Numa Pompilius (753673 BC; reigned 715673 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. He was of Sabine origin, and many of Rome's most important religious and political institutions are attributed to him.
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Genealogy
According to Plutarch, Numa was the youngest of Pompos's[1] four sons, born on the day of Rome's founding (traditionally, 21 April 753 BC). He lived a severe life of discipline and banished all luxury from his home. Titus Tatius, king of the Sabines and a colleague of Romulus, gave in marriage his only daughter, Tatia, to Numa. After 13 years of marriage, Tatia died, precipitating Numa's retirement to the countryside. According to Livy, Numa resided at Cures immediately before being elected king.[2]
Livy and Plutarch refer to and discredit the story that Numa was instructed in philosophy by Pythagoras,[2] as chronologically implausible.
Plutarch reports that some authors credited him with only a single daughter, Pompilia. Pompilia's mother is variously identified as Numa's first wife Tatia or his second wife Lucretia. She is said to have married the future first pontifex maximus Numa Marcius, and by him gave birth to the future king Ancus Marcius.[3]
Other authors gave Numa in addition five sons, Pompo (or Pomponius), Pinus, Calpus, Mamercus and Numa, from whom the noble families (gentes) of the Pomponi, Pinarii, Calpurnii, Aemilii, and Pompilii respectively traced their descent. Other writers believed these were fictional genealogies to enhance the status of these families.[citation needed]
Kingship
After the death of Romulus, there was an interregnum of one year in which the royal power was exercised by members of the Senate in rotation for five days in a row. In 715 BC, after much bickering between the factions of Romulus (the Romans) and Tatius (the Sabines), a compromise was reached, and the Sabine Numa was elected by the senate as the next king.
According to Plutarch, Numa was a cunning and calculating person. At first he refused the offer. His father and Sabine kinsmen, including his teacher and the father of Numa's son-in law, Marcus, along with an embassy of two senators from Rome, banded together to persuade him to accept. In the account of Plutarch and Livy, Numa, after being summoned by the Senate from Cures, was offered the tokens of power amid an enthusiastic reception by the people of Rome. He requested, however, that an augur should divine the opinion of the gods on the prospect of his kingship before he accepted. Jupiter was consulted and the omens were favourable.[2] Thus approved by the Roman and Sabine people as well as the heavens, he took up his position as King of Rome.
According to Plutarch, Numa's first act was to disband the personal guard of 300 so-called "Celeres" (the "Swift") with which Romulus permanently surrounded himself.[4] The gesture is variously interpreted as self-protection in the face of their questionable loyalty, a sign of humility, or a signal of peace and moderation.
Based on Roman chronology, Numa died of old age in 673 BC. He was succeeded by Tullus Hostilius.
Agent of the gods
Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his wisdom and piety. In addition to the endorsement by Jupiter, he is supposed to have had a direct and personal relationship with a number of deities, most famously the nymph Egeria, who according to legend taught him to be a wise legislator. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held nightly consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city.[5] Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition[6] to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviours among the warlike early Romans, such as honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives.
Numa was said to have authored several "sacred books" in which he had written down divine teachings, mostly from Egeria and the Muses. Plutarch[7] (citing Valerius Antias) and Livy[8] records that at his request he was buried along with these "sacred books", preferring that the rules and rituals they prescribed be preserved in the living memory of the state priests, rather than preserved as relics subject to forgetfulness and disuse. About half of these booksPlutarch and Livy differ on their numberwere thought to cover the priesthoods he had established or developed, including the flamines, pontifices, Salii, and fetiales and their rituals. The other books dealt with philosophy (disciplina sapientiae). According to Plutarch,[7] these books were recovered some four hundred years later (in reality almost five hundred years, i. e. in 186 BC according to Livy) at the occasion of a natural accident that exposed the tomb. They were examined by the Senate, deemed to be inappropriate for disclosure to the people, and burned. Dionysius of Halicarnassus[9] hints that they were actually kept as a very close secret by the pontifices.
Numa is reputed to have constrained the two minor gods Picus and Faunus into delivering some prophecies of things to come.[10]
Numa, supported and prepared by Egeria, reportedly held a battle of wits with Jupiter himself, in an apparition whereby Numa sought to gain a protective ritual against lightning strikes and thunder.[10]
At a time of a pestilential disease that was playing havoc in the population, a prodigy happened : a shield which had undecipherable letters written on it, came to fall from the sky on the Palatine Hill. When it was brought to Numa he declared that Egeria had enlightened him that this was a token of safeguard from Jupiter, for which he organized due measures of recognition, thus bringing the plague at an immediate end. This shield became a sacred relic of the Romans[11] and was placed in the care of the Salii.
Institutions attributed to Numa
One of Numa's first acts was the construction of a temple of Janus as an indicator of peace and war. The temple was constructed at the foot of the Argiletum, a road in the city. After securing peace with Rome's neighbours, the doors of the temples were shut.[5] and remained so for all the duration of Numa's reign, a unique case in Roman history.
Another, surprising, creation attributed to Numa was the cult of Terminus, a god for boundaries. Through this rite, which involved sacrifices at private properties, boundaries and landmarks, Numa reportedly sought to instill in Romans the respect of lawful property and non-violent relationships with neighbours. The cult of Terminus, preached Numa, involved absence of violence and murder and that the god was a testament to justice and a keeper of peace.[12] In a somehow comparable,[13] more moral rather than legal mode, Numa sought to associate himself with one of the roles of Vegoia in the neighbouring Etruscans'religious system by deciding to set the official boundaries to the territory of Rome, which Romulus had never wanted, presumably done with the same concern of preserving peace.[12]
Recognizing the paramount importance of the sacred shield descended from the skies, King Numa had eleven matching shields made,[11] so perfect that no one, even Numa, could distinguish the original any longer. These shields were the ancilia, the sacred shields of Jupiter, which were carried each year in a procession by the Salii priests. Numa also established the office and duties of Pontifex Maximus and instituted (Plutarch's version[4]) the flamen of Quirinus, in honour of Romulus, in addition to those of Jupiter and Mars that already existed. Numa also brought the Vestal Virgins to Rome from Alba Longa.;[14] Plutarch adds that they were then at the number of two, were later augmented to four by Servius Tullius and stayed so through the ages.
By tradition, Numa promulgated a calendar reform that adjusted the solar and lunar years, introducing the months of January and February.[5]
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."
Numa was credited with dividing the immediate territory of Rome into pagi and establishing the traditional occupational guilds of Rome:
"So, distinguishing the whole people by the several arts and trades, he formed the companies of musicians, goldsmiths, carpenters, dyers, shoemakers, skinners, braziers, and potters; and all other handicraftsmen he composed and reduced into a single company, appointing every one their proper courts, councils, and observances." (Plutarch)
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".
In Roman mythology, King Numitor of Alba Longa, son of Procas, descendant of Aeneas the Trojan, was the father of Rhea Silvia. He was overthrown by his brother, Amulius, and thrown out of his kingdom where he had ruled. Amulius also murdered his sons, in an effort to remove power from his brother for himself. His grandsons, however, Romulus and Remus, reinstated him after killing Amulius.
The Sabines (/'se?ba?n/; Latin: Sabini; Ancient Greek: Saß????) were an Italic tribe that lived in the central Appennines of ancient Italy, also inhabiting Latium north of the Anio before the founding of Rome. The above names, English, Latin and Greek, are all exonyms.
The Sabines divided into two populations just after the founding of Rome, which is described by Roman legend. The division, however it came about, is not legendary. The population closest to Rome transplanted itself to the new city and united with the pre-existing citizenry, beginning a new heritage that descended from the Sabine but was also Latinized. The second population remained a mountain tribal state, coming finally to war against Rome for their independence, along with all the other Italic tribes, losing, and being assimilated into the Roman Republic.
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Language
There is little record of the Sabine language. However, there are some glosses by ancient commentators, and one or two inscriptions have been tentatively identified as Sabine. There are also personal names in use on Latin inscriptions from Sabine country, but these are given in Latin form. Robert Seymour Conway, in his Italic Dialects, gives approximately 100 words which vary from being well attested as Sabine to being possibly of Sabine origin. In addition to these he cites place names derived from the Sabine, sometimes giving attempts at reconstructions of the Sabine form.[1] Based on all the evidence, the Linguist List tentatively classifies Sabine as a member of the Umbrian Group of Italic languages of Indo-European family.
Historical geography
Latin-speakers called the Sabines' original territory, straddling the modern regions of Lazio, Umbria, and Abruzzo, Sabinium. To this day, it bears the ancient tribe's name in the Italian form of Sabina. Within the modern region of Lazio (or Latium), Sabina constitutes a sub-region, situated north-east of Rome, around Rieti.
Origins
The Sabine hills in the middle of Sabina.
Literary evidence
According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, many Roman historians (including Porcius Cato and Gaius Sempronius) regarded the origins of the Romans (descendants of the Aborigines) as Greek despite the fact that their knowledge was derived from Greek legendary accounts.[2] The Sabines, specifically, were first mentioned in Dionysius's account for having captured by surprise the city of Lista, which was regarded as the mother-city of the Aborigines.[3] Ancient historians were still debating the specific origins of the Sabines. Zenodotus of Troezen claimed that the Sabines were originally Umbrians that changed their name after being driven from the Reatine territory by the Pelasgians. However, Porcius Cato argued that the Sabines were a populace named after Sabus, the son of Sancus (a divinity of the area sometimes called Jupiter Fidius).[4] In another account mentioned in Dionysius's work, a group of Lacedaemonians fled Sparta since they regarded the laws of Lycurgus as too severe. In Italy, they founded the Spartan colony of Foronia (near the Pomentine plains) and some from that colony settled among the Sabines. According to the account, the Sabine habits of belligerence (aggressive or warlike behavior) and frugality (prudence in avoiding waste) were known to have derived from the Spartans.[5] Plutarch also states in the Life of Numa Pompilius, "Sabines, who declare themselves to be a colony of the Lacedaemonians..."
Sabines at Rome
The legend of the Sabine women
Main article: Rape of the Sabine Women
Legend says that the Romans abducted Sabine women to populate the newly built Rome. The resultant war ended only by the women throwing themselves and their children between the armies of their fathers and their husbands. The Rape of the Sabine Women ("rape" in this context meaning "kidnapping" rather than sexual violation, see raptio) became a common motif in art; the women ending the war forms a less frequent but still reappearing motif.
According to Livy, after the conflict the Sabine and Roman states merged, and the Sabine king Titus Tatius jointly ruled Rome with Romulus until Tatius' death five years later. Three new centuries of Equites were introduced at Rome, including one named Tatienses, after the Sabine king.
A variation of the story is recounted in the pseudepigraphal book of Jasher (see Jasher 17:1-15).
Sabine traditions
Tradition suggests that the population of the early Roman kingdom was the result of a union of Sabines and others. Some of the gentes of the Roman republic were proud of their Sabine heritage, such as the Claudia gens, assuming Sabinus as a cognomen or agnomen. Some specifically Sabine deities and cults were known at Rome: Semo Sancus and Quirinus, and at least one area of the town, the Quirinale, where the temples to those latter deities were located, had once been a Sabine centre. The extravagant claims of Varro and Cicero that augury, divination by dreams and the worship of Minerva and Mars originated with the Sabines are disputable, as they were general Italic and Latin customs, as well as Etruscan, despite the fact that they were espoused by Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome and a Sabine.[6]
Romans of Sabine ancestry
Titus Tatius, legendary King of the Sabines
Numa Pompilius, legendary King of Rome
Ancus Marcius, legendary King of Rome
Quintus Sertorius, republican general
Attius Clausus, founder of the Claudia gens
Gaius Sallustius Crispus, Roman writer
Marcus Terentius Varro, Roman scholar
Sabine religion
Dius Fidius
Feronia
Ops
Quirinus
Sabus
Sancus
Soranus
Varro's list of Sabine gods
The Sabine state
War with Tullus Hostilius
In the 7th century BC, during the reign of Rome's third king Tullus Hostilius, the Sabines and the Romans again warred. The pretexts for the war were, on the Roman side, that a number of Roman merchants had been seized by the Sabines at a market near the temple of Feronia, and on the Sabine side, that some of the Sabines were being detained at Rome. The Sabines sought and obtained the help of some volunteers from Veii, although the government of Veii did not come to their aid, holding faith to the peace treaty previously made with Romulus.
Tullus invaded Sabine territory and met the Sabines at the forest called Malitiosa. The Roman force was superior in both infantry and cavalry. In particular, the Roman cavalry had recently been augmented by the addition of ten new turmae of equites from among the Albans who now dwelt in Rome. The Romans won the battle after a cavalry charge threw the Sabines into disarray. The Sabines suffered heavy losses during the retreat.[7]
War with Tarquinius Priscus
In the early 6th century BC, during the reign of Rome's fifth king Lucius Tarquinius Priscus, the Sabines attacked Rome. Tarquinius had been preparing to construct a stone wall around Rome, however the Sabines, having already crossed the Anio river, forced the king to abandon his plans and prepare for the attack. Livy reports that the initial engagement, though bloody, did not result in success for either side.[8]
The Sabines withdrew to their camp, allowing the Romans time to levy additional troops. Tarquinius, believing Rome's military weakness lay in its lack of horsemen, doubled the number of the equites.[8]
A second battle was then fought. The Romans, desiring to cut off the enemy's means of escape, sent rafts of burning logs down the Anio to destroy the bridge over the river by fire. In battle, the Sabine infantry pressed the Romans, and seemed to be winning against the Roman centre. However the Roman horsemen flanked the Sabine infantry, routed them, and impeded their flight from the battle. Many of the Sabines were unable to escape with their lives, both because of the pursuit of the cavalry and also because of the destruction of the bridge. Some of the fleeing Sabines drowned in the Anio; their arms drifted down the river into the Tiber and past Rome, and the Romans recognised this as a sign of victory even before word of the outcome of the battle arrived in the city.[9]
Tarquinius determined to press his victory. He firstly piled up and burnt the spoils he had vowed to Vulcan, and he sent back to Rome the prisoners and booty he had captured. He then proceeded, with his army, into the Sabine territory. The Sabines hastily raised a fresh army, but were defeated again. They then sued for peace.[9]
The Sabine town of Collatia, and its surrounding lands and population, was surrendered to become Roman territory. Livy records the wording of the form of surrender. Egerius, the king's nephew, was left there with a garrison, and Tarquinius returned to Rome to celebrate a triumph.[10] According to the Fasti Triumphales, the date of the triumph was 13 September, 585 BC.
War with Tarquinius Superbus
According to the Fasti Triumphales, Rome's last king Tarquinius Superbus celebrated a triumph for a victory over the Sabines.
War with the early republic 505-4 BC
The fall of the Roman monarchy left the Sabines in an ambiguous position politically with regard to Rome. Their treaties had been with the kings, but now the kings were gone.
According to the historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, into this gap stepped Sextus Tarquinius (unless previously assassinated at Gabii), whose rape of Lucretia had been the event that triggered the revolution. He convinced the Sabines that they ought to help restore the kings. They moved against the Romans under native command and were quickly defeated.
Sextus (or Superbus himself) arguing that the Sabine army was mismanaged now brought Fidenae and Cameria to the assistance of the Sabines, who were so impressed by his confidence, his allies and his analysis that they made him dictator and voted for all-out war on Rome. It was at this point that that Titus Claudius (or Attius Clausus) removed all of his relatives and clients to Rome, including approximately 500 fighting men. The Romans settled them in Rome, ennobled Claudius and promised them land beyond the Anio river in the vicinity of Fidenae. All they had to do was take it from the Fidenates.
In the following consular year (the consuls now being Publius Valerius Poplicola and Titus Lucretius Tricipitinus) the Sabines marched toward Rome and were stopped by the river Anio and presumably the consular troops south of it. They placed two camps, one near Fidenae and one in it. Of the consuls, Poplicola camped near the Sabines in the open, while Tricipitinus camped on a hill near Fidenae.
Tarquin's plan was to launch a night attack on the camp of Valerius, filling in the ditch and scaling the wall. The troops in Fidenae would exit the city and cover these operations against a possible attack by Lucretius. However, a Sabine defector and prisoners brought in by a Roman cavalry patrol informed Valerius of the enemy plan. Lucretius was soon advised.
The attack came after midnight. The Sabines were allowed to fill the ditch and throw up brushwood ramps over the wall into a camp that seemed all too still. In hindsight Tarquin might have guessed the danger from the lack of opposition to his inadvertently noisy operations and the total deficit of sentinels. He took those circumstances to mean that the Romans were all sound asleep, a striking underestimation of his enemy.
The Roman maniples were in fact in formation and waiting in the intervallum around the inner perimeter of the castra, invisible in the total blackness. They could see enough to quietly kill all enemies who came over the wall. The moon suddenly rising, the Roman troops and the piles of slain were visible to the Sabines, whose reaction was to drop their weapons and run. As the ambush was no longer a surprise the Roman troops all shouted together, which was the prearranged signal to Lucretius's men on the hill. He sent out his cavalry, which drove the distracted Fidenates from their ambush. They were massacred by Lucretius' infantry coming up. The Sabine army dissolved into a rout of unarmed individuals. Of them 13500 were slain and 4200 taken captive. The battle was not over. Fidenae remained to be taken (see under Roman-Etruscan Wars).[11]
Livy gives a different account. He makes no reference to the involvement of a Tarquinius in this war. He says hostilities broke out between Rome and the Sabines in 505 BC. The Romans were victorious, and a triumph awarded to the consuls Marcus Valerius Volusus and Publius Postumius Tubertus
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