Plutarch's Lives Volume I Part 8

His division was according to their trades, and consisted of the musicians, the goldsmiths, the builders, the dyers, the shoemakers, the carriers, the coppersmiths, and the potters. All the other trades he united into one guild. He a.s.signed to each trade its special privileges, common to all the members, and arranged that each should have its own times of meeting, and worship its own special patron G.o.d, and by this means he did away with that habit, which hitherto had prevailed among the citizens, of some calling themselves Sabines, and some Romans; one boasting that they were Tatius's men, and other Romulus's. So this division produced a complete fusion and unity. Moreover he has been much praised for another of his measures, that, namely, of correcting the old law which allows fathers to sell their sons for slaves. He abolished this power in the case of married men, who had married with their father's consent; for he thought it a monstrous injustice that a woman, who had married a free man, should be compelled to be the wife of a slave.

XVIII. He also dealt with astronomical matters, not with perfect accuracy, and yet not altogether without knowledge. During the reign of Romulus the months had been in a state of great disorder, some not containing twenty days, some five-and-thirty, and some even more, because the Romans could not reconcile the discrepancies which arise from reckoning by the sun and the moon, and only insisted upon one thing, that the year should consist of three hundred and sixty days.

Numa reckoned the variation to consist of eleven days, as the lunar year contains three hundred and fifty-four days, and the solar year three hundred and sixty-five. He doubled these eleven days and introduced them every other year, after February, as an intercalary month, twenty-two days in duration, which was called by the Romans Mercedinus. This was a remedy for the irregularities of the calendar which itself required more extensive remedies.

He also altered the order of the months, putting March, which used to be the first month, third, and making January the first, which in the time of Romulus had been the eleventh, and February the second, which then had been the twelfth. There are many writers who say that these months, January and February, were added to the calendar by Numa, and that originally there had only been ten months in the year, just as some barbarians have three, and in Greece the Arcadians have four, and the Acarnanians six. The Egyptians originally had but one month in their year, and afterwards are said to have divided it into four mouths; wherefore, though they live in the newest of all countries, they appear to be the most ancient of all nations, and in their genealogies reckon an incredible number of years, because they count their months as years.

XIX. One proof that the Romans used to reckon ten months and not twelve in the year is the name of the last month; for up to the present day it is called _December_, the tenth, and the order of the months shows that March was the first, for the fifth month from it they called _Quintilis_, the fifth; and the sixth month s.e.xtilis, and so on for the others, although, by their putting January and February before March, it resulted that the month which they number fifth is really seventh in order. Moreover, there is a legend that the month of March, being the first, was dedicated by Romulus to Mars, and the second, April, to Aphrodite (Venus); in which month they sacrifice to this G.o.ddess, and the women bathe on the first day of it crowned with myrtle. Some, however, say that April is not named after Aphrodite, because the word April does not contain the letter _h_, and that it comes from the Latin word _aperio_, and means the month in which the spring-time opens the buds of plants; for that is what the word signifies. Of the following months, May is named after Maia, the mother of Hermes or Mercury, for it is dedicated to her, and June from Juno. Some say that these names signify old age and youth, for old men are called by the Latins majores, and young men juniores. The remaining months they named, from the order in which they came, the fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth: Quintilis, s.e.xtilis, September, October, November, December. Then Quintilis was called Julius after Julius Caesar, who conquered Pompeius; and s.e.xtilis was called Augustus, after the second of the Roman Emperors. The next two months Domitian altered to his own t.i.tles, but not for any long time, as after his death they resumed their old names of September and October. The last two alone have preserved their original names without change. Of the months, added or altered by Numa, Februarius means the month of purification, for that is as nearly as possible the meaning of the word, and during it they sacrifice to the dead, and hold the festival of the Lupercalia, which resembles a ceremony of purification. The first month, Januarius, is named after Ja.n.u.s. My opinion is, that Numa moved the month named after Mars from its precedence, wishing the art of good government to be honoured before that of war. For Ja.n.u.s in very ancient times was either a deity or a king, who established a social polity, and made men cease from a savage life like that of wild beasts. And for this reason his statues are made with a double face, because he turned men's way of life from one form to another.

XX. There is a temple to him in Rome, which has two doors, and which they call the gate of war. It is the custom to open the temple in time of war, and to close it during peace. This scarcely ever took place, as the empire was almost always at war with some state, being by its very greatness continually brought into collision with the neighbouring tribes. Only in the time of Caesar Augustus, after he had conquered Antonius, it was closed; and before that, during the consulship of Marcus Atilius and t.i.tus Manlius, for a short time, and then was almost immediately reopened, as a new war broke out. But during Numa's reign no one saw it open for a single day, and it remained closed for forty-three years continuously, so utterly had he made wars to cease on all sides.

Not only was the spirit of the Romans subdued and pacified by the gentle and just character of their king, but even the neighbouring cities, as if some soothing healthful air was breathed over them from Rome, altered their habits and longed to live quiet and well-governed, cultivating the earth, bringing up their families in peace, and worshipping the G.o.ds.

And gay festivals and entertainments, during which the people of the various states fearlessly mixed with one another, prevailed throughout Italy, for Numa's knowledge of all that was good and n.o.ble was shed abroad like water from a fountain, and the atmosphere of holy calm by which he was surrounded spread over all men. The very poets when they wrote of that peaceful time were unable to find adequate expressions for it, as one writes--

"Across the shields are cobwebs laid, Rust eats the lance and keen edged blade; No more we hear the trumpets bray.

And from our eyes no more is slumber chased away."

No war, revolution, or political disturbance of any kind is recorded during Numa's reign, neither was there any envy or hatred of him or any attempt by others to obtain the crown; but either fear of the G.o.ds who visibly protected him, or reverence for his virtues, or the special grace of Heaven, made men's lives innocent and untainted with evil, and formed a striking proof of the truth of what Plato said many years afterwards, that the only escape from misery for men is when by Divine Providence philosophy is combined with royal power, and used to exalt virtue over vice. Blessed indeed is the truly wise man, and blessed are they who hear the words of his mouth. Indeed his people require no restraints or punishments, but seeing a plain example of virtue in the life of their chief, they themselves of their own accord reform their lives, and model them upon that gentle and blessed rule of love and just dealing one with another which it is the n.o.blest work of politicians to establish. He is most truly a king who can teach such lessons as these to his subjects, and Numa beyond all others seems to have clearly discerned this truth.

XXI. Historians differ in their accounts of his wives and children. Some say that he married Tatia alone, and was the father of one daughter only, named Pompilia; but others, besides her, a.s.sign to him four sons, named Pompo, Pinus, Calpus, and Mamercus, from whom descended the four n.o.ble families of the Pomponii, Pinarii, Calphurnii, and Mamerci, which for this reason took the t.i.tle of Rex, that is, king. Others again say that these pedigrees were invented to flatter these families, and state that the Pompilian family descends not from Tatia, but from Lucretia, whom he married after he became king. All, however, agree that Pompilia married Marcius, the son of that Marcius who encouraged Numa to accept the crown. This man accompanied Numa to Rome, was made a member of the Senate, and after Numa's death laid claim to the crown, but was worsted by Tullus Hostilius and made away with himself. His son Marcius, who married Pompilia, remained in Rome, and became the father of Ancus Marcius, who was king after Tullus Hostilius, and who was only five years old when Numa died.

We are told by Piso that Numa died, not by a sudden death, but by slow decay from sheer old age, having lived a little more than eighty years.

XXII. He was enviable even in death, for all the friendly and allied nations a.s.sembled at his funeral with national offerings. The senators bore his bier, which was attended by the chief priests, while the crowd of men, women and children who were present, followed with such weeping and wailing, that one would have thought that, instead of an aged king, each man was about to bury his own dearest friend, who had died in the prime of life. At his own wish, it is said, the body was not burned, but placed in two stone coffins and buried on the Janiculum Hill. One of these contained his body, and the other the sacred books which he himself had written, as Greek legislators write their laws upon tablets.

During his life he had taught the priests the contents of these books, and their meaning and spirit, and ordered them to be buried with his corpse, because it was right that holy mysteries should be contained, not in soulless writings, but in the minds of living men. For the same reason they say that the Pythagoreans never reduced their maxims to writing, but implanted them in the memories of worthy men; and when some of their difficult processes in geometry were divulged to some unworthy men, they said that Heaven would mark its sense of the wickedness which had been committed by some great public calamity; so that, as Numa's system so greatly resembled that of Pythagoras, we can easily pardon those who endeavour to establish a connection between them.

Valerius of Antium says that twelve sacred books and twelve books of Greek philosophy were placed in the coffin. Four hundred years afterwards, when Publius Cornelius and Marcus Baebius were consuls, a great fall of rain took place, and the torrent washed away the earth and exposed the coffins. When the lids were removed, one of the coffins was seen by all men to be empty, and without any trace of a corpse in it; the other contained the books, which were read by Petilius the praetor, who reported to the Senate that in his opinion it was not right that their contents should be made known to the people, and they were therefore carried to the Comitium and burned there.

All good and just men receive most praise after their death, because their unpopularity dies with them or even before them; but Numa's glory was enhanced by the unhappy reigns of his successors. Of five kings who succeeded him, the last was expelled and died an exile, and of the other four, not one died a natural death, but three were murdered by conspirators, and Tullus Hostilius, who was king next after Numa, and who derided and insulted his wise ordinances, especially those connected with religion, as lazy and effeminate, and who urged the people to take up arms, was cut down in the midst of his boastings by a terrible disease, and became subject to superst.i.tious fears in no way resembling Numa's piety. His subjects were led to share these terrors, more especially by the manner of his death, which is said to have been by the stroke of a thunderbolt.

COMPARISON OF NUMA WITH LYKURGUS.

I. Now that we have gone through the lives of Numa and Lykurgus, we must attempt, without being daunted by difficulties, to reconcile the points in which they appear to differ from each other. Much they appear to have had in common, as, for example, their self-control, their piety, and their political and educational ability; and while the peculiar glory of Numa is his acceptance of the throne, that of Lykurgus is his abdication. Numa received it without having asked for it; Lykurgus when in full possession gave it up. Numa, though a private man and not even a Roman, was chosen by the Romans as their king; but Lykurgus from being a king reduced himself to a private station. It is honourable to obtain a crown by righteousness, but it is also honourable to prefer righteousness to a crown. Numa's virtue made him so celebrated that he was judged worthy to be king, Lykurgus' made him so great that he did not care to be king.

Again, like those who tune the strings of a lyre, Lykurgus drew tighter the relaxed and licentious Sparta, while Numa merely slackened the highly strung and warlike Rome, so that here Lykurgus had the more difficult task. He had to persuade his countrymen, not to take off their armour and lay aside their swords, but to leave off using gold and silver, and to lay aside costly hangings and furniture; he had not to make them exchange wars for sacrifices and gay festivals, but to cease from feasts and drinking-parties, and work hard both in the field and in the palaestra to train themselves for war.

For this reason, Numa was able to effect his purpose without difficulty, and without any loss of popularity and respect; while Lykurgus was struck and pelted, and in danger of his life, and even so could scarcely carry out his reforms. Yet the genius of Numa was kindly and gentle, and so softened and changed the reckless fiery Romans that they became peaceful, law-abiding citizens; and if we must reckon Lykurgus'

treatment of the Helots as part of his system, it cannot be denied that Numa was a far more civilised lawgiver, seeing that he allowed even to actual slaves some taste of liberty, by his inst.i.tution of feasting them together with their masters at the festival of Saturn.

For this custom of allowing the labourers to share in the harvest-feast is traced to Numa. Some say that this is in remembrance of the equality which existed in the time of Saturn, when there was neither master nor slave, but all were kinsmen and had equal rights.

II. Both evidently encouraged the spirit of independence and self-control among their people, while of other virtues, Lykurgus loved bravery, and Numa loved justice best; unless indeed we should say that, from the very different temper and habits of the two states, they required to be treated in a different manner. It was not from cowardice, but because he scorned to do an injustice, that Numa did not make war; while Lykurgus made his countrymen warlike, not in order that they might do wrong, but that they might not be wronged. Each found that the existing system required very important alterations to check its excesses and supply its defects. Numa's reforms were all in favour of the people, whom he cla.s.sified into a mixed and motley mult.i.tude of goldsmiths and musicians and cobblers; while the const.i.tution introduced by Lykurgus was severely aristocratic, driving all handicrafts into the hands of slaves and foreigners, and confining the citizens to the use of the spear and shield, as men whose trade was war alone, and who knew nothing but how to obey their leaders and to conquer their enemies. In Sparta a free man was not permitted to make money in business, in order that he might be truly free.

Each thing connected with the business of making money, like that of preparing food for dinner, was left in the hands of slaves and helots.

Numa made no regulations of this kind, but, while he put an end to military plundering, raised no objection to other methods of making money, nor did he try to reduce inequalities of fortune, but allowed wealth to increase unchecked, and disregarded the influx of poor men into the city and the increase of poverty there, whereas he ought at the very outset, like Lykurgus, while men's fortunes were still tolerably equal, to have raised some barrier against the encroachments of wealth, and to have restrained the terrible evils which take their rise and origin in it. As for the division of the land among the citizens, in my opinion, Lykurgus cannot be blamed for doing it, nor yet can Numa for not doing it. The equality thus produced was the very foundation and corner-stone of the Lacedaemonian const.i.tution, while Numa had no motive for disturbing the Roman lands, which had only been recently distributed among the citizens, or to alter the arrangements made by Romulus, which we may suppose were still in force throughout the country.

III. With regard to a community of wives and children, each took a wise and statesman-like course to prevent jealousy, although the means employed by each were different. A Roman who possessed a sufficient family of his own might be prevailed upon by a friend who had no children to transfer his wife to him, being fully empowered to give her away, by divorce, for this purpose; but a Lacedaemonian was accustomed to lend his wife for intercourse with a friend, while she remained living in his house, and without the marriage being thereby dissolved.

Many, we are told, even invited those who, they thought, would beget fine and n.o.ble children, to converse with their wives. The distinction between the two customs seems to be this: the Spartans affected an unconcern and insensibility about a matter which excites most men to violent rage and jealousy; the Romans modestly veiled it by a legal contract which seems to admit how hard it is for a man to give up his wife to another. Moreover Numa's regulations about young girls were of a much more feminine and orderly nature, while those of Lykurgus were so highflown and unbecoming to women, as to have been the subject of notice by the poets, who call them _Phainomerides_, that is with bare thighs, as Ibykus says; and they accuse them of l.u.s.t, as Euripides says--

"They stay not, as befits a maid, at home, But with young men in shameless dresses roam."

For in truth the sides of the maiden's tunic were not fastened together at the skirt, and so flew open and exposed the thigh as they walked, which is most clearly alluded to in the lines of Sophokles--

"She that wanders nigh, With scanty skirt that shows the thigh, A Spartan maiden fair and free, Hermione."

On this account they are said to have become bolder than they should be, and to have first shown this spirit towards their husbands, ruling uncontrolled over their households, and afterwards in public matters, where they freely expressed their opinions upon the most important subjects. On the other hand, Numa preserved that respect and honour due from men to matrons which they had met with under Romulus, who paid them these honours to atone for having carried them off by force, but he implanted in them habits of modesty, sobriety, and silence, forbidding them even to touch wine, or to speak even when necessary except in their husbands' presence. It is stated that once, because a woman pleaded her own cause in the Forum, the Senate sent to ask the oracle what this strange event might portend for the state.

A great proof of the obedience and modesty of the most part of them is the way in which the names of those who did any wrong is remembered.

For, just as in Greece, historians record the names of those who first made war against their own kindred or murdered their parents, so the Romans tell us that the first man who put away his wife was Spurius Carvilius, nothing of the kind having happened in Rome for two hundred and thirty years from its foundation; and that the wife of Pinarius, Thalaea by name, was the first to quarrel with her mother-in-law Gegania in the reign of Tarquinius Superbus--so well and orderly were marriages arranged by this lawgiver.

IV. The rest of their laws for the training and marriage of maidens agree with one another, although Lykurgus put off the time of marriage till they were full-grown, in order that their intercourse, demanded as it was by nature, might produce love and friendship in the married pair rather than the dislike often experienced by an immature child towards her husband, and also that their bodies might be better able to support the trials of child-bearing, which he regarded as the sole object of marriage; whereas the Romans gave their daughters in marriage at the age of twelve years or even younger, thinking thus to hand over a girl to her husband pure and uncorrupt both in body and mind. It is clear that the former system is best for the mere production of children, and the latter for moulding consorts for life. But by his superintendence of the young, his collecting them into companies, his training and drill, with the table and exercises common to all, Lykurgus showed that he was immensely superior to Numa, who, like any commonplace lawgiver, left the whole training of the young in the hands of their fathers, regulated only by their caprice or needs; so that whoever chose might bring up his son as a shipwright, a coppersmith, or a musician, as though the citizens ought not from the very outset to direct their attention to one object, but were like people who have embarked in the same ship for various causes, who only in time of danger act together for the common advantage of all, and at other times pursue each his own private ends.

Allowance must be made for ordinary lawgivers, who fail through want of power or of knowledge in establishing such a system; but no such excuse can be made for Numa, who was a wise man, and who was made king of a newly-created state which would not have opposed any of his designs.

What could be of greater importance than to regulate the education of the young and so to train them that they might all become alike in their lives and all bear the same impress of virtue? It was to this that Lykurgus owed the permanence of his laws; for he could not have trusted to the oaths which he made them take, if he had not by education and training so steeped the minds of the young in the spirit of his laws, and by his method of bringing them up implanted in them such a love for the state, that the most important of his enactments remained in force for more than five hundred years; for the lives of all Spartans seem to have been coloured by these laws. That which was the aim and end of Numa's policy, that Rome should be at peace and friendly with her neighbours, ceased immediately upon his death; at once the double-gated temple, which he kept closed as if he really kept war locked up in it, had both its gates thrown open and filled Italy with slaughter. His excellent and righteous policy did not last for a moment, for the people were not educated to support it, and therefore it could not be lasting.

But, it may be asked, did not Rome flourish by her wars? It is hard to answer such a question, in an age which values wealth, luxury, and dominion more than a gentle peaceful life that wrongs no one and suffices for itself. Yet this fact seems to tell for Lykurgus, that the Romans gained such an enormous increase of power by departing from Numa's policy, while the Lacedaemonians, as soon as they fell away from the discipline of Lykurgus, having been the haughtiest became the most contemptible of Greeks, and not only lost their supremacy, but had even to struggle for their bare existence. On the other hand, it was truly glorious for Numa that he was a stranger and sent for by the Romans to be their king; that he effected all his reforms without violence, and ruled a city composed of discordant elements without any armed force such as Lykurgus had to a.s.sist him, winning over all men and reducing them to order by his wisdom and justice.

LIFE OF SOLON.

I. Didymus the grammarian, in the book about Solon's laws which he wrote in answer to Asklepiades, quotes a saying of one Philokles, that Solon was the son of Euphorion, which is quite at variance with the testimony of all other writers who have mentioned Solon: for they all say that he was the son of Exekestides, a man whose fortune and power were only moderate, but whose family was of the n.o.blest in Athens; for he was descended from Kodrus the last Athenian king. Herakleides of Pontus relates that the mother of Solon was first cousin to the mother of Peisistratus. The two boys, we are told, were friends when young, and when in after years they differed in politics they still never entertained harsh or angry feelings towards one another, but kept alive the sacred flame of their former intimate friendship. Peisistratus is even said to have dedicated the statue of Love in the Academy where those who are going to run in the sacred torch-race light their torches.

II. According to Hermippus, Solon, finding that his father had by his generosity diminished his fortune, and feeling ashamed to be dependent upon others, when he himself was come of a house more accustomed to give than to receive, embarked in trade, although his friends were eager to supply him with all that he could wish for. Some, however, say that Solon travelled more with a view to gaining experience and learning than to making money. He was indeed eager to learn, as he wrote when an old man,

"Old to grow, but ever learning,"

but disregarded wealth, for he wrote that he regarded as equally rich the man who owned

"Gold and broad acres, corn and wine; And he that hath but clothes and food, A wife, and youthful strength divine."

Yet elsewhere he has written, but

"I long for wealth, not by fraud obtained, For curses wait on riches basely gained."

There is no reason for an upright statesman either to be over anxious for luxuries or to despise necessaries. At that period, as Hesiod tells us, "Work was no disgrace," nor did trade carry any reproach, while the profession of travelling merchant was even honourable, as it civilised barbarous tribes, and gained the friendship of kings, and learned much in many lands. Some merchants founded great cities, as, for example, Protis, who was beloved by the Gauls living near the Rhone, founded Ma.r.s.eilles. It is also said that Thales the sage, and Hippocrates the mathematician, travelled as merchants, and that Plato defrayed the expenses of his journey to Egypt by the oil which he disposed of in that country.

III. Solon's extravagance and luxurious mode of life, and his poems, which treat of pleasure more from a worldly than a philosophic point of view, are attributed to his mercantile training; for the great perils of a merchant's life require to be paid in corresponding pleasures. Yet it is clear that he considered himself as belonging to the cla.s.s of the poor, rather than that of the rich, from the following verses:

"The base are rich, the good are poor; and yet Our virtue for their gold we would not change; For that at least is ours for evermore, While wealth we see from hand to hand doth range."

His poetry was originally written merely for his own amus.e.m.e.nt in his leisure hours; but afterwards he introduced into it philosophic sentiments, and interwove political events with his poems, not in order to record them historically, but in some cases to explain his own conduct, and in others to instruct, encourage, or rebuke the Athenians.

Some say that he endeavoured to throw his laws into an epic form, and tell us that the poem began--

"To Jove I pray, great Saturn's son divine, To grant his favour to these laws of mine."