And now it was needful that another king should be chosen. No man in those days was more renowned for his righteousness and piety than a certain Numa Pompilius that dwelt at Cures in the land of the Sabines. Now it seemed at first to the Senate that the Sabines would be too powerful in the state if the king should be chosen from among them, nevertheless because they could not agree upon any other man, at last with one consent they decreed that the kingdom should be offered to him. And Numa was willing to receive it if only the gods consented. And the consent of the gods was asked in this fashion. Being led by the augur into the citadel, he sat down on a stone with his face looking toward the south, and on his left hand sat the augur, having his head covered and in his hand an augur’s staff, which is a wand bent at the end and having no knot. Then looking toward the city and the country round about, he offered prayers to the gods and marked out the region of the sky from the sunrising to the sunsetting; the parts toward the south he called the right; and the parts toward the north he called the left; and he set a boundary before as far as his eye could reach. After this he took his staff in his left hand and laid his right on the head of Numa, praying in these words: “Father Jupiter, if it be thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be King of Rome, show us, I pray thee, clear tokens of this thy will within the space which I have marked out.” He then named the tokens which he desired, and when they had been shown, Numa was declared to be king.