User:MinervaNix/Numa Pompilius

Kingship

After the death of Romulus, there was an interregnum of one year in which members of the Senate exercised the royal power in rotation for five days in a row. In 715 BC, after much bickering between the factions of Romulus (the Romans) and Tatius (the Sabines), a compromise was reached, and the Senate elected the Sabine, Numa, who was approximately forty years of age as the next king.

At first, he refused the offer. He argued that the people of Rome was still a country of war. They needed a ruler who would lead their armies, not someone who followed a life of piety and reflection. He argued that Rome, still under the influence of Romulus's rule, would not be hospitable to a life devoted to peace, wisdom, and piety However, his father and Sabine kinsmen, including his teacher and the father of Numa's son-in-law, Marcus, along with an embassy of two senators from Rome, banded together to persuade him to accept. In Plutarch and Livy's account, Numa, after being summoned by the Senate from Cures, was offered the tokens of power amid an enthusiastic reception by the people of Rome. He requested, however, that an augur should divine the opinion of the gods on the prospect of his kingship before he accepted. Jupiter was consulted, and the omens were favourable. Thus approved by the Roman and Sabine people and the heavens, he took up his position as King of Rome.

According to Plutarch, Numa's first act was to disband the personal guard of 300 so-called "Celeres" (the "Swift") with which Romulus permanently surrounded himself. This gesture is variously interpreted as self-protection in the face of their questionable loyalty, a sign of humility, or a signal of peace and moderation.

Based on Roman chronology, Numa died of old age in 673 BC. After a reign of forty-three years, he was over eighty years. At his request, he was not cremated but instead; buried in a stone coffin on the Janiculum near the alter of Fons Tullus Hostilius succeeded him.

Rome had two kings in succession, using different methods; Romulus was a king of war while Numa was a king of peace, aggrandized the state. Rome was well versed in the art of war and peace. Numa reign for forty-three years.

Agent of the Gods

Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his wisdom and piety. In addition to the endorsement by Jupiter, he is supposed to have had a direct and personal relationship with a number of deities, most famously the nymph Egeria, who, according to legend, taught him to be a wise legislator. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held nightly consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city. Numa then appointed the proper priests for each of the deities. Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure in order to cultivate more gentle behaviours among the warlike early Romans, such as honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives.

Institutions Attributed to Numa

Another creation attributed to Numa was the cult of Terminus, a god for boundaries. Through this rite, which involved sacrifices at private properties, boundaries and landmarks, Numa reportedly sought to instill in Romans the respect of lawful property and non-violent relationships with neighbours. The cult of Terminus, preached Numa, involved absence of violence and murder. The god was a testament to justice and a keeper of peace. In a somehow comparable, more moral rather than legal fashion, Numa sought to associate himself with one of the roles of Vegoia in the religious system of the neighbouring Etruscans by deciding to set the official boundaries of the territory of Rome, which Romulus had never wanted, presumably with the same concern of preserving peace.

Numa is credited for giving the Roman people ceremonial laws of religion. At one time, Numa divided the lands that Romulus added to the city's property, and he made part of the public domain. He then instituted the worship of the god, Terminus, who might have been Jupiter in the capacity of guardian of boundaries. Numa ordered all persons to mark the limits of their lands by consecrated stones, and at these, during the feast of Terminalia, sacrifices were to be made, in the form of cakes, meals, and fruits Consecration of the boundaries made the people consider themselves more secure in their possessions and, therefore, the state.

Recognizing the Ancile's paramount importance, King Numa had eleven matching shields made, so perfect that no one, even Numa, could distinguish the original from the copies. These shields were the Ancilia, the sacred shields of Jupiter, which were carried each year in a procession by the Salii priests. Numa also established the office and duties of Pontifex Maximus and instituted (Plutarch's version) the flamen of Quirinus, in honour of Romulus, in addition to those of Jupiter and Mars that already existed. Numa also brought the Vestal Virgins to Rome from Alba Longa. Plutarch adds that they were then at the number of two, were later augmented to four by Servius Tullius and stayed so through the ages.

By tradition, Numa promulgated a calendar reform, he divided the year into twelve months according to the Luna course, and from the twelve months into thirty days, as he also wanted the year to also be constituted by the solstitial revolution It was during this time that the months January and February were introduced. Numa also made the distinction between the days into profane and sacred.

He created a residentiary flamen to Jupiter endowed with regal insignia, who could carry out the sacred functions of the royal office, which he usually himself discharged: he did so to avoid the neglect of the rites whenever the king went to war, for he saw the warlike attitude of the Romans. He also created the flamines of Mars and Quirinus, the Vestal virgins, who were salaried by the state treasury, the twelfth Salii of Mars Gradivus with their peculiar custom and ritual. Then he chose Numa Marcius as pontiff. To him he bestowed all the sacred ceremonies, his books and seals. The following words of this passage have been considered a systematic summary exposition of Roman religion:"quibus hostiis, quibus diebus, ad quae templa sacra fierent atque unde in eos sumptus pecunia erogaretur. Cetera quoque omnia publica privataque sacra pontificis scitis subiecit, ut esset quo consultum plebes veniret, ne quid divini iuris negligendo patrios ritus peregrinosque adsciscendo turbaretur. Nec celestes modo caerimonias sed iusta quoque funebria placandosque manes ut idem pontificem edoceret, quaeque prodigia fulminibus a Iove quo visu missa susciperentur atque curarentur."The translation is directly below.

...[showing] with what victims, upon what days, and at what temples the sacred rites were to be performed, and from what funds the money was to be taken to defray the expenses. He also placed all other religious institutions, public and private, under the control of the decrees of the pontiff, to the end that there might be some authority to whom the people should come to ask advice, to prevent any confusion in the divine worship being caused by their neglecting the ceremonies of their own country, and adopting foreign ones. He further ordained that the same pontiff should instruct the people not only in the ceremonies connected with the heavenly deities, but also in the due performance of funeral solemnities, and how to appease the shades of the dead; and what prodigies sent by lightning or any other phenomenon were to be attended to and expiated.

Livy lists the hostiae, victims, as the first competence of the pontiffs: following the days, temples, money, other sacred ceremonies, funerals and prodigies. The potential for classification inherent in this text has been remarked by modern historians of Roman religion, even though some, as Bouché-Leclercq, think of a tripartite structure, rather than a division into five (Turchi) or seven parts (Peruzzi). At any rate it is an important document of pontifical derivation that establishes a sort of hierarchic order of competences.

Numa was credited with dividing the immediate territory of Rome into pagi (villages) and establishing the traditional occupational guilds of Rome: such as carpenters, goldsmiths, leatherworkers, potter, smiths, and all other handicraftsmen were now united by how they worked.