Numa

And there is some reason in supposing that Deity, who is not a lover of horses or birds, but a lover of men, should be willing to consort with men of superlative goodness, and should not dislike or disdain the company of a wise and holy man. But that an immortal god should take carnal pleasure in a mortal body and its beauty, this, surely, is hard to believe.

And yet the Aegyptians make a distinction here which is thought plausible, namely, that while a woman can be approached by a divine spirit and made pregnant, there is no such thing as carnal intercourse and communion between a man and a divinity. But they lose sight of the fact that intercourse is a reciprocal matter, and that both parties to it enter into a like communion. However, that a god should have affection for a man, and a so-called love which is based upon affection, and takes the form of solicitude for his character and his virtue, is fit and proper.

And therefore it is no mistake when the ancient poets tell their tales of the love Apollo bore Phorbas, Hyacinthus, and Admetus, as well as the Sicyonian Hippolytus also, of whom it is said, that, as often as he set out to sail from Sicyon to Cirrha, the Pythian priestess, as though the god knew of his coming and rejoiced thereat, chanted this prophetic verse:—

1. Lo, once more doth beloved Hippolytus hither make voyage.

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.

It was, however, no slight task, but one requiring much argument and entreaty, to persuade and induce a man who had lived in peace and quiet, to accept the government of a city which owed its existence and growth, in a fashion, to war. His reply, therefore, in the presence of his father and one of his kinsmen named Marcius, was as follows. Every change in a man’s life is perilous; but when a man knows no lack, and has no fault to find with his present lot, nothing short of madness can change his purposes and remove him from his wonted course of life, which, even though it have no other advantage, is at least fixed and secure, and therefore better than one which is all uncertain.

But the lot of one who becomes your king cannot even be called uncertain, judging from the experience of Romulus, since he himself was accused of basely plotting against his colleague Tatius, and involved the patricians in the charge of having basely put their king out of the way. And yet those who bring these accusations laud Romulus as a child of the gods, and tell how he was preserved in an incredible way and fed in a miraculous manner when he was still an infant. But I am of mortal birth, and I was nourished and trained by men whom you know.

Moreover, the very traits in my disposition which are commended, are far from marking a man destined to be a king, namely, my great love of retirement, my devotion to studies inconsistent with the usual activities of men, and my well-known strong and inveterate love of peace, of unwarlike occupations, and of men who come together only for the worship of the gods and for friendly intercourse, but who otherwise live by themselves as tillers of the soil or herdsmen.