the fear of enemies and military
discipline had kept in cheek, should become licentious by tranquillity,
he considered, that, first of all, an awe of the gods should be
instilled into them, a principle of the greatest efficacy with a
multitude ignorant and uncivilized as in those times. But as it could
not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he
pretends that he holds nightly interviews with the goddess Egeria; that
by her direction he instituted the sacred rites which would be most
acceptable to the gods, and appointed proper priests for each of the
deities. And, first of all, he divides the year into twelve months,
according to the course of the moon; and because the moon does not make
up thirty days in each month, and some days are wanting to the complete
year as constituted by the solstitial revolution, he so portioned it out
by inserting intercalary months, that every twenty-fourth year, the
lengths of all the intermediate years being completed, the days should
correspond to the same place of the sun (in the heavens) whence they had
set out.[24] He likewise made a distinction of the days[25] into
profane and sacred, because on some it was likely to be expedient that
no business should be transacted with the people.

[Footnote 24: Romulus had made his year to consist of ten months, the
first month being March, and the number of days in the year being only
304, which corresponded neither with the course of the sun or moon.
Numa, who added the two months of January and February, divided the year
into twelve months, according to the course of the moon. This was the
lunar Greek year, and consisted of 354 days. Numa, however, adopted 355
days for his year, from his partiality to odd numbers. The lunar year of
354 days fell short of the solar year by 11-1/4 days;--this in 8 years
amounted to (11-1/4 x 8) 90 days. These 90 days he divided into 2 months
of 22 and 2 of 23 days, ([2 x 22] + [2 x 23] = 90,) and introduced them
alternately every second year for two octennial periods: every third
octennial period, however, Numa intercalated only 66 days instead of 90
days, _i. e._ he inserted 3 months of only 22 days each. The reason was,
because he adopted 355 days as the length of his lunar year instead of
354, and this in 24 years (3 octennial periods) produced an error of 24
days; this error was exactly compensated by intercalating only 66 days
(90-24) in the third octennial period. The intercalatio