Numa Pompilius (; 753–672 BC; reigned 715–672 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome,The Galileo Project, Rice University, note succeeding Romulus after a one-year interregnum. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him, such as the Roman calendar, Vestal Virgins, the cult of Mars, the cult of Jupiter, the cult of Romulus, and the office of pontifex maximus.
Genealogy
According to Plutarch, Numa was the youngest of Pomponius'sPompon in Plutarch and Dionysius. The Sabine form of the name was Pompos, not Pomponius as is often supposed, which like Pompilius is a patronymic adjectival formation. four sons, born on the day of Rome's founding (traditionally, 21 April 753 BC). He lived a severe life of discipline and banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, gave in marriage his only daughter, Tatia, to Numa. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died, precipitating Numa's retirement to the countryside. According to Livy, Numa resided at Cures immediately before being elected king.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:18.
Livy and Plutarch refer to the story that Numa was instructed in philosophy by Pythagoras, but discredit it as chronologically and geographically implausible.
Plutarch reports that some authors credited Pompilius with only a single daughter, Pompilia. Pompilia's mother is variously identified as Numa's first wife Tatia, or his second wife Lucretia. Pompilia is said to have married the son of the first pontifex maximus, Numa Marcius, also named Numa Marcius, and by him gave birth to the future king Ancus Marcius.Tacitus, Annales, vi. 11.E. Peruzzi Le origini di Roma I. La famiglia Firenze 1970 pp. 142ff.
Other authors, according to Plutarch, additionally gave Numa five sons, Pompo (or Pomponius), Pinus, Calpus, Mamercus, and Numa, from whom the noble families (gentes) of the Pomponii, Pinarii, Calpurnii, Aemilii, and Pompilii respectively traced their descent. Other more skeptical authors, still according to Plutarch, believed these were fictional genealogies to enhance the status of these families.
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, each 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, Numa refused the offer of kingship. He argued that Rome, under the influence of Romulus's rule, was still a country of war. It needed a ruler who would lead their armies, not someone who lived a life of piety and reflection. 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, together persuaded 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 Numa's humility, or a sign of peace and moderation.
Based on Roman chronology, Numa died of old age in 672 BC. After a reign of 43 years, he was about 81 years old.Livy, Ab urbe condita libri, I "Numa [ruled] forty-three." "Forty-three years...He was something over eighty years old when he died." At his request, he was not cremated, but instead buried in a stone coffin on the Janiculum, near the altar of Fons. Tullus Hostilius succeeded him.
Rome had two kings in succession who differed in their methods. According to Livy, Romulus was a king of war while Numa was a king of peace, and thus Rome was well versed in both the arts of war and peace.
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.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:19 Numa then appointed the priests for each of the deities. Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, to cultivate more gentle behaviour among the warlike early Romans: honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives.
Numa was said to have authored several "sacred books" in which he had written down divine teachings, mostly from Egeria and the Muses. Plutarch (citing Valerius Antias) and LivyLivy, Ab urbe condita record that at his request he was buried along with these "sacred books", preferring that the rules and rituals they prescribed be preserved in the living memory of the state priests, rather than preserved as relics subject to forgetfulness and disuse. About half of these books—Plutarch and Livy differ on their number—were thought to cover the priesthoods he had established or developed, including the flamines, pontifices, Salii, and fetiales and their rituals. The other books dealt with philosophy (disciplina sapientiae). According to Plutarch, these books were recovered some four hundred years later (in reality almost five hundred years, i.e. in 181 BC according to Livy 40:29:3-14) at the occasion of a natural accident that exposed the tomb. They were examined by the Senate, deemed to be inappropriate for disclosure to the people, and burned. Dionysius of HalicarnassusAs noted by Gerard Walter, editor of Plutarch's The parallel lives, La Pléïade, volume no. 63, 1967. hints that they were actually kept as a very close secret by the pontifices.
Numa is reputed to have constrained the two minor gods Picus and Faunus into delivering some prophecies of things to come. Ovid Fasti III.
Numa, supported and prepared by Egeria, reportedly held a battle of wits with Jupiter himself, through an apparition whereby Numa sought to gain a protective ritual against lightning strikes and thunder.
Once, when a plague was ravaging the population, a brass shield fell from the sky and was brought to Numa. He declared that Egeria had told him it was a gift from Jupiter, to be used for Rome's protection. He ordered ceremonies to give thanks for the gift, and quickly brought about an end to the plague. The Ancile became a sacred relic of the Romans and was placed in the care of the Salii.
Rules and institutions attributed to Numa Many actions and institutions are attributed to Numa. In some of them, Plutarch thought he detected a Laconian influence, attributing the connection to the Sabine culture of Numa, for "Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians." Religious One of Numa's first acts was the construction of a temple of Janus as an indicator of peace and war. The temple was constructed at the foot of the Argiletum, a road in the city. After securing peace with Rome's neighbours, the doors of the temples were shut and remained so for the duration of Numa's reign, a unique case in Roman history.
Another creation attributed to Numa was the cult of Terminus, a god of 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. 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.
Recognizing the paramount importance of the Ancile, 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.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:20 Plutarch adds that they were then at the number of two, were later augmented to four by Servius Tullius, and stayed thus through the ages.
Livy and Dionysius give a largely concordant picture of the vast founding work carried out by Numa concerning Roman religion and religious institutions.
Livy begins with the priesthoods which Numa established. Numa created a residentiary flamen to Jupiter endowed with regal insignia, who could carry out the sacred functions of the royal office, which Numa usually discharged: Numa 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, as well as the Vestal virgins and the twelfth Salii of Mars Gradivus. 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.
[translated]...[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 this come the days, temples, money, other sacred ceremonies, funerals and prodigies.