Napoleon III - History of Julius Caesar Vol. 1 of 2

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 9, 23.

“Within the town, the buildings were not allowed to approach the ramparts, which they now ordinarily touch, and outside a space extended which it was forbidden to cultivate. To all this space, which it was not permitted to inhabit or cultivate, the Romans gave the name of Pomœrium . When, in consequence of the increase of the town, the rampart was carried farther out, this consecrated zone on each side was still preserved.” (Titus Livius, I. 44.)

“Founded on the testimony of the sacred books which are preserved with great care in the temples.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, XI. 62.)

“These precious pledges, which they regard as so many images of the gods.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VI. 45.)

“Hence is explained the origin of the name given to the Capitol: in digging the foundation of the temple, they found a human head; and the augurs declared that Rome would become the head of all Italy.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 61.)

“This recourse to the opinions of the priests and the observations of religious worship made the people forget their habits of violence and their taste for arms. Their minds, incessantly occupied with religious ideas, acknowledged the intervention of Providence in human affairs, and all hearts were penetrated with a piety so lively that good faith and fidelity to an oath reigned in Rome more than fear of laws or punishments.” (Titus Livius, I. 21.)

Titus Livius, I. 45.

“Assemblies of people, levies of troops – indeed, the most important operations – were abandoned, if the birds did not approve them.” (Titus Livius, I. 36.)

“Numa established also the auspicious and inauspicious days, for with the people an adjournment might sometimes be useful.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.)

“We have a town, founded on the faith of auspices and auguries; not a spot within these walls which is not full of gods and their worshippers; our solemn sacrifices have their days fixed as well as the place where they are to be made.” (Titus Livius, V. 52, Speech of Camillus , VI. &c.)

Cicero, De Republica , II. 14.

“All religious acts, public and private, were submitted to the decision of the pontiff; thus the people knew to whom to address themselves, and disorders were prevented which might have brought into religion the neglect of the national rites or the introduction of foreign ones. It was the same pontiff’s duty also to regulate what concerned funerals, and the means of appeasing the Manes, and to distinguish, among prodigies announced by thunder and other phenomena, those which required an expiation.” (Titus Livius, I. 20.)

“The grand pontiff exercises the functions of interpreter and diviner, or rather of hierophant. He not only presides at the public sacrifices, but he also inspects those which are made in private, and takes care that the ordinances of religious worship are not transgressed. Lastly, it is he who teaches what each individual ought to do to honour the gods and to appease them.” (Plutarch, Numa , 12.)

“Numa divided the year into twelve months, according to the moon’s courses; he added January and February to the year.” (Titus Livius, I. 19. – Plutarch, Numa , 18.)

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 73.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 64.

Salian is derived from salire (to leap, to dance). (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 70.) – It was their duty, on certain occasions, to execute sacred dances, and to chant hymns in honour of the god of war.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72. – “The name of feciales is derived from the circumstance that they presided over the public faith between peoples; for it was by their intervention that war when undertaken assumed the character of a just war, and, that once terminated, peace was guaranteed by a treaty. Before war was undertaken, some of the feciales were sent to make whatever demands had to be made.” (Varro, De Lingua Latina , V. § 86.) – “If allies complained that the Romans had done them wrong, and demanded reparation for it, it was the business of the feciales to examine if there were any violation of treaty.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 72.) – Those fecial priests had been instituted by Numa, the mildest and most just of kings, to be guardians of peace, and the judges and arbiters of the legitimate motives for undertaking war. (Plutarch, Camillus , 20.)

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 14. – Pliny, Natural History , XXI. 8.

Numa raised a temple to Romulus, whom he deified under the name of Quirinus . (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 63)

“Temple of Vesta, emblem of chastity; temple to Public Faith; raised by Numa.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 65 and 75.)

“The god Terminus; the festival in honour of Pales, the goddess of shepherds; Saturn, the god of agriculture; the god of fallow-grounds, pasture,” &c. (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II. 74.)

“After having done these things in peace and war, Servius Tullius erected two temples to Fortune, who appeared to have been favourable to him all his life, one in the oxen-market, the other on the banks of the Tiber, and he gave her the surname of Virilis , which she has preserved to the present day among the Romans.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, IV. 27.)

“The Temple of Janus had been closed twice since the reign of Numa: the first time by the consul Titus Manlius, at the end of the first Punic war; the second, when the gods granted to our age to see, after the battle of Actium, Cæsar Augustus Imperator give peace to the universe.” (Titus Livius, I. 19.) – And Plutarch says, in his Life of Numa , XX., “Nevertheless, this temple was closed after the victory of Cæsar Augustus over Antony, and it had previously been closed under the consulate of Marcus Atilius and of Titus Manlius, for a short time, it is true; it was almost immediately opened again, for a new war broke out. But, during the reign of Numa, it was not seen open a single day.”

We employ intentionally the word republic , because all the ancient authors give this name to the State, under the kings as well as under the emperors. It is only by translating faithfully these denominations that we can form an exact idea of ancient societies.

“We acknowledge how many good and useful institutions the Republic owed to each of our kings.” (Cicero, De Republica , II. 21.)

“Among the Romans, the children possess nothing of their own during their father’s life. He can dispose not only of all the goods, but even of the lives of his children.” (Dionysius of Halicarnassus, VIII. 79; II. 25.)

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, II., 25, 26. – “From the beginning,” says Mommsen, “the Roman family presented, in the moral order which reigned among its members, and their mutual subordination, the conditions of a superior civilisation.” ( Roman History , 2nd edit., I., p. 54.)