After the death of Romulus, Numa, a man of a very different genius, was invited to the throne by the unanimous consent of the whole body of the Romans. This worthy prince reclaimed his subjects from their savage fondness for war and plunder, and taught them the arts of peace, and the happiness of civil and social life, by instructing them in the great duties of religion, or piety towards their gods, and the laws of justice and humanity, which contained their duty towards their fellow creatures. The long reign of this wise and good prince was the most remarkable, and the most happy period of time Rome ever knew from her foundation to her dissolution. For during the whole term of forty-three years, which was the extent of his reign, the harmony of the Roman state was neither interrupted by any civil dissension at home, nor the happiness of the people disturbed by any foreign war or invasion. After the death of Numa, who died universally lamented as the father of the people, Tullus Hostilius, a man of real merit, was legally elected king, but, after a victorious reign of thirty-two years, was destroyed with his whole family by lightning, according to some authors, but, according to others, was murdered by Ancus Marcius, grandson to Numa by his only daughter, who looked upon his own right to the crown as prior to Tullus, or his family. Ancus Marcius however received the crown by a free election of the people, and died a natural death after a reign of twenty-four years, in which he restored such of the religious institutions of his grandfather Numa as had been neglected during the reign of his predecessor. He greatly enlarged the city of Rome itself, and made it a seaport by fortifying the haven at the mouth of the river Tiber.