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But, on the other hand, we find, as the same most learned man has
related, that the causes of the sacred rites which were given from the
books of Numa Pompilius could by no means be tolerated, and were
considered unworthy, not only to become known to the religious by being
read, but even to lie written in the darkness in which they had been
concealed. For now let me say what I promised in the third book of
this work to say in its proper place. For, as we read in the same
Varro's book on the worship of the gods, "A certain one Terentius
had a field at the Janiculum, and once, when his ploughman was
passing the plough near to the tomb of Numa Pompilius, he turned up
from the ground the books of Numa, in which were written the causes of
the sacred institutions; which books he carried to the praetor, who,
having read the beginnings of them, referred to the senate what seemed
to be a matter of so much importance. And when the chief senators had
read certain of the causes why this or that rite was instituted, the
senate assented to the dead Numa, and the conscript fathers, as
though concerned for the interests of religion, ordered the praetor to
burn the books." Let each one believe what he thinks; nay, let
every champion of such impiety say whatever mad contention may suggest.
For my part, let it suffice to suggest that the causes of those sacred
things which were written down by King Numa Pompilius, the
institutor of the Roman rites, ought never to have become known to
people or senate, or even to the priests themselves; and also that
Numa him self attained to these secrets of demons by an illicit
curiosity, in order that he might write them down, so as to be able,
by reading, to be reminded of them. However, though he was king,
and had no cause to be afraid of any one, he neither dared to teach
them to any one, nor to destroy them by obliteration, or any other
form of destruction. Therefore, because he was unwilling that any one
should know them, lest men should be taught infamous things, and
because he was afraid to violate them, lest he should enrage the demons
against himself, he buried them in what he thought a safe place,
believing that a plough could not approach his sepulchre. But the
senate, fearing to condemn the religious solemnities of their
ancestors, and therefore compelled to assent to Numa, were
nevertheless so convinced that those books were pernicious, that they
did not order them to be buried again, knowing that human curiosity
would thereby be excited to seek with far greater eagerness after the
matter already divulged, but ordered the scandalous relics to be
destroyed with fire; because, as they thought it was now a necessity
to perform those sacred rites, they judged that the error arising from
ignorance of their causes was more tolerable than the disturbance which
the knowledge of them would occasion the state.
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