ter, if it be thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I
hold, be king of Rome, mayest thou manifest infallible signs to us
within those bounds which I have marked." Then he stated in set terms
the auspices which he wished to be sent: on their being sent, Numa was
declared king and came down from the seat of augury.

Having thus obtained the kingdom, he set about establishing anew, on
the principles of law and morality, the newly founded city that had
been already established by force of arms. When he saw that the
inhabitants, inasmuch as men's minds are brutalized by military life,
could not become reconciled to such principles during the continuance
of wars, considering that the savage nature of the people must
be toned down by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of
Argiletum[18] a temple of Janus, as a sign of peace and war, that when
open, it might show that the state was engaged in war, and when shut,
that all the surrounding nations were at peace. Twice only since the
reign of Numa has this temple been shut: once when Titus Manlius was
consul, after the conclusion of the first Punic war; and a second
time, which the gods granted our generation to behold, by the Emperor
Caesar Augustus, after the battle of Actium, when peace was established
by land and sea. This being shut, after he had secured the friendship
of all the neighbouring states around by alliance and treaties, all
anxiety regarding dangers from abroad being now removed, in order to
prevent their minds, which the fear of enemies and military discipline
had kept in check, running riot from too much leisure, he considered,
that, first of all, awe of the gods should be instilled into them,
a principle of the greatest efficacy in dealing with the multitude,
ignorant and uncivilized as it was in those times. But as this fear
could not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a
miracle, he pretended that he held nightly interviews with the goddess
Egeria; that by her direction he instituted sacred rites such as would
be most acceptable to the gods, and appointed their own priests for
each of the deities. And, first of all, he divided the year into
twelve months, according to the courses of the moon;[19] and because
the moon does not fill up the number of thirty days in each month, and
some days are wanting to the complete year, which is brought round by
the solstitial revolution, he so regulated this year, by inserting
intercalary month