Numa

And on the iron-bound shield-handles lie the tawney spiders’ webs; and, rust now subdues the sharp-pointed spears and two-edged swords; no longer is the blast of brazen trumpets heard, nor are the eyelids robbed of delicious sleep.[*](A free citation, apparently from memory, of Bacchylides, Fragment 13 (Bergk). See Jebb’s Bacchylides, p. 411.) For there is no record either of war, or faction, or political revolution while Numa was king. Nay more, no hatred or jealousy was felt towards his person, nor did ambition lead men to plot and conspire against his throne.

On the contrary, either fear of the gods, who seemed to have him in their especial care, or reverence for his virtue, or a marvellous felicity, which in his days kept life free from the taint of every vice, and pure, made him a manifest illustration and confirmation of the saying which Plato,[*](Republic, p. 487 e.) many generations later, ventured to utter regarding government,

namely, that human ills would only then cease and disappear when, by some divine felicity, the power of a king should be united in one person with the insight of a philosopher, thereby establishing virtue in control and mastery over vice. Blessed, indeed, is such a wise man in himself, and blessed, too, are those who hear the words of wisdom issuing from his lips. [*](Cf. Plato, Laws, p. 711 e. )

For possibly there is no need of any compulsion or menace in dealing with the multitude, but when they see with their own eyes a conspicuous and shining example of virtue in the life of their ruler, they will of their own accord walk in wisdom’s ways, and unite with him in conforming themselves to a blameless and blessed life of friendship and mutual concord, attended by righteousness and temperance. Such a life is the noblest end of all government, and he is most a king who can inculcate such a life and such a disposition in his subjects. This, then, as it appears, Numa was preeminent in discerning.