Being sent for, just as Romulus obtained the throne by the augury in accordance with which he founded the city, so Numa in like manner commanded the gods to be consulted concerning himself.  Upon this, being escorted into the citadel by an augur, to whose profession that office was later made a public and perpetual one by way of honour, he sat down on a stone facing the south:  the augur took his seaton his left hand with his head covered, holding in his right a crooked wand free from knots, called lituus; then, after having taken a view over the city and country, and offered a prayer to the gods, he defined the bounds of the regions of the sky from east to west:  the parts toward the south he called the right, those toward the north, the left; and in front of him he marked out in his mind the sign as far as ever his eyes could see.  Then having shifted the lituus into his left hand, and placed his right on the head of Numa, he prayed after this manner:  “O father Jupiter, if it be thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, be king of Rome, mayest thou manifest infallible signs to us within those bounds which I have marked.”  Then he stated in set terms the auspices which he wished to be sent:  on their being sent, Numa was declared king and came down from the seat of augury.

Having thus obtained the kingdom, he set about establishing anew, on the principles of law and morality, the newly founded city that had been already established by force of arms.  When he saw that the inhabitants, inasmuch as men’s minds are brutalized by military life, could not become reconciled to such principles during the continuance of wars, considering that the savage nature of the people must be toned down by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of Argiletum[18] a temple of Janus, as a sign of peace and war, that when open, it might show that the state was engaged in war, and when shut, that all the surrounding nations were at peace.  Twice only since the reign of Numa has this temple been shut:  once when Titus Manlius was consul, after the conclusion of the first Punic war; and a second time, which the gods granted our generation to behold, by the Emperor Caesar Augustus, after the battle of Actium, when peace was established by land and sea.  This being shut, after he had secured the friendship of all the neighbouring states around by alliance and treaties, all anxiety regarding dangers from abroad being now removed, in order to prevent their minds, which the fear of enemies and military discipline had kept in check, running riot from too much leisure, he considered, that, first of all, awe of the gods should be instilled into them, a principle of the greatest efficacy in dealing with the multitude, ignorant and uncivilized as it was in those times.  But as this fear could not sink deeply into their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he pretended that he held nightly interviews with the goddess Egeria; that by her direction he instituted sacred rites such as would be most acceptable