NUMA POMPILIUS, the second of the legendary kings of Rome, was a Sabine, a native of Cures; his father's name was Pompo and his wife was daughter of Tatius, the Sabine colleague of Romulus. His election, which was made by the Roman people and ratified by the senate, took place at the close of a year's interregnum, during which the sovereignty had been exercised by the members of the senate in rotation. He is represented as having been a quiet unambitious man (Tacita was his favourite muse) ; but even the ancients perceived the difficulty of making him a disciple of Pythagoras of Samos. His peaceful reign of forty-three years was marked by the creation of many of the most characteristic institutions of Rome ; it was he who set up the worship of the god Terminus, appointed the festival of Fides, built the temple of Janus, reorganized the calendar, fixed days of business and days of cessation therefrom, instituted the flamens of Mars and Quirinus, the virgins of Vesta, the salii, the fetiales, the pontifices ; in a word, the city which had been founded by means of violence and arms he succeeded in "founding anew upon principles of justice, law, and morality." He derived his inspiration from Egeria or ./Egeria, his spouse, whom he used to meet unattended in the grove of the Camenm, where a perennial spring gushed from a dark recess. He was above eighty when he died of a gentle decline. His daughter Pompilia, wife of the pontifex Numa Marcius, was the mother of Ancus Marcius. Livy (xl. 29) tells a curious story of the finding at the foot of the Janiculum in 181 B.C. of two stone chests, with inscriptions in Greek and Latin, one purporting to contain the body of Numa and the other his books. The first when opened was found to be empty, but the second con- tained fourteen books relating to philosophy and pontifical law, which, being perceived to have "a tendency to undermine the established system of religion," were forthwith publicly burned.