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Some 37 years after the founding of Rome, Romulus, the kingdom’s first ruler, disappeared in a storm. Patricians, the Roman nobility, were suspected of murdering him. Until Julius Proculus claimed that he had had a vision of Romulus telling him that he had been taken to join the gods and that he would be worshiped under the name of Quirinus.
Then a serious conflict arose between the Romans and the Sabines, who had integrated after the founding of the city, about the election of the next king. Coming from Lazio, the Sabines were one of the peoples that inhabited Italy before the development of Rome, together with the Etruscans, the Hernicians, the Latins, the Ligurians, the Aequi, the Sabellians and the Samnites. In the interregnum until agreeing on the way to elect a new king, it was arranged that the senators each govern with the powers of the king for a period of 12 hours. Finally they decided that Romans and Sabines should each choose a king from the other people; that is, the Romans would choose a Sabine and the Sabines a Roman. The Romans had to choose first, and their choice was the Sabine Numa Pompilius.
Numa did not live in Rome; he resided in a nearby town called Cures. He was the son-in-law of Tatius, a Sabine who had ruled Rome as joint king to Romulus for a period of five years. After the death of his wife, Numa Pompilius had gone into seclusion and believed that a nymph or spirit of nature had taken him as a lover.
At first Numa refused his designation as king, when the delegation that arrived from Rome informed him. But later his father and Marcio, a relative, together with some of the inhabitants of Cures, convinced him to accept. They argued that if the government were left to them, the Romans would continue to be as violent and aggressive as they had been under Romulus, and that the Romans would be better off having a king who promoted peace and could moderate their aggressiveness. And if that wasn’t possible, Numa could keep them away from Cures and other Sabine communities.
The reign
Once accepted the position, Numa moved to Rome, where his election as king was confirmed by the people. However, before he finally agreed, he insisted on watching the sky for a sign in the flight of birds that his reign would be accepted by the gods.
The first measure of Numa Pompilio as king was to dismiss the guards that Romulus had always had. To achieve his goal of lessening the aggressiveness of the Romans, he diverted people’s attention to religious events, such as processions and sacrifices, terrifying them with stories of strange sights and sounds, which were supposed to be messages from the gods.
Numa Pompilius instituted the flamines (priests) of Mars, Jupiter and Romulus himself, under his divine name of Quirinus. He also incorporated new orders of priests: the pontiffs , the salii , the fetiales , and the vestals .
The pontiffs were in charge of public sacrifices and funerals. The salii were responsible for the safety of the ancilia, sacred shields which, twelve in number, were kept in the temple of Mars; he supposedly had fallen from the sky and every year he paraded through the city accompanied by the salii dancing and wearing armor. The fetiales were peace-promoting priests. As long as the fetials didn’t decide a conflict was fair, war couldn’t be declared. Originally Numa instituted two vestals, but later increased the number to four. The main task of the vestals, or vestal virgins, was to keep the sacred flame burning and to prepare the mixture of grain and salt used in public sacrifices.
the reforms
Numa Pompilius distributed the lands conquered by Romulus among poor citizens, hoping that life in the countryside would make the Romans less aggressive. He himself inspected the farms, singled out those whose facilities were well-kept, admonishing those he considered lazy according to the state of the farms.
People still identified either as Romans or as original Sabines, rather than considering themselves citizens of Rome. To overcome this division, Numa Pompilo organized people into guilds based on their professions. He organized the artisans into eight corporations: potters, carpenters, bronzers, tanners, flutists, goldsmiths, dyers, and shoemakers.
In Romulus’ time, the calendar had 360 days per year, divided into 10 months with a variable number of days for each month. Numa Pompilius estimated that the solar year had 365 days and the lunar year 354 days, divided into 12 months by adding January and February. Numa ranked January as the first month of the year, a place previously held by March.
The month of January was associated with the god Janus, god of doors, beginnings, and endings. The gates of the Janus temple were left open in times of war and closed in times of peace. During the reign of Numa Pompilius, which lasted 43 years, the doors of the temple of Janus were always closed.
The death of Numa Pompilius
Numa Pompilius passed away at the age of 80. She had several children in her second marriage. His daughter Pompilia married Marcius, son of Marcius, the kinsman who had persuaded Numa to accept the throne. His son Anco Marcio was 5 years old when Numa died; he later became the fourth king of Rome. Numa was entombed in the Janiculum along with the religious books he had written. In 181 BC his tomb was discovered after a flood, but the coffin was empty. Only the books remained, which had been buried in a second coffin. The books were burned on the recommendation of the Roman praetor, a decision taken by the senate, apparently because they questioned the religious practices at the time they were found.
The legacy of Numa Pompilius
Much of the records that are known about the life of Numa Pompilius are associated more with legend than with real events. Still, it is likely that there was a monarchical period in early Rome, with kings coming from different groups: Romans, Sabines, and Etruscans. It is rather less likely that there were seven kings reigning in a period of about 250 years. One of the kings may have been a Sabine named Numa Pompilius, though it is doubtful whether he instituted the religious rites attributed to him, modified the Roman calendar, or whether his reign was a golden age free of strife and war. But that the Romans believed so, that is a historical fact. The story of Numa Pompilius is a key part of the founding myth of Rome.
Sources
- Grandazzi, Alexandre. The Foundation of Rome: Myth and History . Cornell University Press, 1997.
- Macgregor, Mary. The Story of Rome, from the Earliest Times to the Death of Augustus . T. Nelson, 1967.
