f Mars, and, yearly, a set of men dedicated to the office
bore them through the city with songs and dances. Just as all warlike
customs were said to have been invented by Romulus, all peaceful and
religious ones were held to have sprung from Numa and his Egeria. He was
said to have fixed the calendar and invented the names of the months,
and to have built an altar to Good Faith to teach the Romans to keep
their word to one another and to all nations, and to have dedicated the
bounds of each estate to the Dii Termini, or Landmark Gods, in whose
honor there was a feast yearly. He also was said to have had such power
with Jupiter as to have persuaded him to be content without receiving
sacrifices of men and women. In short, all the better things in the
Roman system were supposed to be due to the gentle Numa.

At the gate called Janiculum stood a temple to the watchman god Janus,
whose figure had two faces, and held the keys, and after whom was named
the month January. His temple was always open in time of war, and closed
in time of peace. Numa's reign was counted as the first out of only
three times in Roman history that it was shut.

[Illustration: JANUS.]

Numa was said to have reigned thirty-eight years, and then he gradually
faded away, and was buried in a stone coffin outside the Janicular gate,
all the books he had written being, by his desire, buried with him.
Egeria wept till she became a fountain in her own valley; and so ended
what in Roman faith answered to the golden age of Greece.

The next king was of Roman birth, and was named Tullus Hostilius. He was
a great warrior, and had a war with the Albans until it was agreed that
the two cities should join together in one, as the Romans and Sabines
had done before; but there was a dispute which should be the greater
city in the league and it was determined to settle it by a combat. In
each city there was a family where three sons had been born at a birth,
and their mothers were sisters. Both sets were of the same age--fine
young men, skilled in weapons; and it was agreed that the six should
fight together, the three whose family name was Horatius on the Roman
side, the three called Curiatius on the Alban side, and whichever set
gained the mastery was to give it to his city.

They fought in the plain between the camps, and very hard was the strife
until two of the Horatii were killed and all the three Curiatii were
wounded, but the last Horatius was entirely unto