Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T03:25:18.390Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Numa and the Pythagoreans: A Curious Incident

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

K. R. Prowse
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Perhaps no Roman, except Julius Caesar, attracted the interest of ancient writers who specialized in religious affairs as much as Numa. His reign was considered to have been a period of unbroken peace, when the civilizing influences of religious laws tempered the savagery of the Romulean era. The Romans ascribed to Numa the organization of much of their state ritual, although they did admit that some of it was derived from the Etruscans and the Greeks. Numa's successor, Tullus Hostilius, failed to observe his instructions relating to the worship of Jupiter Elicius, a god usually associated by the ancients with lightning, to whom Numa had dedicated an altar on the Aventine. The result was that Tullus met his death when a thunderbolt struck his house. In contrast, Ancus Marcius, traditionally Numa's grandson, regarded Numa as his model and caused the instructions for state ritual contained in Numa's Commentarii to be transcribed on to tablets and displayed in the Forum. This king had a successful reign. Such is the spirit of those whose accounts of the Roman kings are still extant, all writers who lived during the late Republic and early Empire. It is clear from the way in which they make Numa the author of complete institutions which could not have received their final form until later times, that every change and every new practice in religious performance needed at least to conform in appearance to the doctrines of Numa. Fondness for apposite etymology led some to associate his very name with the Greek νόμος, a law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Greece & Rome , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 1964 , pp. 36 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1964

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

page 36 note 1 Livy, i. 20. 5–7 and 31. 8.Google Scholar

page 36 note 2 Ibid. 32. 2; Dion. Hal. iii. 36. 4.

page 36 note 3 Serv. ad Aen. vi. 808.Google Scholar

page 36 note 4 xl. 29. 3–14.

page 37 note 1 Numa 22. 4.Google Scholar

page 37 note 2 N.H. xiii. 27. 87.Google Scholar

page 37 note 3 Val. Max. i. 1. 12.

page 38 note 1 Kenyon, F. G., Books and Readers in Ancient Greece and Rome (Oxford, 1932), 73 ff.Google Scholar

page 38 note 2 Bloch, R., The Origins of Rome (London, 1960), 117.Google Scholar

page 38 note 3 vi. 1. 2.

page 38 note 4 The Origin of Tyranny (Cambridge, 1922), 236.Google Scholar

page 38 note 5 Cic. Leg. ii. 22. 56.Google Scholar

page 38 note 6 Virg. Aen. viii. 358Google Scholar; Ovid, , Fasti i. 245.Google Scholar

page 38 note 7 Livy, , i. 19. 2–4.Google Scholar

page 38 note 8 Cic., loc. cit.; Xen. Cyr. viii. 7. 25.Google Scholar

page 38 note 9 Numa 22. 2.Google Scholar

page 38 note 10 Dion. Hal. ii. 59. 360–1.

page 39 note 1 Arnobius, , Adv. Nationes, i. 40Google Scholar; Porphyry, , Vita Pythagorae, 57.Google Scholar

page 39 note 2 Iamblichus, , De Vita Pythagorica, 249Google Scholar; cf. Polyb. ii. 39.

page 39 note 3 Cic. Rep. ii. 15. 28–29Google Scholar; Tusc. iv. 1. 3.Google Scholar

page 39 note 4 Dion. Hal., loc. cit.

page 39 note 5 Met. xv. 1–484.Google Scholar

page 39 note 6 Numa 8. 4.Google Scholar

page 39 note 7 N.H. xxxiv. 12. 26.Google Scholar

page 39 note 8 Plut., loc. Cit.

page 39 note 9 Ovid, , Fasti vi. 801Google Scholar; Pont. i. 2. 127–42, iii. 1. 75–98Google Scholar; Suet. Iul. 6. 1.Google Scholar

page 39 note 10 Mattingly, H., Roman Coins (London, 1960)Google Scholar, Plate XII, No. 5; Plate XVII, No. 3; cf. p. 70.

page 40 note 1 Festus, , p. 47M.Google Scholar

page 40 note 2 Cic. Brut. 16. 62Google Scholar; Livy, viii. 40. 4.Google Scholar

page 40 note 3 Gell. xix. 14; Cic. Fam. iv. 13. 3.Google Scholar

page 40 note 4 Macrobius, , Sat. i. 9. 6–8.Google Scholar

page 40 note 5 Lux Perpetua (Paris, 1949), 151f.Google Scholar

page 40 note 6 Cic. Vat. 6. 14.

page 40 note 7 Cumont, , op. cit. 58.Google Scholar

page 40 note 8 Leg. ii. 24. 60.

page 40 note 9 xxxix. 8–18.

page 41 note 1 C.I.L. i. 196.Google Scholar

page 41 note 2 Nilsson, M. P., The Dionysiac Mysteries of the Hellenistic and Roman Age (Lund, 1957), 131, 136, 139f.Google Scholar

page 41 note 3 Orpheus and Greek Religion (London, 1952), 217.Google Scholar

page 41 note 4 Ibid. 171 f.

page 42 note 1 Cic. Div. ii. 50–51Google Scholar; Ovid, Met. xv. 553ff.Google Scholar; Serv. ad Aen ii. 781.Google Scholar

page 42 note 2 v. 2. 3.

page 42 note 3 The Etruscans in the Ancient World (London, 1960), 42.Google Scholar

page 42 note 4 Cic. Div. i. 33. 72Google Scholar; Bloch, R., The Etruscans (London, 1958), 142f.Google Scholar

page 42 note 5 ‘Dictys Cretensis’, Ephemeris Belli Troiani, Prologue.