imitation of
Pythagoras, who especially revered silence. His legislation about images
was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first
principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual
essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men
or of beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or
moulded, in the early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built
temples, and placed shrines in them, but made no image of any living
thing, considering that it was wrong to make the worse like the better,
and that God cannot be comprehended otherwise than by thought. Their
sacrifices also were connected with the Pythagorean doctrine; they were
for the most part bloodless, and performed with flour, libations of
wine, and all the commonest things. But besides these, there are other
distinct proofs of the connection of these two men with one another. One
of these is that the Romans enrolled Pythagoras as a citizen, as we are
told by Epicharmus the comic poet, in a letter which he wrote to
Antenor. He was a man who lived in old times and underwent the
Pythagorean training. Another proof is that of his four sons, King Numa
named one Mamercus after the son of Pythagoras; from whom sprung the
ancient patrician house of the Aemilii. This name was originally given
him in sport by the king, who used to call him _aimulos_ or wily. I
myself have heard many Romans narrate that an oracle once bade the
Romans establish the wisest and the bravest of the Greeks in their own
city, and that in consequence of it they set up two brazen statues in
the Forum, one of Alkibiades and one of Pythagoras. But all this can be
so easily disputed that it is not worth while to pursue it farther or to
put any trust in it.

IX. To Numa also is referred the institution of the Pontifices, or high
priests; and he himself is said to have been one of the first. The
Pontifices are so called, according to some authorities, because they
worship the gods, who are powerful and almighty; for powerful in Latin
is _potens_. Others say that it refers to an exception made in favour of
possibilities, meaning that the legislator ordered the priests to
perform what services lay in their power, and did not deny that there
are some which they cannot. But the most usually received and most
absurd derivation is that the word means nothing more than bridge
builders, and that they were so named from the sacrifi