Numa Pompilius remembering the Grotto.
Numa, though he had come to the throne, was fond of the retired walks of life, and frequently took a solitary stroll in the suburbs. During one of his rambles chance brought him to a grotto, and he was induced to remember the grotto by the surpassing loveliness of its fair inhabitant. Her name was Egeria, her profession that of a fortune-teller, which gave her such an influence over the superstitious mind of Numa, that she ruled him with her divining rod as completely as if it had been a rod of iron. He professed to act under the advice of this nymph, to whom tradition—an inveterate match-maker—has married him, and he instituted the Flamines, an order of priests, to give weight to the falsehoods or "flams" he thought fit to promulgate. The privileges of the Flamines were not altogether of the most comfortable kind, and consisted chiefly in the right of wearing the Apex—a cap made of olive wood—and the Laena, a sort of Roman wrap-rascal, shaggy on both sides, and worn above the toga, as an overcoat. The Flamen was prohibited from appearing in public without his Apex, which could not be kept on the head without strings; but such was the stringency of the regulations, that one Sulpicius[8] was deprived of his priesthood, in consequence of his official hat, which was as light as a modern zephyr, having been blown off his head in the midst of a sacrifice.
Numa added, also, a sort of ballet company to the mythological arrangements of his day, by establishing twelve Salii, or dancing priests, whose duty it was to execute a grand pas de douze on certain occasions through the principal public thorough fares. The Salii, though a highly respectable, were not a very venerable order, for no one could remain in it whose father and mother were not both alive, the existence of the parents of the dancing priests being, no doubt, required as a guarantee that their dancing days were not yet over.
Several temples are dated from this reign, including that of Janus, the double-faced deity, who presided over peace and war—a most appropriate office to one capable of looking two ways at once, for there are always two sides to every quarrel. This temple must have been perfectly useless during the life of its founder, for it was never to be opened in the time of peace, and Numa preserved for Rome forty-three years of undisturbed tranquillity. He was emphatically the friend of order, and its usual consequences, prosperity to trade, with soundness of credit, and he encouraged commerce by giving a patron-saint or Lar to every industrial occupation. He marked also the value of good faith by building a temple to Bona Fides, and it may be presumed that the creditor, who, putting up with the loss of his little bill, sacrificed a bad debt in this Temple, was still in hope that he should eventually find his account in it.
If it cannot be said that Numa never lost a day, it must be admitted that he made the most of his time; for he added two whole months to the year of Romulus. January and February were the names given to the time thus gained; but as the year did not then correspond with the course of the sun, it was usual to introduce, every other year, a supplementary month, so that if one year was too short, the next, by being too long, made it as broad as it was long in the aggregate.
Numa Pompilius lived to be eighty-two; when he had the beatitude of dying as peacefully as he had lived; and so gently had Nature dealt with him, that she had suffered him to run up more than four scores, before her debt was satisfied. Certain stories are told of the funeral ceremonies that followed Numa's death; and it is said that the Senators acted as porters to his bier, in token of their appreciation of the imperial measures which Numa had himself carried. It has been stated, also, that he caused to be placed, within his tomb, a copy, on papyrus, or palm leaves,[9] of his own works, in twenty-four books; and it is certainly a happy idea to bury an author with his writings, when, if they have been provocative of sleep in others, he may eventually reap the benefit of their somniferous properties.
On the death of Numa, the country having been taught, by past experience, the danger of allowing the crown to go from head to head, without the slightest regard to a fit, determined that the interregnum should be short, and the election of a new king was at once proceeded with. The choice fell upon Tullus Hostilius, who was of a decidedly warlike turn, and was ever on the look-out for a pretext to commence hostilities. The Albans, our old friends of Alba Longa, or White's Row, were the nearest, and consequently the most conveniently situated, for the indulgence of his pugnacious propensities; and tradition relates that on one occasion some Alban peasants, having been attacked and stripped by the Romans, the former, who had lost even their clothes, sought redress at the hands of their rulers. In the course of an attempt to settle the dispute between Alba and Rome, each place sent ambassadors, who crossed each other on the road, as if the two states were determined to be in every way at cross purposes. The Alban envoys were beguiled of all ideas of business by invitations to banquets and feasts, so that whenever they attempted to ask for explanations, their mouths were stopped with a dinner or a supper, given in honour of their visit. The Roman messengers were prohibited, on the contrary, from accepting invitations, or giving up to parties what was meant for Romankind; and had received peremptory instructions to demand an immediate settlement of their long-standing account from the Albans. The parties could not understand each other, or, rather, they understood each other too well; for war was the object of both, though neither of them liked the responsibility of beginning it. The Albans, however, prepared to march on Rome, and encamped themselves within the confines of a ditch, into which ditch their King, Cluilius, tumbled, one night, very mysteriously, and died, which caused them to dignify the ditch with the name of fossa Cluilia.
Death of Cluilius.