Plutarch's Lives, Volume 1 (of 4)

by Plutarch

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.

XV. By this religious training the city became so easily managed by Numa, and so impressed by his power, as to believe stories of the wildest character about him, and to think nothing incredible or impossible if he wished to do it. For instance, it is related that once he invited many of the citizens to dine with him, and placed before them common vessels and poor fare; but, as they were about to begin dinner, he suddenly said that his familiar goddess was about to visit him, and at once displayed abundance of golden cups and tables covered with costly delicacies. The strangest story of all is that of his conversation with Jupiter. The legend runs that Mount Aventine was not at this time enclosed within the city, but was full of fountains and shady glens, and haunted by two divinities, Picus and Faunus, who may be compared to Satyrs or to Pan, and who, in knowledge of herbs and magic, seem equal to what the Greeks call the Daktyli of Mount Ida. These creatures roamed about Italy playing their tricks, but Numa caught them by filling the spring at which they drank with wine and honey. They turned into all kinds of shapes, and assumed strange and terrible forms, but when they found that they were unable to escape, they told Numa much of the future, and showed him how to make a charm against thunder-bolts, which is used to this day, and is made of onions and hair and sprats. Some say that it was not these deities who told him the charm, but that they by magic arts brought down Jupiter from heaven, and he, in a rage, ordered Numa to make the charm of "Heads"; and when Numa added, "Of onions," he said "Of men's"—"Hair," said Numa, again taking away the terrible part of the imprecation. When then Jupiter said "With living"—"Sprats," said Numa, answering as Egeria had taught him. The god went away appeased, and the place was in consequence called Ilicius. This was how the charm was discovered.

These ridiculous legends show the way in which the people had become accustomed to regard the gods. Indeed Numa is said to have placed all his hopes in religion, to such an extent that even when a message was brought him, saying, "The enemy are approaching," he smiled and said, "And I am sacrificing."

XVI. The first temples that he founded are said to have been those of Fides or Faith, and Terminus. Fides is said to have revealed to the Romans the greatest of all oaths, which they even now make use of; while Terminus is the god of boundaries, to whom they sacrifice publicly, and also privately at the divisions of men's estates; at the present time with living victims, but in old days this was a bloodless sacrifice, for Numa argued that the god of boundaries must be a lover of peace, and a witness of righteousness, and therefore averse to bloodshed.

Indeed Numa was the first king who defined the boundaries of the country, since Romulus was unwilling, by measuring what was really his own, to show how much he had taken from other states: for boundaries, if preserved, are barriers against violence; if disregarded, they become standing proofs of lawless injustice. The city had originally but a small territory of its own, and Romulus gained the greater part of its possessions by the sword. All this Numa distributed among the needy citizens, thereby removing the want which urged them to deeds of violence, and, by turning the people's thoughts to husbandry, he made them grow more civilised as their land grew more cultivated. No profession makes men such passionate lovers of peace as that of a man who farms his own land; for he retains enough of the warlike spirit to fight fiercely in defence of his own property, but has lost all desire to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this reason that Numa encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to charm away war, and loved the art more because of its influence on men's minds than because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole country into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed a head man for each, and a patrol to guard it. And sometimes he himself would inspect them, and, forming an opinion of each man's character from the condition of his farm, would raise some to honours and offices of trust, and blaming others for their remissness, would lead them to do better in future.

XVII. Of his other political measures, that which is most admired is his division of the populace according to their trades. For whereas the city, as has been said, originally consisted of two races, which stood aloof one from the other and would not combine into one, which led to endless quarrels and rivalries, Numa, reflecting that substances which are hard and difficult to combine together, can nevertheless be mixed and formed into one mass if they are broken up into small pieces, because then they more easily fit into each other, determined to divide the whole mass of the people of Rome into many classes, and thus, by creating numerous petty rivalries, to obliterate their original and greatest cause of variance.

His division was according to their trades, and consisted of the musicians, the goldsmiths, the builders, the dyers, the shoemakers, the carriers, the coppersmiths, and the potters. All the other trades he united into one guild. He assigned to each trade its special privileges, common to all the members, and arranged that each should have its own times of meeting, and worship its own special patron god, and by this means he did away with that habit, which hitherto had prevailed among the citizens, of some calling themselves Sabines, and some Romans; one boasting that they were Tatius's men, and other Romulus's. So this division produced a complete fusion and unity. Moreover he has been much praised for another of his measures, that, namely, of correcting the old law which allows fathers to sell their sons for slaves. He abolished this power in the case of married men, who had married with their father's consent; for he thought it a monstrous injustice that a woman, who had married a free man, should be compelled to be the wife of a slave.

XVIII. He also dealt with astronomical matters, not with perfect accuracy, and yet not altogether without knowledge. During the reign of Romulus the months had been in a state of great disorder, some not containing twenty days, some five-and-thirty, and some even more, because the Romans could not reconcile the discrepancies which arise from reckoning by the sun and the moon, and only insisted upon one thing, that the year should consist of three hundred and sixty days.

Numa reckoned the variation to consist of eleven days, as the lunar year contains three hundred and fifty-four days, and the solar year three hundred and sixty-five. He doubled these eleven days and introduced them every other year, after February, as an intercalary month, twenty-two days in duration, which was called by the Romans Mercedinus. This was a remedy for the irregularities of the calendar which itself required more extensive remedies.

He also altered the order of the months, putting March, which used to be the first month, third, and making January the first, which in the time of Romulus had been the eleventh, and February the second, which then had been the twelfth. There are many writers who say that these months, January and February, were added to the calendar by Numa, and that originally there had only been ten months in the year, just as some barbarians have three, and in Greece the Arcadians have four, and the Acarnanians six. The Egyptians originally had but one month in their year, and afterwards are said to have divided it into four mouths; wherefore, though they live in the newest of all countries, they appear to be the most ancient of all nations, and in their genealogies reckon an incredible number of years, because they count their months as years.