[9] And in truth, it is generally agreed that a marvellous good Fortune guided the reign of Numa which endured for so many years.
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For the tale that a certain Egeria, a dryad and a wise divinity, consorted in love with the man, and helped him in instituting and shaping the government of his State,
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is perhaps somewhat fabulous. For other mortals who are said to have attained divine marriages and to have been beloved of goddesses, men like Peleus and Anchises, Orion and Emathion, by no means lived through their lives in a satisfactory, or even painless, manner. On the contrary, it appears likely that Numa had Good Fortune as his true wife, counsellor, and colleague; and she took the city in charge when it was being carried hither and yon amid the enmity and fierceness of bordering tribes and neighbours, as in the midst of turbulent billows of a troubled sea and was inflamed by countless struggles and dissensions; and she calmed those opposing passions and jealousies as though they had been but gusts of wind. Even as they relate that the sea, when it has received the brood of halcyons in the stormy season, keeps them safe and assists in their nurture, even such a calm in the affairs of Rome, free from war or pestilence or danger or terror, Fortune caused to overspread and surround the city, and thus afforded the opportunity to a newly settled and sorely shaken people to take root and to establish their city on a firm foundation where it might grow in quiet, securely and unhindered. It is as with a merchantman or a trireme, which is constructed by blows and with great violence, and is buffeted by hammers and nails, bolts and saws and axes, and, when it is completed, it must remain at rest and grow firm for a suitable period of time until its bonds hold tight and its fastenings have acquired affinity; but if it be launched while its joinings are still damp and slippery, these will all be loosened when they are racked by the waves, and will admit the sea. Even so the first ruler and artificer of Rome, in organizing the city from rustics and shepherds, as though building up from a stout keel,
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took upon himself no few labours, nor of slight moment were the wars and dangers that he withstood in warding off, of necessity, those who opposed the creation and foundation of Rome.
But he who was the second to take over the State gained time by good fortune to consolidate and make assured the enlargement of Rome; for much peace did he secure for her and much quiet. But if at that time a Porsenna had pressed hard upon the city and had erected an Etruscan stockade and a camp beside the new walls which were still moist and unstable, or if from the Marsi had come some rebellious chief filled with warlike frenzy, or some Lucanian, incited by envy and love of strife, a man contentious and warlike, as later was Mutilus or the bold Silo b or Sulla’s last antagonist, Telesinus,
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arming all Italy at one preconcerted signal, as it were - if one of these had sounded his trumpets round about Numa, the lover of wisdom, while he was sacrificing and praying, the early beginnings of the City would not have been able to hold out against such a mighty surge and billow, nor would they ever have increased to such a goodly and numerous people. But as it is, it seems likely that the peace of Numa’s reign was a provision to equip them for their subsequent wars, and that the people, like an athlete, having, during a period of forty-three years following the contests of Romulus’s time, trained themselves in quiet and made their strength staunch enough to cope in battle with those who later arrayed themselves against them. For they relate that no famine nor pestilence nor failure of crops nor any unseasonable occurrence in either summer or winter vexed Rome during that time, as if it were not wise human counsel, but divine Fortune that was Rome’s guardian during those crucial days. Therefore at that time the double door of Janus’s
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temple was shut, which the Romans call the Portal of War; for it is open when there is war,but closedwhen peace has beenmade. But after Numa died it was opened, since the war with the Albans had broken out. Then countless other wars followed in continuous succession until again, after four hundred and eighty years, it was closed in the peace following the Punic War, when Gaius Atilius and Titus Manlius were consuls.
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After this year it was again opened and the wars continued until Caesar’s victory at Actium.
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Then the arms of Rome were idle for a time, but not for long; for the tumults caused by the Cantabri and Gaul, breaking forth at the sanie time with the Germans, disturbed the peace. These facts are added to the record as proofs of Numa’s good fortune.
De fortuna Romanorum. Plutarch. Frank Cole Babbitt (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1936.
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