[55] “Hence is explained the origin of the name given to the Capitol: in digging the foundation of the temple, they found a human head; and the augurs declared that Rome would become the head of all Italy.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 61.)
[56] “This recourse to the opinions of the priests and the observations of religious worship made the people forget their habits of violence and their taste for arms. Their minds, incessantly occupied with religious ideas, acknowledged the intervention of Providence in human affairs, and all hearts were penetrated with a piety so lively that good faith and fidelity to an oath reigned in Rome more than fear of laws or punishments.” (Titus Livius, I. 21.)
[57] Titus Livius, I. 45.
[58] “Assemblies of people, levies of troops—indeed, the most important operations—were abandoned, if the birds did not approve them.” (Titus Livius, I. 36.)
[59] “Numa established also the auspicious and inauspicious days, for with the people an adjournment might sometimes be useful.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.)
[60] “We have a town, founded on the faith of auspices and auguries; not a spot within these walls which is not full of gods and their worshippers; our solemn sacrifices have their days fixed as well as the place where they are to be made.” (Titus Livius, V. 52, Speech of Camillus, VI. &c.)
[61] Cicero, De Republica, II. 14.
[62] “All religious acts, public and private, were submitted to the decision of the pontiff; thus the people knew to whom to address themselves, and disorders were prevented which might have brought into religion the neglect of the national rites or the introduction of foreign ones. It was the same pontiff’s duty also to regulate what concerned funerals, and the means of appeasing the Manes, and to distinguish, among prodigies announced by thunder and other phenomena, those which required an expiation.” (Titus Livius, I. 20.)
[63] “The grand pontiff exercises the functions of interpreter and diviner, or rather of hierophant. He not only presides at the public sacrifices, but he also inspects those which are made in private, and takes care that the ordinances of religious worship are not transgressed. Lastly, it is he who teaches what each individual ought to do to honour the gods and to appease them.” (Plutarch, Numa, 12.)
[64] “Numa divided the year into twelve months, according to the moon’s courses; he added January and February to the year.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.—Plutarch, Numa, 18.)