in the solution of the crisis. The consecration of the Mount probably referred to its summit only. The ritual requested the participation of both an augur (presumably Manius Valerius himself) and a pontifex. The second secession was caused by the autocratic and arrogant behaviour of the decemviri, who had been charged by the Roman people with writing down the laws in use till then kept secret by the patrician magistrates and the sacerdotes. All magistracies and the tribunes of the plebs had resigned in advance. The task resulted in the XII Tables, which though concerned only private law. The plebs once again retreated to the Sacer Mons: this act besides recalling the first secession was meant to seek the protection of the supreme god. The secession ended with the resignation of the decemviri and an amnesty for the rebellious soldiers who had deserted from their camp near Mount Algidus while warring against the Volscians, abandoning the commanders. The amnesty was granted by the senate and guaranteed by the pontifex maximus Quintus Furius (in Livy's version) (or Marcus Papirius) who also supervised the nomination of the new tribunes of the plebs, then gathered on the Aventine Hill. The role played by the pontifex maximus in a situation of vacation of powers is a significant element underlining the religious basis and character of the tribunicia potestas. Myths and legends A dominant line of scholarship has held that Rome lacked a body of myths in its earliest period, or that this original mythology has been irrecoverably obscured by the influence of the Greek narrative tradition. After the influence of Greek culture on Roman culture, Latin literature and iconography reinterpreted the myths of Zeus in depictions and narratives of Jupiter. In the legendary history of Rome, Jupiter is often connected to kings and kingship. Birth Jupiter is depicted as the twin of Juno in a statue at Praeneste that showed them nursed by Fortuna Primigenia. An inscription that is also from Praeneste, however, says that Fortuna Primigenia was Jupiter's first-born child. Jacqueline Champeaux sees this contradiction as the result of successive different cultural and religious phases, in which a wave of influence coming from the Hellenic world made Fortuna the daughter of Jupiter. The childhood of Zeus is an important theme in Greek religion, art and literature, but there are only rare (or dubious) depictions of Jupiter as a child. Numa Pompilius Faced by