PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius

PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius

8^th – 7^th Century BC

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

This suspicion they sought to turn aside by decreeing divine honours to Romulus, as to one not dead but translated to a higher condition. And Proculus, a man of note, took oath that he saw Romulus caught up into heaven in his arms and vestments, and hear him, as he ascended, cry out that they should hereafter style him by the name of Quinus.

Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 49

Thus did both parties argue and dispute their cause; but lest meanwhile discord, in the absence of all command, should occasion general confusion, it was agreed that the hundred and fifty senators should interchangeably execute the office of supreme magistrate…
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 50

Both parties came at length to the conclusion that the one should choose a king out of the body of the other; the Romans make a choice of a Sabine, or the Sabines name a Roman; this was esteemed the best expedient to put an end to all party spirit, and the prince who should be chosen would have an equal affection to the one party as his electors and to the other as his kinsmen.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 50

This method which Numa used made it believed that he had been much conversant with Pythagoras; for in the philosophy of the one, as in the policy of the other, man’s relations to the deity occupy a great place.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 53

Numa also prescribed rules of regulating the days of mourning, according to certain times and ages. As, for example, a child of three years was not to be mourned for at all; one older, up to ten years, for as many months as it was years old; and the longest time of mourning for any person whatsoever was not to exceed the term of ten months; which was the time appointed for women that lost their husbands to continue in widowhood.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 55

In the eighth year of the reign of Numa, a terrible pestilence, which traversed all Italy, ravaged likewise the city of Rome; and the citizens being in distress and despondent, a brazen target, they say, fell from heaven into hand of Numa… and the Muses had assured him it was sent from heaven for the cure and safety of the city, and that, to keep it secure, he was ordered by them to make eleven others, so like in dimensions and form to the original that no thief should be able to distinguish the true from the counterfeit.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 56

 For there is no employment that gives so keen and quick a relish for peace as husbandry and a country life, which leave in men all that kind of courage that makes them ready to fight in defence of their own, while it destroys the licence that breaks out into acts of injustice and rapacity.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 58

During the reign of Romulus, they had let their months run on without any certain or equal term; some of them contained twenty days, others thirty-five, others more; they had no sort of knowledge of the inequality in the motions of the sun and moon; they only kept to the one rule that the whole course of the year contained three hundred and sixty days. Numan, calculating the difference between the lunar and the solar year at eleven days, for that the moon completed her anniversary course in three hundred and fifty –four days, and the sun in three hundred and sixty-five, to remedy this incongruity doubled the eleven days, and every other year added an intercalary month, to follow February, consisting of twenty-two days, and called the Romans the month Mercedinus. This amendment, however, itself, in course of time, came to need other amendments.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Numa Pompilius, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 58

PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus

PLUTARCH –The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus

9^th Century BC

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

And reign he did, until it was found that the queen, his sister-in-law, was with child; upon which he immediately declared that the kingdom belongs to her issue, provided it were male, and that he himself exercised the regal jurisdiction only as his guardian; the Spartan name for which office is prodicus. Soon after, an overture was made to him by the queen, that she would herself in some way destroy the infant, upon condition that he would marry her when he came to the crown. Abhorring the woman’s wickedness, he nevertheless did not reject her proposal, but, making show of closing with her, despatched the messenger with thanks and expressions of joy, but dissuaded her earnestly from procuring herself to miscarry, which would impair her health, if not endanger her life; he himself, he said would see to it that the child, as soon as born, should be taken out of the way.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 33

Trouble at this, and not knowing what it might come to, he thought it his wisest course to avoid their envy by a voluntary exile, and to travel from place to place until his nephew came to marriageable years, and by having a son, had secured the succession; setting sail, therefore, with this resolution, he first arrived at Crete, where, having considered their several forms of government, and got an acquaintance with the principal men among them, some of their laws he very much approved of, and resolved to make use of them in his own country; a good part he rejected as useless.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 33

Lycurgus  was much missed at Sparta, and often sent for, “for kings indeed we  have,” they said, “who wear the marks and assume the titles of royalty, but as for the qualities of their minds, they have nothing by which they are to be distinguished from their subjects”; adding, that in him alone was the true foundation of sovereignty to be seen, a nature made to rule and a genius to gain obedience.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 34

Among the many changes and alterations which Lycurgus made, the first and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which having a power equal to  the king’s in matter of great consequence, and, as Plato expressed it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth.
 Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 34

For there was an extreme inequality amongst them, and their state was overloaded with a multitude of indigent and necessitous persons, while its whole wealth had centred upon a very few.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 36

…he resolved to make a division of their movables too, that there might be no odious distinction in inequality left amongst them; but finding that it would be very dangerous to go about it openly, he took another course, and defeated their avarice by the following stratagem: he commanded that all gold and silver coin should be called in, and that only a sort of money made of iron should be current, a great weight and quantity of which was very little worth; so that to lay up twenty or thirty pounds there was required a pretty large closet, and to remove it, nothing less than a yoke of oxen. With the diffusion of this money, at once a number of vices were banished from Lacedaemon; for who would rob another of such a coin?
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 36

The third and most masterly stroke of this great lawgiver, by which he struck a yet more effectual blow against luxury and the desire of riches, was the ordinance, he made, that they should all eat in common, of the same bread and same meat, and of kinds that were specified, and should not spend their lives at home, laid on costly couches at splendid tables, delivering themselves up into the hands of their trades men and cooks, to fatten them in corners, like greedy brutes, and to ruin not their minds only but their very bodies which, enfeebled by indulgence and excess would stand in need of long sleep, warm bathing, freedom from work, and in a word, of as much care and attendance was if they were continually sick.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 37

…taking him with him into his house, neither did nor said anything severely to him, but dismissing those whose place it was, bade Alcander to wait upon him at table. The young man, who was of an ingenuous temple, without murmuring did as he was commanded; and being thus admitted to live with Lycurgus, he had an opportunity to observe in him, besides his gentleness and calmness of temper, an extraordinary sobriety and an indefatigable industry, and so, from an enemy, became one of his most zealous admirers, and told his friends and relations that Lycurgus was not that morose and ill-natured man they had formerly taken him for, but the one mild and gentle character of the world. And thus did Lycurgus, for chastisement of his fault, make of a wild and passionate young man one of the discreetest citizens of Sparta.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 37

It was customary also for the eldest man in the company to sy to each of them, as they came in, “Through this,” (pointing to the door), “no words go out.”
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 38

After drinking moderately, every man went to his home without lights, for the use of them was, on all occasions, forbid to the end that they might accustom themselves to march boldly in the dark.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 38

…he ordered the maidens to exercise themselves with wrestling, running, throwing the quoit, and casting the dart, to the end that he fruit they conceived might, in strong and healthy bodies, take firmer root and find better growth, and withal that they , with this greater vigour, might be the more able to undergo the pains of child-bearing.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 39

They taught them, also to speak with a natural and graceful raillery, and to comprehend much matter of thought in few words.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 42

….children in Sparta, by a bait of long silence, came to give just and sententious answers; for, indeed, as loose and incontinent livers are seldom fathers of many children, so loose and incontinent talkers seldom originate many sensible words.
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 42

Pursuant to a sawing recorded of their lawgiver, that a large head of hair added beauty to a good face, and terror to an ugly one. 
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 44

Withal he banished  from Lacedaemon all strangers who would not give a very good reason for their coming thither; not because he was afraid lest they should inform themselves of and imitate his manner of government (as Thucydides says), or learn anything to their good; but rather lest they should introduce something contrary to good manners. With strange people, strange words must be admitted;
Plutarch, The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans: Lycurgus, Great Books, Volume 14, pg. 46