side him is a crown and sceptre, symbols of his imminent elevation to the throne.
Numa started his programme of reform by disbanding the three hundred close bodyguards which Romulus had kept. He added a third priest to the existing two of Jupiter and Mars, who was called Flamen Quirinalis. He then set about changing the harsh and warlike nature of the city and its citizens by means of religious rites.
Plutarch attributes much of Numa’s approach to him being a follower of Pythagoras, and the changes which Numa brought to Rome and its citizens as being in keeping with the doctrines of Pythagoras. One example is that the new king forbade the worshipping of graven images – statuary or painted – of the gods, and that animal sacrifice was also banned in view of Pythagoras’ vegetarianism.
A couple of times, Plutarch refers to a legend that Numa was in love with the nymph Egeria, although he does not mention the associated claim that the laws of Rome were dictated to Numa by that nymph. It is a story which has been quite popular with artists, though.
Nicolas Poussin’s Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria from 1631-33 shows the meeting of King Numa, at the right, with Egeria, at the left, as she was being entertained by a young man with a lute, who may signify the Muses who apparently inspired Egeria to provide the laws of Rome. However, Numa hasn’t come equipped with any means of recording them, suggesting that this wasn’t the occasion on which Egeria dictated those laws.
Felice Giani’s much later painting of Numa Pompilius Receiving from the Nymph Egeria the Laws of Rome (1806) shows that process of dictation in full swing, with Numa working through scrolls, which are then transcribed onto the tablets of stone seen at the left. The nymph is the one sat on a throne, and is clearly in command, wagging her index finger at the new King of Rome.
Ulpiano Checa’s The Nymph Egeria Dictating to Numa Pompilius the Laws of Rome (c 1886) offers a similar account, with King Numa sat writing down the laws on scrolls of paper using a reed pen. Egeria is quite different, though, and appears a simple and very naked nymph, in accordance with the linked legend of Numa and Egeria being lovers – which Plutarch denies.
Numa established the order of high priests known as the Pontifices, and their chief, the Pontifex Maximus, terms which influenced the titles of the much later Christian church. Although the Vestal Virgins had already been cited in Plutarch’s biography of Romulus, Numa is attributed the institution of the temple of Vesta, the duties of its priestesses, and the penalties for any breach.
Two other orders of the priesthood were established by Numa, including the Fetiales, whose duty was to guard the peace. If they were unable to settle a quarrel with an enemy, then they, not the king, were responsible for any decision to declare war.
Numa’s solution to the division of Rome into two factions, Sabine and Roman, was to divide it further according to trades and arts, which he actively promoted. He also changed the calendar to keep it in better synchrony with the solar year, and re-ordered the months within it.
It is Merry-Joseph Blondel’s portrait of Numa from 1828 which is most in keeping with Plutarch’s account. Sat in a modest throne beside an altar, he is dressed as a priest, and holds a scroll of his new laws in his left hand.
Plutarch accepts that there was much dispute over Numa’s personal life, including the number of his children, but asserts that he was over eighty years old when he died, and was mourned greatly. He was buried under the Janiculum in a stone coffin, with another coffin containing the sacred books which he is supposed to have written.
Comparing Lycurgus with Numa
Plutarch’s comparison between these two virtuous statesmen starts by pointing out that Numa accepted kingship, albeit reluctantly, but Lycurgus refused it. He draws a good metaphor by stating that Lycurgus tightened the strings at Sparta, but Numa loosened them in Rome. To achieve those changes, Lycurgus had to put his life on the line, and lost an eye in the 