an end to their quarrels for the present, and also ensure the candidate who should be chosen being impartial, because he would be friendly to the one party because it had chosen him, and to the other because he belonged to it by birth.  The Sabines gave the Romans their choice which they would do; and they decided that it would be better to choose a Sabine king themselves, than to be ruled by a Roman chosen by the Sabines.  After deliberation amongst themselves, they chose Numa Pompilius, a man who was not one of those Sabines who had settled in Rome, but whose excellence was so well-known to all, that the Sabines, as soon as they heard his name, were even more eager for him than the Romans who had chosen him.  When they had informed the people of their decision, they sent an embassy to Numa, composed of the leading men of both parties, to beg of him to come to Rome and assume the crown.

Numa belonged to a celebrated Sabine city, Cures, from which the united Romans and Sabines called themselves Quirites.  He was the son of Pomponius, an honourable citizen, and was the youngest of four brothers.  By a miraculous coincidence he was born on the very day on which Romulus founded Rome; that is, the tenth day before the Calends of May.  His naturally good disposition had been so educated by sorrow and philosophic pursuits, that he rose superior not merely to commonplace vices, but even to the worship of brute force, so common among barbarians, and considered true courage to consist in the conquest of his own passions.  Accordingly he banished all luxury and extravagance from his house, and was known as a trusty friend and counsellor, both by his countrymen and by strangers.  When at leisure, he disregarded sensual enjoyments and money-getting, but devoted himself to the service of the gods and to speculations about their nature and power, so that he obtained great celebrity.  Indeed Tatius, when he was acting as joint-king with Romulus, chose him for the husband of his only daughter Tatia.  But Numa was not elated by his marriage, and did not remove to the town where his father-in-law was king, but stayed where he was in Cures, among the Sabines, tending his aged father; while Tatia also preferred the quiet of a private citizen’s life to the pomp which she might have enjoyed in Rome.  She is said to have died in the thirteenth year after her marriage.

IV.  Now Numa was in the habit of leaving the city and passing much of his time in the country, wandering alone in the sacred groves and dwelling in desert places.  Hence the story first arose that it was not from any derangement of intellect that he shunned human society, but because he held converse with higher beings, and had been admitted to marriage with the gods, and that, by passing his time in converse with the nymph Egeria, who loved him, he became blessed, and learned heavenly wisdom.  It is evident that this is the same as many ancient myths; such as that told by the Phrygians about Attis,