Dear friends of ancient mythology! Numa Pompilius was after Romulus the second mythic king of Rome. The Coin: Roman republic, L. Pomponius Molo, gens Pomponia AE - denarius, 3.97g, 19.41mm, 210° Rome, 97 BC. Obv. L.POMPON.MOLO Laureate head of Apollo l. Rev. Numa Pompilius with lituus stg. r., before him burning altar, to which a victimarius is leading a goat in ex. NVMA.POMPIL (MA and MP ligate) Ref. Crawford 334/1; BMCRR (Italy) 733; Sydenham 607 scarce, part. weakly struck Note: Victimarius is the assistant at sacrificing The gens Pomponia The Pomponia (from Etruscan pumpu) was a plebeian family, that leads back its origin like several other families to one of the sons of Numa Pompilius. This ancestry was constructed not until later and was expressed by coins that were struck by descendants (Pauly). Between them were remarkable many poets and writers. Titus Pomponius Atticus was a friend of Cicero with whom he kept up a yearslong correspondance. A Pomponia was mother of Scipio Africanus. Numa Pompilius Numa Pompilius (supposedly 750 BC - 672 BC) was after Romulus the mythological 2nd king of Rome. But contemporary sources don't exist. First literally records we have from the 2nd half of the 3rd century BC. So it is not even certain that he is a historical person at all. Numa was a Sabine who lived segregated with his wife in Cures. When the Romans choosed him for their king he took this task only unwillingly. But then he became the wisest law-giver on the Roman throne. He reorganized the people of Rome by classifying it in districts (pagi) and introduced guilds of craftsmen to overcome the steady conflicts of the tribes. He expanded the worship service of Vesta and introduced the vow of chastity. The vestal virgins had the duty to maintain the "eternal flame", to ensure the existence of the Republic. He founded the Fetiales, the class of priests responsible for the Roman foreign relations and the only ones which had the right to declare war against another nation. He erected a temple for Janus and gave order to open the doors in case of war and to close them in peace. He let put up the palladium that Aeneas has brought from Troy and he induced the erection of the ancilia which were fallen down from heaven and should symbolize the eternal duration of the Roman empire. At the borderof the empire he let install boundary stones and he dedicated a temple to Terminus, god of boundaries. He interdicted the usual blood sacrifices at worship services. He was wherin all agree a very pious king. He improved the calendar in that he introduced the months of Ianuarius and Februarius and so raised their number from ten to twelve. The days he devided in holydays and non-holidays. To give more weight to his laws he claimed that he had secretly consulted with the goddess or nymph Egeria at a well. "Numa consults the nymph Egeria", ca. 1791, decribed to Jean Claude Naigeon (1753-1832), today in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Northern England His reputation was so great that even people of the neighbourhood call him as arbiter to settle differences. After his death he refused to be cremated and let bury himself in a stone coffin on the Ianiculum hill. Numa and Pythagoras Because of that in the late republic and in the early imperial time, e.g. at Ovid, there was the myth, that Numa has believed in a life after death and that he had been a scholar of Pythagoras. But already Cicero and Livius pointed out that this chronologically couldn't has been possible. Egeria Egeria was a nymph from which Numa Pompilius claimed he would meet her nightly where she told him which laws he should give the Romans (Livius). Some believed that he has fallen in love with her and she has been even his wife (Ovid). Because the Romans didn't believe all that he told them, once Numa invited the noblest of them to come for dinner and they found his house in the poorest state (Plutarch). He asked them to come back in the evening, where they found his house entirely altered. The rooms were decorated most splendid and the tables were covered with most precious dishes and the choicest meal impossible for a human being to acquire in such a short time. Thereafter they did believe all that Numa told them about Egeria (Dion. Hal.). Other believe she only was a water nymph and Augustinus claimed that her relation to Numa Pompilius was only the manifestation of his knowledge in hydromantia, the art to forecast from water. When Numa died Egeria withdraw to the grove of Aricia and wept for him so long that Diana transformed her into a well (Ovid). Claude Lorrain (1604-1682) "Egeria weeping for Numa" (1669), today in the National Museum of Capodimonte The actual meaning of Egeria is not clesr until today. She was a deity of the tributary of the lake of Nemi that flow through the grove of Aricia (Strabo). It is believed that she has been come to Rome together with the Diana of Aricia. There she become as lover or wife of Numa his adviser especially in matters of cult. This connection is very old but enigmatic (Pauly). In Rome she was worshipped together with other well deities in the grove of Camenae before the Porta Capena where the ancilia, the sacred shields, were fallen from heaven. This grove is said to be vowed by Numa on the advice of Egeria. The interpretation as birth goddess has its origin by the affinity to Diana. As usual well nymphs are believed to be helpful at birth. In ancient times Numa was seen as counter image to Romulus. While he has founded Rome with force and war (the murder of Remus was seen as primordial evil of Rom), Numa has implanted into the Romans the love for calm and piece. In his 18 years of reign the highest concord has dominated (Cicero). So he has become the second founder of Rome. Plutarch holds him for the example of a philosophically enlightened ruler in the sense of Plato. Especially Antoninus Pius is compared with him. Sources (1) Livius, ab urbe condita (2) Plutarch, Numa Pompilius (3) Plinius, Naturae historia (4) Vergil, Aeneis (5) Cicero, de re publica (6) Dionsysios von Halikarnassos, Antiquitates Romanae (7) Ovid, Metamorphosen (8) Augustinus, De civitate Dei Literature: (1) Der kleine Pauly (2) Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, Ausführliches Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Literatur (2) Benjamin Hederich, Gründliches mythologisches Lexikon Online Sources: (1) Wikipedia Best regards and a Happy New Year Jochen
