Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and RomansPlutarch
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
Plutarch
Greece -- Biography -- Early works to 1800; Rome -- Biography -- Early works to 1800
replied Jupiter, "of men." But Numa, willing to elude the cruelty of
this receipt, turned it another way, saying, "Your meaning is, the hairs
of men's heads." "No," replied Jupiter, "with living"--"pilchards,"
said Numa, interrupting him. These answers he had learnt from Egeria.
Jupiter returned again to heaven, pacified and ilcos, or propitious.
The place was, in remembrance of him, called Ilicium, from this Greek
word; and the spell in this manner effected.
These stories, laughable as they are, show us the feelings which people
then, by force of habit, entertained towards the deity. And Numa's own
thoughts are said to have been fixed to that degree on divine objects,
that he once, when a message was brought to him that "Enemies are
approaching," answered with a smile, "And I am sacrificing." It was he,
also, that built the temples of Faith and Terminus and taught the Romans
that the name of Faith was the most solemn oath that they could swear.
They still use it; and to the god Terminus, or Boundary, they offer to
this day both public and private sacrifices, upon the borders and stone-
marks of their land; living victims now, though anciently those
sacrifices were solemnized without blood; for Numa reasoned that the god
of boundaries, who watched over peace, and testified to fair dealing,
should have no concern with blood. It is very clear that it was this
king who first prescribed bounds to the territory of Rome; for Romulus
would but have openly betrayed how much he had encroached on his
neighbors' lands, had he ever set limits to his own; for boundaries are,
indeed, a defense to those who choose to observe them, but are only a
testimony against the dishonesty of those who break through them. The
truth is, the portion of lands which the Romans possessed at the
beginning was very narrow, until Romulus enlarged them by war; all whose
acquisitions Numa now divided amongst the indigent commonalty, wishing
to do away with that extreme want which is a compulsion to dishonesty,
and, by turning the people to husbandry, to bring them, as well as their
lands, into better order. For there is no employment that gives so keen
and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which
leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in
defense of their own, while it destroys the license that breaks out into
acts of injustice and rapacity. Numa, therefore, hoping agriculture
would be a sort of charm to captivate the affections of his people to
peace, and viewing it rather as a means to moral than to economical
profit, divided all the lands into several parcels, to which he gave the
name of pagus, or parish, and over every one of them he ordained chief
overseers; and, taking a delight sometimes to inspect his colonies in
person, he formed his judgment of every man's habits by the results; of
which being witness himself, he preferred those to honors and
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