Page:The Children's Plutarch, Romans.djvu/39

 third, March; fourth, April; fifth, May; sixth, June; then the seventh and eighth; ninth, September; tenth, October; eleventh, November; and last, December.”

“All this I will explain to the people of Rome.” “And now, Numa, go again to the Lady of Silence, and think of what I have told you. Farewell.”

What I have related to you is only a myth or legend. Perhaps there never was such a man as King Numa, although tradition calls him the second King of Rome, 715-672, and certainly there never was such a nymph as Egeria, the Lady of the Fountain in the Forest. But for many, many years the Romans believed that Numa was a King of Rome in very early times, and that he had learned wisdom from a nymph by the fountain. It does, indeed, need wisdom to govern cities and countries, for men have strong wills and are hard to rule. You know that persons who study how to rule are called politicians, and the rulers are called statesmen. The Romans were a great and wise people in many ways, and we may learn lessons from the history of their city and republic. Statesmen learn their business by reading history, and by listening to the words of other sage men, and by altering old laws and customs that are not