Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius is the second legendary king of Rome (-715, -673).

Accession with the throne

After the disappearance of Romulus, the founder of Rome, and an interregnum of more than one year, the Romans called with the capacity the son-in-law of the king Titus Tatius, a famous Sabin for its virtues: Numa Pompilius . By doing this, they obtained a king who would be honest with the two tribes which lived Rome now.

According to the accounts of Plutarque, Numa was the junior by four wire of Pomponius, born the day of the Fondation of Rome. It carried out a life of strict discipline and banishes any shape of luxury of its house. Titus Tatius, king of Sabins and colleague of Romulus, gave him his/her only daughter Tatia in marriage. After thirteen years of common life, the princess died. This tragic event pushed Numa to be withdrawn in the countryside.

Numa was old of almost forty years when one offered to him to become king. He lived “in a famous Sabine city which one called Cures and according to which Romains and Sabins had given themselves the joint name of Quirites”. Although he refused the offer first of all, his/her father and Marcius I convainquirent it to accept.

When he died of old age in -673, there was a new interregnum, then the Roman people choose for King Tullus Hostilius.

Achievements

Piles and peaceful, Numa was admired a long time for its wisdom and its devotion natural; the legend wants that it had as an political adviser the nymph Égérie and that, wishing to show its favor to him, Jupiter made fall on the Palatine Hill a shield carrying from the prophetic inscriptions for Rome (according to other traditional writers, the shield would have appeared in the Regia and would come from the god Mars). Recognizing the importance of this divine shield, king Numa caused production of some eleven counterparts. These objects became the '' ancilia '', the crowned shields which were the subject of an annual procession by the priests Saliens. Numa would be also the founder of the Temple of Vesta and its Vestales.

According to the tradition, Numa promulgated a reform of the calendar with an aim of adjusting the solar years and lunar, and it establishes the original constitution of the priests, called Pontife S. One allots also this king the division of the immediate Roman territory in pagi and the establishment of the guilds of traditional trades of Rome.

In all the institutions create by Numa, Plutarque said to detect a laconic influence possibly ascribable to its Sabine culture. Plutarque explains why Sabins claimed to be an old colony of Lacédémone.

Caption

Its history is regarded as a legend because of the great number of divergent or incredible historical data written about it. Most famous of them wanted that he was a disciple or a friend of Pythagore, which probably died around the year -500.

Note

External bond

Plutarque : life of Numa

This article contains portions of text resulting from the article in: “ Numa Pompilius ”.

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