Numa Pompilius

Numa Pompilius on a Roman coin

Numa Pompilius (supposedly * 750 BC; † 672 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome . He is said to have been from 715 BC. Ruled until his death; however, the exact biographical dates in late sources are viewed with skepticism by modern research.

Contemporary sources are not available; Numa's treatment in the literature on Roman history did not begin until the second half of the 3rd century BC. And has legendary features. Therefore, it cannot be determined whether it is a historical figure at all. The following description only describes the non-verifiable legendary description in literary representations such as those of Titus Livius or Plutarch . Many details were intended to explain later aetiological conditions.

Legendary life story

Numa initially lived in seclusion with his wife in Cures , in the land of the Sabines . After the death of King Romulus , he followed his appeal to the Roman throne only at the insistence of his father and friends . His reign was characterized by wise legislation and the promotion of trade and agriculture.

To show that the regent's best protection is the love of the people, he abolished his bodyguard. He wanted to counteract the existing tendencies towards violence in the population by spreading the religion more widely.

The king took office against 715 BC. And reorganized the population of Rome. Rome, which was still a small incoherent settlement at that time, had a population made up of various tribesmen. As a result, tensions arose again and again between the immigrants. The king grouped the peasants in the area into districts (pagi) . The residents of Rome were organized into professional guilds.

An augur declares Numa Pompilius the lucky king after the oracle of the flight of birds ( Bernhard Rode 1769)

He expanded the divine service of Vesta and built a temple to Janus . If this temple was open, it was a sign of war. The Temple of Janus was closed in peace.

From the priestesses of Vesta ( Vestal Virgins ) Numa required the vow of chastity and the wearing of white robes with purple stripes . He also required them to keep the "Eternal Fire" on the altar of Vesta to protect the realm. He also reorganized the priests of other temples. He founded the priestly class of the fetials , who were the only ones to have the right to declare war on other peoples. So the priests of Mars had to go singing and dancing with their holy shields and lances through Rome every May 1st .

Numa ordered the installation of the palladium , a statue that came from Troy and should show Pallas Athene or Minerva . Furthermore, he arranged for the erection of the holy shields that fell from heaven ( ancilia ), which were supposed to symbolize the eternal duration of Roman rule. He had boundary stones set up at the borders of the empire and he dedicated a temple to Terminus , the god of borders. Numa forbade blood sacrifices on the altar during church services . Instead, fruits were offered to the gods.

Numa also improved the previous Roman calendar , which he divided into 12 months instead of like Romulus into 10 months, and he established the days of judgment. In order to give his orders more weight, he announced that at a spring in a sacred grove he had consulted with a goddess or with the nymph Egeria about the fate of the empire in secret.

Numa enjoyed high recognition not only in Rome. Neighboring peoples and kingdoms often called on him as an arbitrator in disputes. Numa died in the 46th year of reign. Since he had forbidden to burn his body, he was buried in a stone sarcophagus under the Janiculus . He is considered the ancestor of the Marcier family .

iconography

Recently there has been speculation as to whether the Warrior of Capestrano , a statue more than two meters high from Abruzzo discovered in 1934, is a representation of King Numa Pompilius.

reception

Relationship to Pythagoras

During the period of the late republic and early imperial times, a legend spread in Rome that Numa was a student of the Greek philosopher Pythagoras , who had lived and taught in southern Italy. The Pythagorean was considered an ancient Italic wisdom tradition; as early as the 4th century BC Chr. Had Aristoxenos reports of Taranto, Italic among members of nations that could be taught by Pythagoras, even Romans were. The transformation of Roman cults attributed to Numa was explained by the king's alleged student relationship with Pythagoras and interpreted as a result of the influence of Pythagorean teachings. This led to the Romans having a high regard for Pythagoras. The legend appears as early as the 4th century BC. To have existed. Later, however, historians such as Marcus Tullius Cicero and Titus Livius pointed out that Numa could not have been a pupil of Pythagoras for chronological reasons, as the legend claimed, since Pythagoras did not live until several generations after the assumed lifetime of Numas. Even Marcus Terentius Varro put Numa chronologically correct before Pythagoras. But Ovid still described Numa as a wisdom student who received Pythagorean instruction. In his biography of Numas, Plutarch dealt with the, according to his statements, controversial question of the relationship between Pythagoras and Numa.

The origin of the Numa Pythagorean legend and the purpose of its invention is unknown and controversial in research. One research opinion assumes a Roman origin of the connection between Numa and Pythagoras, another considers the material to be originally Greek. The proponents of a Greek origin for the claim that the Roman cult institutions were of Greco-Sub-Italian origin have considered Aristoxenos or Timaeus of Tauromenion as the author who first put this idea down in writing. However, there are very weighty objections to this. The alternative solution, however, is also implausible, the legend being based on a Roman annalistic source or a Roman historian who was familiar with the history of the annalists. The annalists and the historians who started out in the field of annalistics must have been aware of the chronological impossibility. Consider a Roman antiquarian source, a scholar who thought systematically rather than chronologically and who noticed parallels between Roman customs and principles of the Pythagorean way of life. His motive could have been the need to defend Numa against accusations by anti-Roman Greeks who portrayed him as a barbarian because of his Sabine origins. Another explanation is that the legend originated in the context of an initially oral tradition, probably in the late 4th century BC. BC, and that the milieu which provided a breeding ground for the idea of ​​Numas' pupilhood under Pythagoras was probably a Roman college of priests.

Document discovery

In 181 BC Alleged writings of Numas were found in Rome. A number of authors report on the find; the most detailed and most valuable report as a source is that of Livius, who among other things evaluated the (not preserved) account of the annalist Valerius Antias . At the foot of the hill Ianiculum an empty stone coffin was found which, according to its inscription, had contained Numa's bones, and next to it a stone chest containing writings that, according to the chest's inscription, were Numa's books. There were seven or, according to another version, twelve books in Latin on Roman sacred law and seven or twelve in Greek on philosophy. After a number of citizens had inspected them, both bundles of documents were handed over to the city ​​praetor Quintus Petillius Spurinus , who read them and got the impression that they might lead to the dissolution of the Roman state religion. At the suggestion of the City Praetor, the Senate decided to burn the books in public in the Comitium without having to inspect it . The annalists Calpurnius Piso and - following him - Valerius Antias claimed that the philosophical books contained Pythagorean wisdom. Against this protested critics who realized the chronological impossibility.

The books that were burned were undoubtedly forgeries, but the senators seem to have believed that they were indeed Numa's. The reason that the Senate feared a danger to the state and therefore took energetic action was probably that the author of the forgery in the role of Numas reported in the first person about his alleged encounters with the source nymph Egeria, in which the nymph was his Revealed the will of the gods and advised him on government affairs. Such personal contact between a human being and a superhuman being was only acceptable from the perspective of conservative Romans in poetry. As a serious assertion from which a claim to exact knowledge of the divine will revealed was derived, it set an undesirable precedent for the senators.

The state-ordered destruction of works that were ascribed to an exceptionally respected ruler caused a great sensation; Christian writers discussed the significance of this process in late antiquity . The church father Augustine used the legend in his work De civitate Dei for a polemic against the ancient Roman religion; He said that Numa, in whom he saw a deceiver, had recorded secrets in the books that had been revealed to him by demons; He dared neither publish nor destroy these records and therefore took them with him to the grave. Similarly judged Laktanz ; he also regarded Numa as a swindler who had revealed the truth about his deception in the burned books; Lactant thought the public cremation and its justification to be extraordinarily foolish, for it had damaged the reputation of the Roman religion, which was traced back to Numa, and thus had the opposite effect of what was intended.

Ancient judgments about the achievement of civilization

Cicero described the civilizing achievement of Numas in his work De re publica . He emphasized that the Romans had become too belligerent and violent through the martial activities of Numa's predecessor Romulus; Numa had brought their raw, wild minds back to humanity and gentleness and taught them that one could live peacefully from agriculture without causing havoc or prey. In this way he implanted a love for rest and peace in them, and during his 39 years in reign there was the greatest peace and deepest harmony. The historian Livy painted a similar picture of Numa as a Prince of Peace. He said that Numas work formed a complementary addition to the violent, warlike activities of Romulus. While Romulus founded Rome by force of arms, Numa created a basis for the young state by introducing law and statutes and in this respect was a second founder of Rome. Romulus gave the state strength, Numa a balance. Numa was a unique role model for the Romans, whose customs they followed. He had accustomed the people, who had been brutalized by military service, to a life of peace. With this, Livy made a reference to his present, the age of the Augustan peace order . However, Livy regarded the establishment of Roman services and priesthoods by Numa as a deception on the part of the ruler: Numa had faked his nightly meetings with the goddess Egeria, who supposedly gave him instructions, because only by inventing something wonderful could he sufficiently impress the raw people can. Livy did not find it offensive that the cult of the gods was based on lies; on the contrary, he considered this approach to Numas necessary and politically justified. According to his account, the neighboring peoples were so impressed by Numa's activity that they refrained from attacking the Romans out of respect. Even Virgil characterized the second king of Rome, as legislators who have strengthened the young state. He also mentioned the origin of the important ruler from the poor, small town of Cures. In his Numa biography, Plutarch emphasized the absence of war, internal conflicts and rebellion during Numa's reign and praised the humanity and gentleness of the king, in which he saw the Platonic ideal of a philosophically minded ruler realized. He thought it possible that Numa's appeal on instructions from Egeria was a deliberate deception of the public. Like Livius, Plutarch saw nothing wrong in this.

In the 2nd century, the famous speaker Marcus Cornelius Fronto compares the emperor Antoninus Pius with Numa, since both would have abstained from bloodshed. The historian Marius Maximus in the early 3rd century also makes a comparison between Antoninus Pius and Numa ; This is why this emperor is placed alongside the legendary king with regard to his rulership virtues in late antique historical works, the authors of which were familiar with the now lost emperor biographies of Marius Maximus. In the Historia Augusta , Antoninus Pius is compared to Numa both for his piety and for his happy, secure government. Eutropius and the author of the Epitome de Caesaribus also point to a parallelism between the king and the emperor . Furthermore, the family of the emperor Mark Aurel , the adoptive son of Antoninus Pius, is said to have traced their descent to Numa, as reported in the Historia Augusta with reference to Marius Maximus. Eutropius also mentions this fictitious descent of Mark Aurel. Aurelius Victor writes that Emperor Hadrian took care of legislation, religion and education “in the manner of Numas”.

The ancient Christians viewed Numa from a completely different perspective. From the point of view of the church fathers, he was the founder of the Roman religion they hated and the inventor of ridiculous superstitions.

Middle Ages and Early Modern Times

In the early Middle Ages Numa was known from ancient literature, but received little attention. It was not until the 12th century that a prominent scholar, John of Salisbury , turned to the figure of Numas and paid tribute to his role as the founder of religious institutions with an uncommon impartiality for the time. In contrast to the ancient Christians, he gave Numas high praise for civilizing achievement. In the early 14th century , a parallel was drawn between Numa and holy popes of the early Church in Ovide moralisé , an extremely popular interpretation of Ovid's Metamorphoses .

The very influential humanist Francesco Petrarca was enthusiastic about Numa. In his work De viris illustribus , he described the king as a wise and pious ruler who made peace. He leaned on the representation of Livy. From Livy he also took over the assessment of the Egeria legend as a sensible, successful and justified Numas fraud.

Livy and Petrarch's perspective shaped the Numa image of the Renaissance . Numa appeared as an exemplary ancient legislator. Like other important figures from Roman antiquity, he was depicted on frescoes .

In the 16th century, Bishop Bartolomé de Las Casas , who campaigned for the Indians, used the Numa legend for his purposes. In his work Apologética historia sumaria he compared the Inca king Pachacútec with the Roman. He said that both of them behaved in an exemplary manner, appealing to divine authority to carry out meaningful measures. His contemporary Niccolò Machiavelli followed in his Discorsi the judgment of Livy on Numa. He placed Numa above Romulus, since the introduction of a religion as the basis of a civilization (civilità) was a greater achievement and was even more important than acts of war for the continued existence and prosperity of the state. Montesquieu thought similarly in the eighteenth century , considering Numa the wisest of the rulers; he believed that Numa created religion for the sake of the state instead of the other way around - like the legislators of other peoples. Jean-Jacques Rousseau considered Numa to be the real founder of Rome; Only Numa's measures would have turned the band of robbers commanded by Romulus into a community of citizens.

The painter Nicolas Poussin , who lives in Rome , created the oil painting “Landscape with Numa Pompilius and the nymph Egeria” around 1629. It shows the king with the nymph and a naked flute player, the hero Hippolytos , who was identified with the Roman deity Virbius . Poussin indicates the Pythagorean background of the relationship between Numa and Egeria.

The writer and poet Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian (1755-1794) wrote a novel Numa Pompilius, second roi de Rome , which he published in 1786. In it he glorified Numa as an exemplary enlightened monarch.

Modern

In 1881 Alphonse Daudet published the satirical novel Numa Roumestan . With the name of the title hero, a monarchist French politician, he alluded to King Numa ("Roumestan" means "land of the Romans").

The playwright Peter Hacks created a comedy Numa 1969-1971 , which he revised in 2002 heavily. In an essay Numa or the Middle (1977) he explained the meaning of his redesign of the ancient Numa fabric. The play is one of his main works, but was never performed and received relatively little attention. It has a farce-like, satirical character; Hacks mocks political power struggles in a socialist state. Numa is a hero to him who is first chosen as a compromise candidate and then confidently leads his office as the “middle man”. In the revised version, the aspects critical of socialism have been retained, but the optimistic features of the original version are dispensed with. Numa is no longer a man of balance, who affirms diversity and contradictions, but a politician who admittedly works towards a dictatorship. The revision, which darkens the originally cheerful character of the piece, expresses the author's resignation after the failure of the GDR.

literature

• Hartwin Brandt : King Numa in late antiquity. On the importance of an early Roman exemplum in late Roman literature . In: Museum Helveticum , vol. 45, 1988, ISSN  0027-4054 , pp. 98–110 ( doi : 10.5169 / seals-35143 )
• Bruno Centrone: Numa Pompilius. In: Richard Goulet (ed.): Dictionnaire des philosophes antiques . Volume 4, CNRS Éditions, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-271-06386-8 , pp. 740-741 (deals with the Numa-Pythagoras legend)
• Paul M. Martin: L'idée de royauté à Rome. De la Rome royale au consensus republicain . Adosa, Clermont-Ferrand 1982, ISBN 2-86639-020-2 .
• Mark Silk: Numa Pompilius and the Idea of ​​Civil Religion in the West . In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion , Vol. 72, 2004, ISSN  0002-7189 , pp. 863-896
• Renate Zoepffel : Hadrian and Numa . In: Chiron , Vol. 8, 1978, ISSN  0069-3715 , pp. 391-427

Web links

Commons : Numa Pompilius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Plutarch's life of Numa
• detailed description of the legend with reference to the new archaeological finds in Colle del Forno / Eretum (Italian)

Remarks

1. ↑ See Leonardo Ferrero: Storia del pitagorismo nel mondo romano , 2nd edition, Forlì 2008, pp. 140–148.
2. ↑ Markus Peglau: Varro and the alleged writings of Numa Pompilius . In: Andreas Halthoff, Fritz-Heiner Mutschler (ed.): Hortus litterarum antiquarum , Heidelberg 2000, pp. 441-450.
3. ↑ This is the result of Peter Panitschek: Numa Pompilius as a pupil of Pythagoras . In: Grazer contributions 17, 1990, pp. 49-65.
4. ↑ This view is Michel Humm: Numa et Pythagore: vie et mort d'un mythe . In: Paul-Augustin Deproost, Alain Meurant (ed.): Images d'origines. Origines d'une image , Louvain-la-Neuve 2004, pp. 125-137.
5. ↑ Sources: Livius 40: 29, 3-14; Lucius Cassius Hemina in Pliny , Naturalis historia 13, 84-86; Varro and Calpurnius Piso in Pliny, Naturalis historia 13.87, Varro also in Augustine , De civitate Dei 7.34-35; Valerius Maximus 1, 1, 12 (different variant: only the philosophical books are destroyed); Plutarch , Numa 22: 2-5 and others. A compilation of the Latin and Greek sources with English translation and detailed discussion is provided by Andreas Willi : Numa's Dangerous Books. The Exegetic History of a Roman Forgery . In: Museum Helveticum 55, 1998, pp. 139–172 ( doi : 10.5169 / seals-43039 ).
6. ↑ On this and on a possible motif of Pisos see Klaus Rosen : The false Numabücher . In: Chiron 15, 1985, pp. 65-90, here: 74-78.
7. ^ Andreas Willi: Numa's Dangerous Books. The Exegetic History of a Roman Forgery . In: Museum Helveticum 55, 1998, pp. 139–172, here: 146. Michel Humm has a different view: Numa et Pythagore: vie et mort d'un mythe . In: Paul-Augustin Deproost, Alain Meurant (ed.): Images d'origines. Origines d'une image , Louvain-la-Neuve 2004, pp. 125-137, here: 128 f. Humm does not rule out the senators' doubts about the authenticity.
8. ↑ Klaus Rosen: The wrong Numa books . In: Chiron 15, 1985, pp. 65-90, here: 78-90.
9. ↑ Cicero, De re publica 2, 13-14.
10. ↑ Livy 1: 19-21.
11. ↑ Virgil, Aeneid 6.808-813.
12. ↑ For Plutarch's Numa picture see Renate Zoepffel: Hadrian und Numa . In: Chiron 8, 1978, pp. 391-427, here: 405-407.
13. ↑ Fronto, Principia historiae 12: Aurel (ius) Antoninus sanctus imp (erator) retinuisse se fertur a sanguine abstinendo uni omnium Romanorum principum Numae regi aequiperandus (quoted from the edition by Michael van den Hout, Leipzig 1988, p. 209; this passage was previously read differently and referred to Emperor Hadrian , as is the case with Renate Zoepffel: Hadrian und Numa . In: Chiron 8, 1978, pp. 391–427, here: 400 and note 53 and Hartwin Brandt: King Numa in Spätantike . In: Museum Helveticum 45, 1988, pp. 98–110, here: 99 f.).
14. ↑ Aurelius Victor 14: 2-4.
15. ↑ On the ancient Christian Numa reception see Mark Silk: Numa Pompilius and the Idea of ​​Civil Religion in the West . In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, 2004, pp. 863-896, here: 869-872.
16. ↑ On the medieval reception of Numa see Mark Silk: Numa Pompilius and the Idea of ​​Civil Religion in the West . In: Journal of the American Academy of Religion 72, 2004, pp. 863-896, here: 872-877.
17. ↑ Ralph Häfner: Mysteries in the Hain von Ariccia , Munich 2011, p. 14 f. (with Figure 3), 17–70 (see also color plate II).
18. ↑ See also Volker Riedel : Literarian Antic Reception Between Criticism and Idealization , Jena 2009, pp. 383–391.

predecessor	Office	successor
Romulus	King of Rome 715–672 BC Chr.	Tullus Hostilius