t
hand with his head covered, holding in his light a crooked wand free
from knots, which they called _lituus_; then taking a view towards the
city and country, after offering a prayer to the gods, he marked out the
regions from east to west, the parts towards the south he called the
right, those towards the north, the left; and in front of him he set out
in his mind a sign as far as ever his eye could reach. Then having
shifted the lituus into his left hand, placing his right hand on the
head of Numa, he prayed in this manner: "O father Jupiter, if it is thy
will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be king of
Rome, I beseech thee to give sure and evident signs of it within those
bounds which I have marked." Then he stated in set terms the omens which
he wished to be sent; and on their being sent, Numa was declared king
and came down from the stand.

[Footnote 23: _Ex quibus locis, quae fama in Sabinos, aut quo linguae
commercio ---- quenquam excivisset_. "From which (remote) places, what
high character of him (could have reached) to the Sabines, or by what
intercourse of language could such high character of him have aroused
any one to become a pupil?" Other editions read _qua fama_; thus, from
which places by what high character for talent, or by what intercourse
of language, could he, Pythagoras, have aroused any one, etc.?]

19. Having thus obtained the kingdom, he sets about establishing anew,
on the principles of laws and morals, the city recently established by
violence and arms. When he saw that their minds, as having been rendered
ferocious by military life, could not be reconciled to those principles
during the continuance of wars, considering that a fierce people should
be mollified by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of Argiletum
a temple of Janus, as an index of peace and war; that when open, it
might show the state was engaged in war, and when shut, that all the
neighbouring nations were at peace with it. Twice only since the reign
of Numa hath this temple been shut; once when T. Manlius was consul, at
the end of the first Punic war; and a second time, which the gods
granted our age to see, by the emperor Augustus Caesar, after the battle
of Actium, peace being established by sea and land. This being shut,
after he had secured the friendship of the neighbouring states around by
alliance and treaties, all anxiety regarding dangers from abroad being
removed, lest their minds, which