The margin of the BL manuscript provides a more detailed definition, which slips seamlessly from Scots into Latin: 'ancile vas ane round targe bat fell out of Jse air in Jse towne of rome in [se tyme of
numa pompilius; & quia in eo pendebat so[rs] Romani imperii ideo undecem facta sunt ancilia (ne illud subtraheretur in quo fatum urbis fuit)'.
Aspects of this pontifical glorification include a comparison with previous rulers, especially Roman emperors such as Julius Caesar, Augustus, Pyrrhus,
Numa Pompilius, Trajan, and Vespasian, as well as Alexander the Great of Greece.
One of these, Bonta notes, was the king
Numa Pompilius. This king, Bonta writes, "refused an offer of kingship until a large body of his fellow citizens persuaded him to accept." Immediately he "set about civilizing the Romans and abolishing the crude despotism of his predecessor."
Bankes's description of the prime picture as the Foundation of Rome prompts an identification of the protagonist as the quasi-divine king of Rome,
Numa Pompilius, who succeeded Romulus on his death, and who purportedly established a pre-Augustan Golden Age.
In others, such as the odd couple of Lillian Gish and Paul Cadmus as the nymph Egeria and the Roman king
Numa Pompilius, the obscurity of the reference adds to the mystery of the image, leaving the viewer to come up with his own interpretation.
Despite the lacunae which render parts of the note very difficult, the fundamental points can be understood: Vergil here is referring to the Regia, the building in the Roman Forum, at the bottom of the Palatine, where
Numa Pompilius, the second king of Rome lived until he bequeathed it to the Pontifex Maximus.(4) Because of its royal associations the building was called the Regia.
Those months were invented later by the legendary
Numa Pompilius, said to have been the second king of Rome and successor to its founder, Romulus.
In chapters 5 and 6 he considers how works by Herbert of Cherbury, Charles Blount, John Toland, and John Trenchard use history to show the corruptions of religion by priestcraft, and how |Republican' notions of civil religion found, for instance, in the works of James Harrington, Waker Moyle, and Henry Neville sought support for their politick religion' in references to Cicero and
Numa Pompilius as well as to Machiavelli.
Similarly,
Numa Pompilius had done the same with the Romans.
He wrote that the Roman king
Numa Pompilius strove "to inculcate fear of the gods as the most powerful influence that could act upon ...
Rather, their vision of peace and georgic prosperity goes back to the classical era, where it constitutes one side of the ancient contrast between two basic civilizational types: the warrior aristocracy and the peaceable kingdom.(90) This contrast, to take just one example, structures Plutarch's paired lives of the Spartan Lycurgus and the Roman
Numa Pompilius, the latter of which, significantly, narrates the same model of the civilizing process that structures the Irish tracts.
But we know from the writings of other humanists who dealt with this same theme that ancient rulers such as Moses, Aaron, and the Roman king
Numa Pompilius often were cited in this context.