Numa

There is a legend, too, that Pan became enamoured of Pindar and his verses. And the divine powers bestowed signal honour on Archilochus and Hesiod after their deaths, for the sake of the Muses.[*](The Delphian oracle pronounced a curse on the man who killed Archilochus, because he had slain the servant of the Muses. And the same oracle told the people of Orchomenus, when a plague had fallen upon them, that the only remedy was to bring back the bones of Hesiod from the land of Naupactus to the land of Orchomenus. ) Again, there is a story, still well attested, that Sophocles, during his life, was blessed with the friendship of Aesculapius, and that when he died, another deity procured him fitting burial.[*](Dionysus is said to have appeared to Lysander and ordered him to allow Sophocles to be buried in the tomb of his fathers, on the road to Deceleia, then occupied by the Lacedaemonian army. See Pausanias, i. 21, 1, with Frazer’s note.)

Is it worth while, then, if we concede these instances of divine favour, to disbelieve that Zaleucus, Minos, Zoroaster, Numa, and Lycurgus, who piloted kingdoms and formulated constitutions, had frequent audience of the Deity? Is it not likely, rather, that the gods are in earnest when they hold converse with such men as these, in order to instruct and advise them in the highest and best way, but use poets and warbling singers, if at all, for their own diversion?

However, if any one is otherwise minded, I say with Bacchylides, Broad is the way. [*](Fragment 29 (Jebb, Bacchylides, p. 423).) Indeed there is no absurdity in the other account which is given of Lycurgus and Numa and their like, namely, that since they were managing headstrong and captious multitudes, and introducing great innovations in modes of government, they pretended to get a sanction from the god, which sanction was the salvation of the very ones against whom it was contrived.

But to resume the story, Numa was already completing his fortieth year when the embassy came from Rome inviting him to take the throne. The speakers were Proculus and Velesus, one or the other of whom the people was expected to choose as their king, Proculus being the favourite of the people of Romulus, and Velesus of the people of Tatius. These speakers, then, were brief supposing that Numa would welcome his good fortune.