generosity, they only
voted, and required that the senate should determine who should be king
of Rome.

[Footnote 21: Although, according to the terms of the alliance, the
Sabines and the Romans were to be in all respects on an equal footing.]

[Footnote 22: The order of the people still requires the sanction of the
senate for its ratification: but that sanction now being given
beforehand, the order of the people is no longer subject to the control
of the senate, and therefore not precarious as heretofore.]

18. The justice and piety of Numa Pompilius was at that time celebrated.
He dwelt at Cures, a city of the Sabines, and was as eminently learned
in all laws human and divine, as any man could be in that age. They
falsely represent that Pythagoras of Samos was his instructor in
philosophy, because there appears no other person to refer to. Now it is
certain that this philosopher, in the reign of Servius Tullius, more
than a hundred years after this, held assemblies of young men, who
eagerly imbibed his doctrine, in the most distant part of Italy, about
Metapontus, Heraclea, and Croton. But [23]from these places, even had he
flourished at the same time, what fame of his (extending) to the Sabines
could have aroused any one to a desire of learning, or by what
intercourse of language (could such a thing have been effected)?
Besides, how could a single man have safely passed through so many
nations differing in language and customs? I presume, therefore, that
his mind was naturally furnished with virtuous dispositions, and that he
was not so much versed in foreign sciences as in the severe and rigid
discipline of the ancient Sabines, than which class none was in former
times more strict. The Roman fathers, upon hearing the name of Numa,
although they perceived that the scale of power would incline to the
Sabines if a king were chosen from them, yet none of them ventured to
prefer himself, or any other of his party, or any of the citizens or
fathers, to that person, but unanimously resolved that the kingdom
should be conferred on Numa Pompilius. Being sent for, just as Romulus
before the building of the city obtained the throne by an augury, he
commanded the gods to be consulted concerning himself also. Upon this,
being conducted into the citadel by an augur, (to which profession that
office was made a public one and perpetual by way of honour,) he sat
down on a stone facing the south: the augur took his seat on his lef