kind of entreaty to induce him to accept it, begging him not to plunge
the state again into civil war, because there was no other man whom the
two parties would agree to receive as their king. In their absence, his
father and Marcius begged him not to refuse so great and marvellous an
offer. "If," they said, "you do not desire wealth, because of your
simple life, and do not care for the glory of royalty, because you
derive more glory from your own virtue, yet think that to be king is to
serve God, who gives you this office and will not allow your
righteousness to lie idle, useful only to yourself. Do not therefore
shrink from assuming this office, which gives you an opportunity to
conduct the solemn ceremonials of religion with due pomp, and to
civilise the people and turn their hearts, which can be effected more
easily by a king than by any one else. This people loved Tatius, though
he was a foreigner, and they respect the memory of Romulus as if he was
a god. And who knows, if the people, although victorious, may not have
had enough of wars, and, sated with triumphs and spoils, may not be
desirous of a gentle and just ruler under whom they may enjoy rest and
peace. If, however, they are madly bent upon war, is it not better that
you should hold the reins, and direct their fury elsewhere, becoming
yourself a bond of union and friendship between the Sabine nation and
this powerful and flourishing city?" Besides these arguments, it is said
that the omens were favourable, and that the people of the city, as soon
as they heard of the embassy, came and besought him to go and become
king, and thus unite and combine the two races.
VII. When he had made up his mind, he sacrificed to the gods, and
started for Rome. The Senate and people met him and showed great
affection for him; the matrons also greeted him, and there were
sacrifices in the temples, and every one was as joyous as if he had
received a kingdom instead of a king. When they came into the Forum, the
_interrex_ or temporary king, Spurius Vettius, put it to the vote, and
all the people voted for Numa. When they offered him the insignia of
royalty, he bade them stop, saying that he wished to have his crown
confirmed to him by God as well as by man. Taking the prophets and
priests he ascended the Capitol, which the Romans at that time called
the Tarpeian Hill. There the chief of the prophets made him turn towards
the south, covered his head, and then standing behind him with his hand
laid upon his head, he prayed, and looked for a sign or omen sent from
the gods in every quarter of the heavens. A strange silence prevailed
among the people in the Forum, as they watched him eagerly, until a
prosperous omen was observed. Then Numa received the royal robes and
came down from the hill among the people. They received him with cheers
and congratulations, as the most pious of men, and as beloved of Heaven.
When he became king, his first act was to disband the body-guard of
three hundred men, whom Romulus always had kept about his person, who
were called _Celeres_, that is, swift; for Numa would not distrust a
loyal people nor reign over a disloyal one. Next he instituted a third
high priest, in addition to the existing priests of Jupiter and Mars,
whom, in honour of Romulus, he called the Flamen Quirinalis. The elder
priests are called Flamens from the skull-caps which they wear, and the
word is derived from the Greek word for felt; for at that time Greek
words were mingled with Latin ones more than now. For instance, the
_laena_ worn by the priests is said by Juba to be the Greek _chlaina_,
and the boy, whose parents must be both alive, who is servant to the
priest of Jupiter, is called _Camillus_, just as the Greeks sometimes
call Hermes (Mercury) _Cadmilus_, from his being the servant of the
gods.
VIII. Numa, after confirming his popularity by these measures, proceeded
at once to attempt to convert the city from the practice of war and the
strong hand, to that of right and justice, just as a man tries to soften
and mould a mass of iron. The city at that time was indeed what Plato
calls "inflamed and angry," for it owed its very existence to the
reckless daring by which it had thrust aside the most warlike races of
the country, and had recruited its strength by many campaigns and
ceaseless war, and, as carpentry becomes more fixed in its place by
blows, so the city seemed to gain fresh power from its dangers. Thinking
that it would be a very difficult task to change the habits of this
excited and savage people, and to teach them the arts of peace, he
looked to the gods for help, and by sacrifices, processions, and choral
dances, which he himself organised and arranged, he awed, interested,
and softened the manners of the Romans, artfully beguiling them out of
their warlike ferocity. Sometimes he spoke of supernatural terrors, evil
omens, and unpropitious voices, so as to influence them by means of
superstition. These measures proved his wisdom, and showed him a true
disciple of Pythagoras, for the worship of the gods was an important
part of his state policy, as it is of Pythagoras's system of philosophy.
His love of outward show and stratagem was also said to be derived from
Pythagoras, for as the latter tamed an eagle and made it alight upon
him, and when walking through the crowd at Olympia showed his golden
thigh, and did all the other surprising devices which made Timon of
Phlius write the epigram--
"Pythagoras by magic arts,
And mystic talk deludes men's hearts,"
so did Numa invent the story of his amour with a wood-nymph and his
secret converse with her, and of his enjoying the society of the Muses.
He referred most of his prophetic utterances to the Muses, and taught
the Romans to worship one of them especially, whom he called Tacita,
which means silent or dumb. This seems to have been done in imitation of
Pythagoras, who especially revered silence. His legislation about images
was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first
principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual
essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men
or of beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or
moulded, in the early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built
temples, and placed shrines in them, but made no image of any living
thing, considering that it was wrong to make the worse like the better,
and that God cannot be comprehended otherwise than by thought. Their
sacrifices also were connected with the Pythagorean doctrine; they were
for the most part bloodless, and performed with flour, libations of
wine, and all the commonest things. But besides these, there are other
distinct proofs of the connection of these two men with one another. One
of these is that the Romans enrolled Pythagoras as a citizen, as we are
told by Epicharmus the comic poet, in a letter which he wrote to
Antenor. He was a man who lived in old times and underwent the
Pythagorean training. Another proof is that of his four sons, King Numa
named one Mamercus after the son of Pythagoras; from whom sprung the
ancient patrician house of the Aemilii. This name was originally given
him in sport by the king, who used to call him _aimulos_ or wily. I
myself have heard many Romans narrate that an oracle once bade the
Romans establish the wisest and the bravest of the Greeks in their own
city, and that in consequence of it they set up two brazen statues in
the Forum, one of Alkibiades and one of Pythagoras. But all this can be
so easily disputed that it is not worth while to pursue it farther or to
put any trust in it.
IX. To Numa also is referred the institution of the Pontifices, or high
priests; and he himself is said to have been one of the first. The
Pontifices are so called, according to some authorities, because they
worship the gods, who are powerful and almighty; for powerful in Latin
is _potens_. Others say that it refers to an exception made in favour of
possibilities, meaning that the legislator ordered the priests to
perform what services lay in their power, and did not deny that there
are some which they cannot. But the most usually received and most
absurd derivation is that the word means nothing more than bridge
builders, and that they were so named from the sacrifices which are
offered upon the sacred bridge, which are of great sanctity and
antiquity. The Latins call a bridge _pontem_. This bridge is intrusted
to the care of the priests, like any other immovable holy relic; for the
Romans think that the removal of the wooden bridge would call down the
wrath of Heaven. It is said to be entirely composed of wood, in
accordance with some oracle, without any iron whatever.
The stone bridge was built many years afterwards, when Aemilius was
Quaestor. However, it is said that the wooden bridge itself does not
date from the time of Numa, but that it was finished by Marcius, the
grandson of Numa, when he was king.
The chief priest, or Pontifex Maximus, is an interpreter and prophet or
rather expounder of the will of Heaven. He not only sees that the public
sacrifices are properly conducted, but even watches those who offer
private sacrifices, opposes all departure from established custom, and
points out to each man how to honour the gods and how to pray to them.
He also presides over the holy maidens called vestals.
The consecration of the vestal virgins, and the worship and watching of
the eternal flame by them, are entirely attributed to Numa, and
explained either by the pure and uncorruptible essence of fire being
intrusted to the keeping of those who are stainless and undefiled, or
by that which is barren and without fruit being associated with maidens.
Indeed, in Greece, wherever an eternal fire is kept up, as at Delphi and
Athens, it is not maidens, but widows, past the age to wed, that tend
it. When any of these fires chance to go out, as, for instance, the
sacred lamp went out at Athens when Aristion was despot, and the fire
went out at Delphi when the temple was burned by the Persians, and at
Rome in the revolutions during the time of the wars with King
Mithridates the fire, and even the altar upon which it burned, was swept
away; then they say that it must not be lighted from another fire, but
that an entirely new fire must be made, lighted by a pure and undefiled
ray from the sun. They usually light it with mirrors made by hollowing
the surface of an isosceles right-angled triangle, which conducts all
the rays of light into one point. Now when it is placed opposite to the
sun, so that all the rays coming from all quarters are collected
together into that point, the ray thus formed passes through the thin
air, and at once lights the dryest and lightest of the objects against
which it strikes, for that ray has the strength and force of fire
itself.
Some say that the only duty of the vestal virgins is to watch that
eternal fire, but others say they perform certain secret rites, about
which we have written as much as it is lawful to divulge, in the Life of
Camillus.
X. The first maidens who were consecrated by Numa were named Gegania and
Verenia; and afterwards Canuleia and Tarpeia were added. Servius
subsequently added two more to their number, which has remained six ever
since his reign. Numa ordained that the maidens should observe celibacy
for thirty years, during the first ten years of which they were to learn
their duties, during the next perform them, and during the last to teach
others. After this period any of them who wished might marry and cease
to be priestesses; but it is said that very few availed themselves of
this privilege, and that those few were not happy, but, by their regrets
and sorrow for the life they had left, made the others scruple to leave
it, prefer to remain virgins till their death. They had great
privileges, such as that of disposing of their property by will when
their fathers were still alive, like women who have borne three
children. When they walk abroad they are escorted by lictors with the
fasces; and if they happen to meet any criminal who is being taken to
execution, he is not put to death; but the vestal must swear that she
met him accidentally, and not on purpose. When they use a litter, no one
may pass under it on pain of death. The vestals are corrected by stripes
for any faults which they commit, sometimes by the Pontifex Maximus, who
flogs the culprit without her clothes, but with a curtain drawn before
her. She that breaks her vow of celibacy is buried alive at the Colline
Gate, at which there is a mound of earth which stretches some way inside
the city wall. In it they construct an underground chamber, of small
size, which is entered from above. In it is a bed with bedding, and a
lamp burning; and also some small means of supporting life, such as
bread, a little water in a vessel, milk, and oil, as though they wished
to avoid the pollution of one who had been consecrated with such holy
ceremonies dying of hunger. The guilty one is placed in a litter,
covered in, and gagged with thongs so that she cannot utter a sound.
Then they carry her through the Forum. All make way in silence, and
accompany her passage with downcast looks, without speaking. There is no
more fearful sight than this, nor any day when the city is plunged into
deeper mourning. When the litter reaches the appointed spot, the
servants loose her bonds, and the chief priest, after private prayer and
lifting his hands to Heaven before his dreadful duty, leads her out,
closely veiled, places her upon a ladder which leads down into the
subterranean chamber. After this he turns away with the other priests;
the ladder is drawn up after she has descended, and the site of the
chamber is obliterated by masses of earth which are piled upon it, so
that the place looks like any other part of the mound. Thus are the
vestals punished who lose their chastity.
XI. Numa is said to have built the Temple of Vesta, which was to contain
the sacred fire, in a circular form, imitating thereby not the shape of
the earth, but that of the entire universe, in the midst of which the
Pythagoreans place the element of fire, which they call Vesta and the
Unit. The earth they say is not motionless, and not in the centre of its
orbit, but revolves round the central fire, occupying by no means the
first or the most honourable place in the system of the universe. These
ideas are said to have been entertained by Plato also in his old age;
for he too thought that the earth was in a subordinate position, and
that the centre of the universe was occupied by some nobler body.
XII. The Pontifices also explain, to those who inquire of them, the
proper ceremonies at funerals. For Numa taught them not to think that
there was any pollution in death, but that we must pay due honours to
the gods below, because they will receive all that is noblest on earth.
Especially he taught them to honour the goddess Libitina, the goddess
who presides over funeral rites, whether she be Proserpine, or rather
Venus, as the most learned Romans imagine, not unnaturally referring our
birth and our death to the same divinity.
He also defined the periods of mourning, according to the age of the
deceased. He allowed none for a child under three years of age, and for
one older the mourning was only to last as many months as he lived
years, provided those were not more than ten. The longest mourning was
not to continue above ten months, after which space widows were
permitted to marry again; but she that took another husband before that
term was out was obliged by his decree to sacrifice a cow with calf.
Of Numa's many other institutions I shall only mention two, that of the
Salii and of the Feciales, which especially show his love of justice.
The Feciales are, as it were, guardians of peace, and in my opinion
obtain their name from their office; for they were to act as mediators,
and not to permit an appeal to arms before all hope of obtaining justice
by fair means had been lost. The Greeks call it peace when two states
settle their differences by negotiation and not by arms; and the Roman
Feciales frequently went to states that had done wrong and begged them
to think better of what they had done. If they rejected their offers,
then the Feciales called the gods to witness, invoked dreadful curses
upon themselves and their country, if they were about to fight in an
unjust cause, and so declared war. Against the will of the Feciales, or
without their approval, no Roman, whether king or common soldier, was
allowed to take up arms, but the general was obliged first to have it
certified to him by the Feciales that the right was on his side, and
then to take his measures for a campaign. It is said that the great
disaster with the Gauls befell the city in consequence of this ceremony
having been neglected. The barbarians were besieging Clusium; Fabius
Ambustus was sent as an ambassador to their camp to make terms on behalf
of the besieged. His proposals met with a harsh reply, and he, thinking
that his mission was at an end, had the audacity to appear before the
ranks of the men of Clusium in arms, and to challenge the bravest of the
barbarians to single combat. He won the fight, slew his opponent and
stripped his body; but the Gauls recognised him, and sent a herald to
Rome, complaining that Fabius had broken faith and not kept his word,
and had waged war against them without its being previously declared.
Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the
Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his
just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the
Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the 'Life of
Camillus.'
XIII. The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the
following circumstances: In the eighth year of Numa's reign an epidemic
raged throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome. Now amidst the
general distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven
into the hands of Numa. Upon this the king made an inspired speech,
which he had learned from Egeria and the Muses. The shield, he said,
came for the salvation of the city, and they must guard it, and make
eleven more like it, so that no thief could steal the one that fell from
heaven, because he could not tell which it was. Moreover the place and
the meadows round about it, where he was wont to converse with the
Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the well by which it was watered
must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal virgins, that they might
daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their temple. The truth
of this is said to have been proved by the immediate cessation of the
plague. He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield, and, when all
others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the best workmen
of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all the
shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which
was the original. He next appointed the Salii to guard and keep them.
These priests were called Salii, not, as some say, after a man of
Samothrace or of Mantinea named Salius, who first taught the art of
dancing under arms, but rather from the springing dance itself, which
they dance through the city when they carry out the shields in the month
of March, dressed in scarlet tunics, girt with brazen girdles, with
brazen helmets on their heads and little daggers with which they strike
the shields. The rest of their dance is done with their feet; they move
gracefully, whirling round, swiftly and airily counter-changing their
positions with light and vigorous motions according to rhythm and
measure. The shields are called _ancilia_, because of their shape; for
they are not round, nor with a perfect circumference, but are cut out of
a wavy line, and curl in at the thickest part towards each other; or
they may be called _ancilia_ after the name of the elbow, _ankon_, on
which they are carried; at least so Juba conjectures in his endeavours
to find a Greek derivation for the word. The name may be connected with
the fall of the shield _from above_ (_anekathen_), or with the healing
(_akesis_) of the plague, and the cessation of that terrible calamity,
if we must refer the word to a Greek root.
It is related that, to reward Mamurius for his workmanship, his name is
mentioned in the song which the Salii sing while they dance their
Pyrrhic dance; others, however, say that it is not Veturium Mamurium
that they say, but _Veterem Memoriam_, which means ancient memory.
XIV. After he had arranged all religious ceremonies, he built, near the
temple of Vesta, the Regia, as a kind of royal palace; and there he
spent most of his time, engaged in religious duties, instructing the
priests, or awaiting some divine colloquy. He had also another house on
the hill of Quirinus, the site of which is even now pointed out.
In all religious processions through the city the heralds went first to
bid the people cease their work, and attend to the ceremony; for just as
the Pythagoreans are said to forbid the worship of the gods in a cursory
manner, and to insist that men shall set out from their homes with this
purpose and none other in their minds, so Numa thought it wrong that the
citizens should see or hear any religious ceremony in a careless,
half-hearted manner, and made them cease from all worldly cares and
attend with all their hearts to the most important of all duties,
religion; so he cleared the streets of all the hammering, and cries, and
noises which attend the practice of ordinary trades and handicrafts,
before any holy ceremony. Some trace of this custom still survives in
the practice of crying out _Hoc age_ when the consul is taking the
auspices or making a sacrifice. These words mean "Do this thing," and
are used to make the bystanders orderly and attentive. Many of his other
precepts are like those of the Pythagoreans; for just as they forbid men
to sit upon a quart measure, or to stir the fire with a sword, or to
turn back when they set out upon a journey, and bid them sacrifice an
odd number to the gods above, and an even one to those below, all of
which things had a mystical meaning, which was hidden from the common
mass of mankind, so also some of Numa's rites can only be explained by
reference to some secret legend, such as his forbidding men to make a
libation to the gods with wine made from an unpruned vine, and his
ordering that no sacrifice should be made without flour, and that men
should turn round while worshipping and sit after they had worshipped.
The first two of these seem to point to cultivation of the fruits of the
earth, as a part of righteousness; the turning round of the worshippers
is said to be in imitation of the revolution of the globe, but it seems
more probable that, as all temples look towards the east, the worshipper
who enters with his back to the sun turns round towards this god also,
and begs of them both, as he makes his circuit, to fulfil his prayer.
Unless indeed there is an allusion to the symbolical wheel of the
Egyptians, and the change of posture means that nothing human is
constant, and that, however God may turn about our lives, it is our duty
to be content. The act of sitting after prayer was said to portend that
such as were good would obtain a solid and lasting fulfilment of their
prayers. Or again, this attitude of rest marks the division between
different periods of prayer; so that after the end of one prayer they
seat themselves in the presence of the gods, in order that under their
auspices they may begin the next. This fully agrees with what has been
said above, and shows that the lawgiver intended to accustom his
countrymen not to offer their prayers in a hurry, or in the intervals of
doing something else, but when they were at leisure and not pressed for
time.