Agent of the gods thumb|upright|Numa Pompilius at the Louvre, by Jean Guillaume Moitte Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his wisdom and piety. In addition to the endorsement by Jupiter, he is supposed to have had a direct and personal relationship with a number of deities, most famously the nymph Egeria, who, according to legend, taught him to be a wise legislator. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held nightly consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:19 Numa then appointed the priests for each of the deities. Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviour among the warlike early Romans: honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives.
Agent of the gods thumb|upright|Numa Pompilius at the Louvre, by Jean Guillaume Moitte Numa was traditionally celebrated by the Romans for his wisdom and piety. In addition to the endorsement by Jupiter, he is supposed to have had a direct and personal relationship with a number of deities, most famously the nymph Egeria, who, according to legend, taught him to be a wise legislator. According to Livy, Numa claimed that he held nightly consultations with Egeria on the proper manner of instituting sacred rites for the city.Livy, Ab urbe condita, 1:19 Numa then appointed the priests for each of the deities. Plutarch suggests that he played on superstition to give himself an aura of awe and divine allure, in order to cultivate more gentle behaviour among the warlike early Romans: honoring the gods, abiding by law, behaving humanely to enemies, and living proper, respectable lives.