpolluted rays of the sun, which
they usually effect by concave mirrors, of a figure formed by the revolution
of an isosceles rectangular triangle, all the lines from the circumference
of which meeting in a centre, by holding it in the light of the sun they
can collect and concentrate all its rays at this one point of convergence;
where the air will now become rarefied, and any light, dry, combustible
matter will kindle as soon as applied, under the effect of the rays, which
here acquired the substance and active force of fire. Some are of opinion
that these vestals had no other business than the preservation of this
fire; but others conceive that they were keepers of other divine secrets
concealed from all but themselves, of which we have told all that may lawfully
be asked or told, in the life of Camillus. Gegania and Verenia, it is recorded,
were the names of the first two virgins consecrated and ordained by Numa;
Canuleia and Tarpeia succeeded: Servius afterwards added two, and the number
of four has continued the present time.
The statutes prescribed by Numa for the vestals were these: that
they should take a vow of virginity for the space of thirty years, the
first ten of which they were to spend in learning their duties, the second
ten in performing them, and the remaining ten in teaching and instructing
others. Thus the whole term being completed, it was lawful for them to
marry, and, leaving the sacred order, to choose any condition of life that
pleased them; but this permission few, as they say, made use of; and in
cases where they did so, it was observed that their change was not a happy
one, but accompanied ever after with regret and melancholy; so that the
greater number, from religious fears and scruples, forbore, and continued
to old age and death in the strict observance of a single
life.
For this condition he compensated by great privileges and prerogatives;
as that they had power to make a will in the lifetime of their father;
that they had a free administration of their own affairs without guardian
or tutor, which was the privilege of women who were the mothers of three
children; when they go abroad, they have the fasces carried before them;
and if in their walks they chance to meet a criminal on his way to execution,
it saves his life, upon oath made that the meeting was an accidental one,
and not concerted or of set purpose. Any one who presses upon the chair
on which they are carried, is put to death. If these vestals commit any
minor fault, they are punishable by the high priest only, who scourges
the offender, sometimes with her clothes off, in a dark place, with a curtain
drawn between; but she that has broken her vow is buried alive near the
gate called Collina, where a little mound of earth stands inside the city,
reaching some little distance, called in Latin agger; under it a narrow
room is constructed, to which a descent is made by stairs; here they prepare
a bed, and light a lamp, and leave a small quantity of victuals, such as
bread, water, a pail of milk, and some oil; that so that body which had
been consecrated and devoted to the most sacred service of religion might
not be said to perish by such a death as famine. The culprit herself is
put in a litter, which they cover over, and tie her down with cords on
it, so that nothing she utters may be heard. They then take her to the
forum; all people silently go out of the way as she passes, and such as
follow accompany the bier with solemn and speechless sorrow; and indeed,
there is not any spectacle more appalling, nor any day observed by the
city with greater appearance of gloom and sadness. When they come to the
place of execution, the officers loose the cords, and then the high priest,
lifting his hands to heaven, pronounces certain prayers to himself before
the act; then he brings out the prisoner, being still covered, and placing
her upon the steps that lead down to the cell, turns away his face with
the rest of the priests; the stairs are drawn up after she has gone down,
and a quantity of earth is heaped up over the entrance to the cell, so
as to prevent it from being distinguished from the rest of the mound. This
is the punishment of those who break their vow of virginity.
It is said, also, that Numa built the temple of Vesta, which was
intended for a repository of the holy fire, of a circular form, not to
represent the figure of the earth, as if that were the same as Vesta, but
that of the general universe, in the centre of which the Pythagoreans place
the element of fire, and give it the name of Vesta and the unit; and do
not hold that the earth is immovable, or that it is situated in the centre
of the globe, but that it keeps a circular motion about the seat of fire,
and is not in the number of the primary elements; in this agreeing with
the opinion of Plato, who, they say, in his later life, conceived that
the earth held a lateral position, and that the central and sovereign space
was reserved for some nobler body.
There was yet a farther use of the priests, and that was to give
people directions in the national usages at funeral rites. Numa taught
them to regard these offices, not as a pollution, but as a duty paid to
the gods below, into whose hands the better part of us is transmitted;
especially they were to worship the goddess Libitina, who presided over
all the ceremonies performed at burials; whether they meant hereby Proserpina,
or, as the most learned of the Romans conceive, Venus, not inaptly attributing
the beginning and end of man's life to the agency of one and the same diety.
Numa also prescribed rules for regulating the days of mourning, according
to certain times and ages. As, for example, a child of three years was
not to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten years, for as many months
as it was years old; and the longest time of mourning for any person whatsoever
was not to exceed the term of ten months; which was the time appointed
for women that lost their husbands to continue in widowhood. If any married
again before that time, by the laws of Numa, she was to sacrifice a cow
big with calf.
Numa, also, was founder of several other orders of priests, two
of which I shall mention, the Salii and the Fecials, which are among the
clearest proofs of the devoutness and sanctity of his character. These
Fecials, or guardians of peace, seem to have had their name from their
office, which was to put a stop to disputes by conference and speech; for
it was not allowable to take up arms until they had declared all hopes
of accommodation to be at an end, for in Greek, too, we call it peace when
disputes are settled by words, and not by force. The Romans commonly despatched
the Fecials, or heralds, to those who had offered them injury, requesting
satisfaction; and, in case they refused, they then called the gods to witness,
and, with imprecations upon themselves and their country should they be
acting unjustly, so declared war; against their will, or without their
consent, it was lawful neither for soldier nor king to take up arms; the
war was begun with them, and when they had first handed it over to the
commander as a just quarrel, then his business was to deliberate of the
manner and ways to carry it on. It is believed that the slaughter and destruction
which the Gauls made of the Romans was a judgment on the city for neglect
of this religious proceeding; for that when these barbarians besieged the
Clusinians, Fabius Ambustus was despatched to their camp to negotiate peace
for the besieged; and, on their returning a rude refusal, Fabius imagined
that his office of ambassador was at an end, and, rashly engaging on the
side of the Clusinians, challenged the bravest of the enemy to a single
combat. It was the fortune of Fabius to kill his adversary, and to take
his spoils; but when the Gauls discovered it, they sent a herald to Rome
to complain against him; since, before war was declared, he had, against
the law of nations, made a breach of the peace. The matter being debated
in the senate, the Fecials were of opinion that Fabius ought to be consigned
into the hands of the Gauls; but he, being forewarned of their judgment,
fled to the people, by whose protection and favour he escaped the sentence.
On this, the Gauls marched with their army to Rome, where having taken
the capitol, they sacked the city. The particulars of all which are fully
given in the history of Camillus.
The origin of the Salii is this. In the eighth year of the reign
of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise
the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a
brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into hands of Numa, who gave
them this marvellous account of it: that Egeria and the Muses had assured
him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city, and that,
to keep it secure, he was ordered by them to make eleven others, so like
in dimensions and form to the original that no thief should be able to
distinguish the true from the counterfeit. He farther declared, that he
was commanded to consecrate to the Muses the place, and the fields about
it, where they had been chiefly wont to meet with him, and that the spring
which watered the fields should be hallowed for the use of the vestal virgins,
who were to wash and cleanse the penetralia of their sanctuary with those
holy waters. The truth of all which was speedily verified by the cessation
of the pestilence. Numa displayed the target to the artificers and bade
them show their skill in making others like it; all despaired, until at
length one Mamurius Veturius, an excellent workman, happily hit upon it,
and made all so exactly the same that Numa himself was at a loss and could
not distinguish. The keeping of these targets was committed to the charge
of certain priests, called Salii, who did not receive their name, as some
tell the story, from Salius, a dancing-master, born in Samothrace, or at
Mantinea who taught the way of dancing in arms; but more truly from that
jumping dance which the Salii themselves use, when in the month of March
they carry the sacred targets through the city; at which procession they
are habited in short frocks of purple, girt with a broad belt studded with
brass; on their heads they wear a brass helmet and carry in their hands
short daggers, which they clash every now and then against the targets.
But the chief thing is the dance itself. They move with much grace, performing,
in quick time and close order, various intricate figures, with a great
display of strength and agility. The targets were called Ancilia from their
form; for they are not made round, nor like proper targets, of a complete
circumference, but are cut out into a wavy line, the ends of which are
rounded off and turned in at the thickest part towards each other; so that
their shape is curvilinear, or, in Greek, ancylon; or the name may come
from ancon, the elbow, on which they are carried. Thus Juba writes, who
is eager to make it Greek. But it might be, for that matter, from its having
come down anecathen, from above; or from its akesis, or cure of diseases;
or auchmon lysis, because it put an end to a drought; or from its anaschesis,
or relief from calamities, which is the origin of the Athenian name Anaces,
given to Castor and Pollux; if we must, that is, reduce it to Greek. The
reward which Mamurius received for his art was to be mentioned and commemorated
in the verses which the Salii sang, as they danced in their arms through
the city; though some will have it that they do not say Veturium Mamuium,
but Veterem Memoriam, ancient remembrance.
After Numa had in this manner instituted these several orders of
priests, he erected, near the temple of Vesta, what is called to this day
Regia, or king's house, where he spent the most part of his time performing
divine service, instructing the priests, or conversing with them on sacred
subjects. He had another house upon the Mount Quirinalis, the site of which
they show to this day. In all public processions and solemn prayers, criers
were sent before to give notice to the people that they should forbear
their work, and rest. They say that the Pythagoreans did not allow people
to worship and pray to their gods by the way, but would have them go out
from their houses direct, with their minds set upon the duty, and Numa,
in like manner, wished that his citizens should neither see nor hear any
religious service in a perfunctory and inattentive manner, but, laying
aside all other occupations, should apply their minds to religion as to
a most serious business; and that the streets should be free from all noises
and cries that accompany manual labour, and clear for the sacred solemnity.
Some traces of this custom remain at Rome to this day, for, when the consul
begins to take auspices or do sacrifice, they call out to the people, Hoc
age, Attend to this, whereby the auditors then present are admonished to
compose and recollect themselves. Many other of his precepts resemble those
of the Pythagoreans. The Pythagoreans said, for example, "Thou shalt not
make a peck-measure thy seat to sit on. Thou shalt not stir the fire with
a sword. When thou goest out upon a journey, look not behind thee. When
thou sacrificest to the celestial gods, let it be with an odd number, and
when to the terrestrial, with even." The significance of each of which
precepts they would not commonly disclose. So some of Numa's traditions
have no obvious meaning. "Thou shalt not make libation to the gods of wine
from an unpruned vine. No sacrifices shall be performed without meal. Turn
round to pay adoration to the gods; sit after you have worshipped." The
first two directions seem to denote the cultivation and subduing of the
earth as a part of religion; and as to the turning which the worshippers
are to use in divine adoration, it is said to represent the rotatory motion
of the world. But, in my opinion, the meaning rather is, that the worshipper,
since the temples front the east, enters with his back to the rising sun;
there, faces round to the east, and so turns back to the god of the temple,
by this circular movement referring the fulfilment of his prayers to both
divinities. Unless, indeed, this change of posture may have a mystical
meaning, like the Egyptian wheels, and signify to us the instability of
human fortune, and that, in whatever way God changes and turns our lot
and condition, we should rest contented, and accept it as right and fitting.
They say, also, that the sitting after worship was to be by way of omen
of their petitions being granted, and the blessing they asked assured to
them. Again, as different courses of actions are divided by intervals of
rest, they might seat themselves after the completion of what they had
done, to seek favour of the gods for beginning something else. And this
would very well suit with what we had before; the lawgiver wants to habituate
us to make our petitions to the deity not by the way, and, as it were,
in a hurry, when we have other things to do, but with time and leisure
to attend to it. By such discipline and schooling in religion, the city
passed insensibly into such a submissiveness of temper, and stood in such
awe and reverence of the virtue of Numa, that they received, with an undoubted
assurance, whatever he delivered though never so fabulous, and thought
nothing incredible or impossible from him.
There goes a story that he once invited a great number of citizens
to an entertainment, at which the dishes in which the meat was served were
very homely and plain, and the repast itself poor and ordinary fare; the
guests seated, he began to tell them that the goddess that consulted with
him was then at that time come to him; when on a sudden the room was furnished
with all sorts of costly drinking-vessels, and the tables loaded with rich
meats, and a most sumptuous entertainment. But the dialogue which is reported
to have passed between him and Jupiter surpasses all the fabulous legends
that were ever invented. They say that before Mount Aventine was inhabited
or enclosed within the walls of the city, two demigods, Picus and Faunus,
frequented the springs and thick shades of that place; which might be two
satyrs, or Pans except that they went about Italy playing the same sorts
of tricks, by skill in drugs and magic, as are ascribed by the Greeks to
the Dactyli of Mount Ida. Numa contrived one day to surprise these demigods,
by mixing wine and honey in the waters of the spring of which they usually
drank. On finding themselves ensnared, they changed themselves into various
shapes, dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual and
hideous appearance; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and in
no possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and future
events; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning, still in use,
performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say they did not tell
him the charm, but by their magic brought down Jupiter out of heaven; and
that he then, in an angry manner answering the inquiries, told Numa, that,
if he would charm the thunder and lightning, he must do it with heads.
"How," said Numa, "with the heads of onions?" "No," replied Jupiter, "of
men." But Numa, willing to elude the cruelty of this receipt, turned it
another way, saying, "Your meaning is, the hairs of men's heads." "No,"
replied Jupiter, "with living"- "pilchards," said Numa, interrupting him.
These answers he had learnt from Egeria. Jupiter returned again to heaven,
pacified and ileos, or propitious. The place was, in remembrance of him,
called Ilicium, from this Greek word; and the spell in this manner
effected.
These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings which
people then, by force of habit, entertained towards the deity. And Numa's
own thoughts are said to have been fixed to that degree on divine objects,
that he once, when a message was brought to him that "Enemies are approaching,"
answered with a smile, "And I am sacrificing." It was he, also, that built
the temples of Faith and Terminus, and taught the Romans that the name
of Faith was the most solemn oath that they could swear. They still use
it; and to the god Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to this day both public
and private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-marks of their land;
living victims now, though anciently those sacrifices were solemnized without
blood; for Numa reasoned that the god of boundaries, who watched over peace,
and testified to fair dealing, should have no concern with blood. It is
very clear that it was this king who first prescribed bounds to the territory
of Rome; for Romulus would but have openly betrayed how much he had encroached
on his neighbours' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries
are, indeed, a defence to those who choose to observe them, but are only
a testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them. The
truth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at the beginning
was very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war; all those acquisitions
Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing to do away with
that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty, and, by turning
the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their lands, into better
order. For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish
for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that
kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in defence of their own,
while it destroys the licence that breaks out into acts of injustice and
rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture would be a sort of charm
to captivate the affections of his people to peace, and viewing it rather
as a means to moral than to economical profit, divided all the lands into
several parcels, to which he gave the name of pagus, or parish, and over
every one of them he ordained chief overseers; and, taking a delight sometimes
to inspect his colonies in person, he formed his judgment of every man's
habits by the results; of which being witness himself, he preferred those
to honours and employments who had done well, and by rebukes and reproaches
incited the indolent and careless to improvement. But of all his measures
the most commended was his distribution of the people by their trades into
companies or guilds; for as the city consisted, or rather did not consist
of, but was divided into, two different tribes, the diversity between which
could not be effaced and in the meantime prevented all unity and caused
perpetual tumult and ill-blood, reflecting how hard substances that do
not readily mix when in the lump may, by being beaten into powder, in that
minute form he combined, he resolved to divide the whole population into
a number of small divisions, and thus hoped, by introducing other distinctions,
to obliterate the original and great distinction, which would be lost among
the smaller. So, distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and
trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers,
shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmen
he composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one their
proper courts, councils, and religious observances. In this manner all
factious distinctions began, for the first time, to pass out of use, no
person any longer being either thought of or spoken of under the notion
of a Sabine or a Roman, a Romulian or a Tatian; and the new division became
a source of general harmony and intermixture.
He is also much to be commended for the repeal, or rather amendment,
of that law which gives power to fathers to sell their children; he exempted
such as were married, conditionally that it had been with the liking and
consent of their parents; for it seemed a hard thing that a woman who had
given herself in marriage to a man whom she judged free should afterwards
find herself living with a slave.
He attempted, also, the formation of a calendar, not with absolute
exactness, yet not without some scientific knowledge. During the reign
of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal
term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more;
they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun
and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year
contained three hundred and sixty days. Numa, calculating the difference
between the lunar and the solar year at eleven days, for that the moon
completed her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty-four days,
and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity
doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month,
to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called by the Romans
the month Mercedinus. This amendment, however, itself, in course of time,
came to need other amendments. He also altered the order of the months;
for March, which was reckoned the first he put into the third place; and
January, which was the eleventh, he made the first; and February, which
was the twelfth and last, the second. Many will have it, that it was Numa,
also, who added the two months of January and February; for in the beginning
they had had a year of ten months; as there are barbarians who count only
three; the Arcadians, in Greece, had but four; the Acarnanians, six. The
Egyptian year at first, they say, was of one month; afterwards, of four;
and so, though they live in the newest of all countries, they have the
credit of being a more ancient nation than any, and reckon, in their genealogies,
a prodigious number of years, counting months, that is, as years. That
the Romans, at first, comprehended the whole year within ten, and not twelve
months, plainly appears by the name of the last, December, meaning the
tenth month; and that March was the first is likewise evident, for the
fifth month after it was called Quintilis, and the sixth Sextilis, and
so the rest; whereas, if January and February had, in this account, preceded
March, Quintilis would have been fifth in name and seventh in reckoning.
It was also natural that March, dedicated to Mars, should be Romulus's
first and April, named from Venus, or Aphrodite, his second month; in it
they sacrifice to Venus, and the women bathe on the calends, or first day
of it, with myrtle garlands on their heads. But others, because of its
being p and not ph, will not allow of the derivation of this word from
Aphrodite, but say it is called April from aperio, Latin for to open, because
that this month is high spring, and opens and discloses the buds and flowers.
The next is called May, from Maia, the mother of Mercury, to whom it is
sacred; then June follows, so called from Juno; some, however, derive them
from the two ages, old and young, majores, being their name for older,
and juniores for younger men. To the other months they gave denominations
according to their order; so the fifth was called Quintilis, Sextilis the
sixth, and the rest, September, October, November, and December. Afterwards
Quintilis received the name of Julius, from Caesar, who defeated Pompey;
as also Sextilis that of Augustus, from the second Caesar, who had that
title. Domitian, also, in imitation, gave the two other following months
his own names, of Germanicus and Domitianus; but, on his being slain, they
recovered their ancient denominations of September and October. The two
last are the only ones that have kept their names throughout without any
alteration. Of the months which were added or transposed in their order
by Numa, February comes from februa; and is as much a Purification month;
in it they make offerings to the dead, and celebrate the Lupercalia, which,
in most points, resembles a purification. January was also called from
janus, and precedence given to it by Numa before March, which was dedicated
to the god Mars; because, as I conceive, he wished to take every opportunity
of intimating that the arts and studies of peace are to be preferred before
those of war. For this Janus, whether in remote antiquity he were a demigod
or a king, was certainly a great lover of civil and social unity, and one
who reclaimed men from brutal and savage living; for which reason they
figure him with two faces, to represent the two states and conditions out
of the one of which he brought mankind, to lead them into the other. His
temple at Rome has two gates, which they call the gates of war, because
they stand open in the time of war, and shut in the times of peace; of
which latter there was very seldom an example, for, as the Roman empire
was enlarged and extended, it was so encompassed with barbarous nations
and enemies to be resisted, that it was seldom or never at peace. Only
in the time of Augustus Caesar, after he had overcome Antony, this temple
was shut; as likewise once before, when Marcus Atilius and Titus Manlius
were consuls; but then it was not long before, wars breaking out, the gates
were again opened. But, during the reign of Numa, those gates were never
seen open a single day, but continued constantly shut for a space of forty-three
years together; such an entire and universal cessation of war existed.
For not only had the people of Rome itself been softened and charmed into
a peaceful temper by the just and mild rule of a pacific prince, but even
the neighbouring cities, as if some salubrious and gentle air had blown
from Rome upon them, began to experience a change of feeling, and partook
in the general longing for the sweets of peace and order, and for life
employed in the quiet tillage of soil, bringing up of children, and worship
of the gods. Festival days and sports, and the secure and peaceful interchange
of friendly visits and hospitalities prevailed all through the whole of
Italy. The love of virtue and justice flowed from Numa's wisdom as from
a fountain, and the serenity of his spirit diffused itself, like a calm,
on all sides; so that the hyperboles of poets were flat and tame to express
what then existed; as that-
"Over the iron shield the spiders hang their threads," or
that-
"Rust eats the pointed spear and double-edged
sword.
No more is heard the trumpet's brazen roar,
Sweet sleep is banished from our eyes no more."
For during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor
sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to his
person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition. Either fear of the
gods that were thought to watch over him, or reverence for his virtue,
or divine felicity of fortune that in his days preserved human innocence,
made his reign, by whatever means, a living example and verification of
that saying which Plato, long afterwards, ventured to pronounce, that the
sole and only hope of respite or remedy for human evils was in some happy
conjunction of events which should unite in a single person the power of
a king and the wisdom of a philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to control
and mastery over vice. The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessed
also are the auditors who can bear and receive those words which flow from
his mouth; and perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menaces
to affect the multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and conspicuous
example of virtue in the life of their prince will bring them spontaneously
to virtue, and to a conformity with that blameless and blessed life of
good-will and mutual concord, supported by temperance and justice, which
is the highest benefit that human means can confer; and he is the truest
ruler who can best introduce it into the hearts and practice of his subjects.
It is the praise of Numa that no one seems ever to have discerned this
so clearly as he.
As to his children and wives, there is a diversity of reports by
several authors; some will have it that he never had any other wife than
Tatia; nor more children than one daughter called Pompilia; others will
have it that he left also four sons, namely, Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, and
Mamercus, every one of whom had issue, and from them descended the noble
and illustrious families of Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, and Mamerci,
which for this reason took also the surname of Rex, or King. But there
is a third set of writers who say that these pedigrees are but a piece
of flattery used by writers who, to gain favour with these great families,
made them fictitious genealogies from the lineage of Numa; and that Pompilia
was not the daughter of Tatia, but Lucretia, another wife whom he married
after he came to his kingdom; however, all of them agree in opinion that
she was married to the son of that Marcius who persuaded him to accept
the government, and accompanied him to Rome, where, as a mark of honour,
he was chosen into the senate, and after the death of Numa, standing in
competition with Tullus Hostilius for the kingdom, and being disappointed
of the election, in discontent killed himself; his son Marcius, however,
who had married Pompilia, continuing at Rome, was the father of Ancus Marcius,
who succeeded Tullus Hostilius in the kingdom, and was but five years of
age when Numa died.
Numa lived something above eighty years, and then, as Piso writes,
was not taken out of the world by a sudden or acute disease, but died of
old age and by a gradual and gentle decline. At his funeral all the glories
of his life were consummated, when all the neighbouring states in alliance
and amity with Rome met to honour and grace the rites of his interment
with garlands and public presents; the senators carried the bier on which
his corpse was laid, and the priests followed and accompanied the solemn
procession; while a general crowd, in which women and children took part,
followed with such cries and weeping as if they had bewailed the death
and loss of some most dear relation taken away in the flower of age, and
not an old and worn-out king. It is said that his body, by his particular
command, was not burnt, but that they made, in conformity with his order,
two stone coffins, and buried both under the hill Janiculum, in one of
which his body was laid, and the other his sacred books, which, as the
Greek legislators their tables, he had written out for himself, but had
so long inculcated the contents of them, whilst he lived, into the minds
and hearts of the priests, that their understandings became fully possessed
with the whole spirit and purpose of them; and he therefore bade that they
should be buried with his body, as though such holy precepts could not
without irreverence he left to circulate in mere lifeless writings. For
this very reason, they say, the Pythagoreans bade that their precepts should
not be committed to paper, but rather preserved in the living memories
of those who were worthy to receive them; and when some of their out-of-the-way
and abstruse geometrical processes had been divulged to an unworthy person,
they said the gods threatened to punish this wickedness and profanity by
a signal and wide-spreading calamity. With these several instances concurring
to show a similarity in the lives of Numa and Pythagoras, we may easily
pardon those who seek to establish the fact of a real acquaintance between
them.
Valerius Antias writes that the books which were buried in the
aforesaid chest or coffin of stone were twelve volumes of holy writ and
twelve others of Greek philosophy, and that about four hundred years afterwards,
when P. Cornelius and M. Baebius were consuls, in a time of heavy rains,
a violent torrent washed away the earth, and dislodged the chests of stone;
and, their covers falling off, one of them was found wholly empty, without
the least relic of any human body; in the other were the books before mentioned,
which the praetor Petilius having read and perused, made oath in the senate,
that, in his opinion, it was not fit for their contents to be made public
to the people; whereupon the volumes were all carried to the Comitium,
and there burnt.
It is the fortune of all good men that their virtue rises in glory
after their deaths, and that the envy which evil men conceive against them
never outlives them long; some have the happiness even to see it die before
them; but in Numa's case, also, the fortunes of the succeeding kings served
as foils to set off the brightness of his reputation. For after him there
were five kings, the last of whom ended his old age in banishment, being
deposed from his crown; of the other four, three were assassinated and
murdered by treason; the other, who was Tullus Hostilius, that immediately
succeeded Numa, derided his virtues, and especially his devotion to religious
worship, as a cowardly and mean-spirited occupation, and diverted the minds
of the people to war; but was checked in these youthful insolences, and
was himself driven by an acute and tormenting disease into superstitions
wholly different from Numa's piety, and left others also to participate
in these terrors when he died by the stroke of a thunderbolt.
THE END
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