The religion of Pompilius Numa

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The religion of Pompilius Numa :

 

www.wikipedia/Numa

 

According to legend, Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome,

succeeding Romulus. After Romulus died, Romans in the city elected a

Sabine man to be king, so as to make him loyal to both tribes in Rome.

Plutarch tells that Numa was the youngest of Pomponius's four sons,

born on the day of Rome's founding. He lived a severe life of

discipline and banished all luxury from his home.

Numa was around forty when he was offered the kingship. He was

residing " at a famous city of the Sabines called Cures, whence the

Romans and Sabines gave themselves the joint name of Quirites "

(Plutarch). Though he first refused, his father and Marcius I

(Marcius II's father) persuaded him to accept.

Numa was later celebrated for his natural wisdom and piety; legend

says the nymph Egeria taught him to be a wise legislator. Wishing to

show his favour, the god Jupiter caused a shield to fall from the sky

on the Palatine Hill, which had letters of prophecy written on it,

and in which the fate of Rome as a city was tied up. Recognizing the

importance of this sacred shield, King Numa had eleven matching

shields made. These shields were the ancilia, the sacred shields of

Jupiter, which were carried each year in a procession by the Salii

priests.

 

By tradition, Numa promulgated a calendar reform that adjusted the

solar and lunar years, and he established the original constitution

of the priests, called Pontifices. In other Roman institutions

established by Numa, Plutarch thought he detected a Laconian

influence, attributing the connection to the Sabine culture of Numa,

for " Numa was descended of the Sabines, who declare themselves to be

a colony of the Lacedaemonians. "

Plutarch, in like manner, tells of the early religion of the Romans,

that it was imageless and spiritual. He says Numa " forbade the Romans

to represent the deity in the form either of man or of beast. Nor was

there among them formerly any image or statue of the Divine Being;

during the first one hundred and seventy years they built temples,

indeed, and other sacred domes, but placed in them no figure of any

kind; persuaded that it is impious to represent things Divine by what

is perishable, and that we can have no conception of God but by the

understanding. "

Numa Pompilius died in 673 BC of old age. He was succeeded by Tullus

Hostilius.

His history is considered legend because of a number of

inconsistencies in the data historically recorded about him. The most

famous was that he was a friend of Pythagoras, who is traditionally

thought to have died around 500 B.C [ref: Mommsen, T. The History of

Rome].

 

In like manner Numa spoke of a certain goddess or mountain nymph that

was in love with him, and met him in secret, as before related; and

professed that he entertained familiar conversation with the Muses,

to whose teaching he ascribed the greatest part of his revelations;

and amongst them, above all, he recommended to the veneration of the

Romans one in particular, whom he named Tacita, the silent; which he

did perhaps in imitation and honour of the Pythagorean silence.

 

His opinion, also, of images is very agreeable to the doctrine of

Pythagoras; who conceived of the first principle of being as

transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt, and only to

be apprehended by abstract intelligence. So Numa forbade the Romans

to represent God in the form of man or beast, nor was there any

painted or graven image of a deity admitted amongst them for the

space of the first hundred and seventy years, all of which time their

temples and chapels were kept free and pure from images; to such

baser objects they deemed it impious to liken the highest, and all

access to God impossible, except by the pure act of the intellect.

 

His sacrifices, also, had great similitude to the ceremonial of

Pythagoras, for they were not celebrated with effusion of blood, but

consisted of flour, wine, and the least costly offerings. Other

external proofs, too, are urged to show the connection Numa had with

Pythagoras. The comic writer Epicharmus, an ancient author, and of

the school of Pythagoras, in a book of his dedicated to Antenor,

records that Pythagoras was made a freeman of Rome. Again, Numa gave

to one of his four sons the name of Mamercus, which was the name of

one of the sons of Pythagoras; from whence, as they say, sprang that

ancient patrician family of the Aemilli, for that the king gave him

in sport the surname of Aemilius, for his engaging and graceful

manner in speaking. I remember, too, that when I was at Rome, I heard

many say, that, when the oracle directed two statues to be raised,

one to the wisest and another to the most valiant man in Greece, they

erected two of brass, one representing Alcibiades, and the other

Pythagoras.

 

……..

 

For during the whole reign of Numa, there was neither war, nor

sedition, nor innovation in the state, nor any envy or ill-will to

his person, nor plot or conspiracy from views of ambition. Either

fear of the gods that were thought to watch over him, or reverence

for his virtue, or divine felicity of fortune that in his days

preserved human innocence, made his reign, by whatever means, a

living example and verification of that saying which Plato, long

afterwards, ventured to pronounce, that the sole and only hope of

respite or remedy for human evils was in some happy conjunction of

events which should unite in a single person the power of a king and

the wisdom of a philosopher, so as to elevate virtue to control and

mastery over vice.

 

The wise man is blessed in himself, and blessed also are the auditors

who can bear and receive those words which flow from his mouth; and

perhaps, too, there is no need of compulsion or menaces to affect the

multitude, for the mere sight itself of a shining and conspicuous

example of virtue in the life of their prince will bring them

spontaneously to virtue, and to a conformity with that blameless and

blessed life of good-will and mutual concord, supported by temperance

and justice, which is the highest benefit that human means can

confer; and he is the truest ruler who can best introduce it into the

hearts and practice of his subjects. It is the praise of Numa that no

one seems ever to have discerned this so clearly as he.

 

 

Numa also instituted the Vestal Virgins

www.classicsunveiled.com

 

Vesta was the goddess of the hearth. There are six Virgines Vestales,

Vestal Vrigins, in charge. The sacred fire in the Aedes Vestae,

Temple of Vesta, symbolized continuity of life of state. There are no

statues of the temple. If the fire went out, use of friction was the

only way to rekindle the fire as a tradition from earlier times.

 

Qualifications for a vestal were:

• girl's age must be not less than six, but no older than ten

• physically perfect

• good character

• both parents living

 

When appointed, she was freed from her father's authority. She lived

in the House of Vestals, or Atrium Vestae. She spent 10 yrs learning

her duties, 10 yrs performing duties, and 10 yrs. training others.

She participated in most festivals on the old calendar. After 30 yrs,

a Vestal Virgin may return to private life, which was rare, or keep

her priviliges and the dignity of her position, which was more common.