Roman History, Books I-III - Livy

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this day at daybreak. While I stood filled with dread, and religious awe, beseeching him to allow me to look upon him face to face, 'Go,' said he, 'tell the Romans, that the gods so will, that my Rome should become the capital of the world. Therefore let them cultivate the art of war, and let them know and so hand it down to posterity, that no human power can withstand the Roman arms.' Having said this, he vanished up to heaven." It is surprising what credit was given to that person when he made the announcement, and how much the regret of the common people and army for the loss of Romulus was assuaged when the certainty of his immortality was confirmed.[15]

      Meanwhile[16] contention for the throne and ambition engaged the minds of the fathers; the struggle was not as yet carried on by individuals, by violence or contending factions, because, among a new people, no one person was pre-eminently distinguished; the contest was carried on between the different orders. The descendants of the Sabines wished a king to be elected from their own body, lest, because there had been no king from their own party since the death of Tatius, they might lose their claim to the crown although both were on an equal footing. The old Romans spurned the idea of a foreign prince. Amid this diversity of views, however, all were anxious to be under the government of a king, as they had not yet experienced the delights of liberty. Fear then seized the senators, lest, as the minds of many surrounding states were incensed against them, some foreign power should attack the state, now without a government, and the army, now without a leader. Therefore, although they were agreed that there should be some head, yet none could bring himself to give way to another. Accordingly, the hundred senators divided the government among themselves, ten decuries being formed, and the individual members who were to have the chief direction of affairs being chosen into each decury.[17] Ten governed; one only was attended by the lictors and with the insignia of authority: their power was limited to the space of five days, and conferred upon all in rotation, and the interval between the government of a king lasted a year. From this fact it was called an interregnum, a term which is employed even now. Then the people began to murmur, that their slavery was multiplied, and that they had now a hundred sovereigns instead of one, and they seemed determined to submit to no authority but that of a king, and that one appointed by themselves. When the fathers perceived that such schemes were on foot, thinking it advisable to offer them, without being asked, what they were sure to lose, they conciliated the good-will of the people by yielding to them the supreme power, yet in such a manner as to surrender no greater privilege than they reserved to themselves. For they decreed, that when the people had chosen a king, the election should be valid, if the senate gave the sanction of their authority. And even to this day the same forms are observed in proposing laws and magistrates, though their power has been taken away; for before the people begin to vote, the senators ratify their choice, even while the result of the elections is still uncertain. Then the interrex, having summoned an assembly of the people, addressed them as follows: "Do you, Quirites, choose yourselves a king, and may this choice prove fortunate, happy, and auspicious; such is the will of the fathers. Then, if you shall choose a prince worthy to be reckoned next after Romulus, the fathers will ratify your choice." This concession was so pleasing to the people, that, not to appear outdone in generosity, they only voted and ordained that the senate should determine who should be king at Rome.

      The justice and piety of Numa Pompilius was at that time celebrated. He dwelt at Cures, a city of the Sabines, and was as eminently learned in all law, human and divine, as any man could be in that age. They falsely represent that Pythagoras of Samos was his instructor in learning, because there appears no other. Now it is certain that this philosopher, in the reign of Servius Tullius, more than a hundred years after this, held assemblies of young men, who eagerly embraced his doctrines, on the most distant shore of Italy, in the neighbourhood of Metapontum, Heraclea, and Croton. But from these places, even had he flourished in the same age, what fame of his could have reached the Sabines? or by what intercourse of language could it have aroused any one to a desire of learning? Or by what safeguard could a single man have passed through the midst of so many nations differing in language and customs? I am therefore rather inclined to believe that his mind, owing to his natural bent, was attempered by virtuous qualities, and that he was not so much versed in foreign systems of philosophy as in the stern and gloomy training of the ancient Sabines, a race than which none was in former times more strict. When they heard the name of Numa, although the Roman fathers perceived that the balance of power would incline to the Sabines if a king were chosen from them, yet none of them ventured to prefer himself, or any other member of his party, or, in fine, any of the citizens or fathers, to a man so well known, but unanimously resolved that the kingdom should be offered to Numa Pompilius. Being sent for, just as Romulus obtained the throne by the augury in accordance with which he founded the city, so Numa in like manner commanded the gods to be consulted concerning himself. Upon this, being escorted into the citadel by an augur, to whose profession that office was later made a public and perpetual one by way of honour, he sat down on a stone facing the south: the augur took his seaton his left hand with his head covered, holding in his right a crooked wand free from knots, called lituus; then, after having taken a view over the city and country, and offered a prayer to the gods, he defined the bounds of the regions of the sky from east to west: the parts toward the south he called the right, those toward the north, the left; and in front of him he marked out in his mind the sign as far as ever his eyes could see. Then having shifted the lituus into his left hand, and placed his right on the head of Numa, he prayed after this manner: "O father Jupiter, if it be thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, be king of Rome, mayest thou manifest infallible signs to us within those bounds which I have marked." Then he stated in set terms the auspices which he wished to be sent: on their being sent, Numa was declared king and came down from the seat of augury.

      Having thus obtained the kingdom, he set about establishing anew, on the principles of law and morality, the newly founded city that had been already established by force of arms. When he saw that the inhabitants, inasmuch as men's minds are brutalized by military life, could not become reconciled to such principles during the continuance of wars, considering that the savage nature of the people must be toned down by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of Argiletum[18] a temple of Janus, as a sign of peace and war, that when open, it might show that the state was engaged in war, and when shut, that all the surrounding nations were at peace. Twice only since the reign of Numa has this temple been shut: once when Titus Manlius was consul, after the conclusion of the first Punic war; and a second time, which the gods granted our generation to behold, by the Emperor Cæsar Augustus, after the battle of Actium, when peace was established by land and sea. This being shut, after he had secured the friendship of all the neighbouring states around by alliance and treaties, all anxiety regarding dangers from abroad being now removed, in order to prevent their minds, which the fear of enemies and military discipline had kept in check, running riot from too much leisure, he considered, that, first of all, awe of the gods should be instilled into them, a principle of the greatest efficacy in dealing with the multitude, ignorant and uncivilized as it was in those times. But as this fear could not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he pretended that he held nightly interviews with the goddess Egeria; that by her direction he instituted sacred rites such as would be most acceptable to the gods, and appointed their own priests for each of the deities. And, first of all, he divided the year into twelve months, according to the courses of the moon;[19] and because the moon does not fill up the number of thirty days in each month, and some days are wanting to the complete year, which is brought round by the solstitial revolution, he so regulated this year, by inserting intercalary months, that every twentieth year, the lengths of all the intermediate years being filled up, the days corresponded with the same starting-point of the sun whence they had set out. He likewise divided days into sacred and profane, because on certain occasions it was likely to be expedient that no business should be transacted with the people.

      Next he turned his attention to the appointment of priests, though he discharged many sacred functions himself, especially those which now belong to the flamen of Jupiter. But, as he imagined that in a warlike nation there would be more kings resembling Romulus than Numa, and that they would go to war in person, in order that the sacred functions of the royal office might not be neglected, he appointed a perpetual priest as flamen to Jupiter, and distinguished him by a fine robe, and a royal curule chair. To him he added two other flamens, one for Mars, another for Quirinus. He also chose virgins for Vesta, a priesthood derived from Alba,

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