Upon this, being conducted into the citadel by an augur, (to which profession that office was made a public one and perpetual by way of honour,) he sat down on a stone facing the south: the augur took his seat on his left hand with his head covered, holding in his light a crooked wand free from knots, which they called _lituus_; then taking a view towards the city and country, after offering a prayer to the gods, he marked out the regions from east to west, the parts towards the south he called the right, those towards the north, the left; and in front of him he set out in his mind a sign as far as ever his eye could reach.

Then having shifted the lituus into his left hand, placing his right hand on the head of Numa, he prayed in this manner: "O father Jupiter, if it is thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be king of Rome, I beseech thee to give sure and evident signs of it within those bounds which I have marked." Then he stated in set terms the omens which he wished to be sent; and on their being sent, Numa was declared king and came down from the stand.
[Footnote 23: _Ex quibus locis, quae fama in Sabinos, aut quo linguae commercio -- -- quenquam excivisset_.

"From which (remote) places, what high character of him (could have reached) to the Sabines, or by what intercourse of language could such high character of him have aroused any one to become a pupil ?" Other editions read _qua fama_; thus, from which places by what high character for talent, or by what intercourse of language, could he, Pythagoras, have aroused any one, etc. ?] 19.

Having thus obtained the kingdom, he sets about establishing anew, on the principles of laws and morals, the city recently established by violence and arms.

When he saw that their minds, as having been rendered ferocious by military life, could not be reconciled to those principles during the continuance of wars, considering that a fierce people should be mollified by the disuse of arms, he erected at the foot of Argiletum a temple of Janus, as an index of peace and war; that when open, it might show the state was engaged in war, and when shut, that all the neighbouring nations were at peace with it.