Numa Marcius, son of Marcius, as pontiff, and consigned to him a
complete system of religious rites written out and recorded, showing
with what victims, upon what days, and at what temples the sacred
rites were to be performed, and from what funds the money was to be
taken to defray the expenses. He also placed all other religious
institutions, public and private, under the control of the decrees of
the pontiff, to the end that there might be some authority to whom
the people should come to ask advice, to prevent any confusion in the
divine worship being caused by their neglecting the ceremonies of
their own country, and adopting foreign ones. He further ordained that
the same pontiff should instruct the people not only in the ceremonies
connected with the heavenly deities, but also in the due performance
of funeral solemnities, and how to appease the shades of the dead; and
what prodigies sent by lightning or any other phenomenon were to be
attended to and expiated. To draw forth such knowledge from the minds
of the gods, he dedicated an altar on the Aventine to Jupiter Elicius,
and consulted the god by means of auguries as to what prodigies ought
to be attended to.

The attention of the whole people having been thus diverted from
violence and arms to the deliberation and adjustment of these matters,
both their minds were engaged in some occupation, and the watchfulness
of the gods now constantly impressed upon them, as the deity of heaven
seemed to interest itself in human concerns, had filled the breasts of
all with such piety, that faith and religious obligations governed the
state, the dread of laws and punishments being regarded as secondary.
And while the people of their own accord were forming themselves on
the model of the king, as the most excellent example, the neighbouring
states also, who had formerly thought that it was a camp, not a city,
that had been established in their midst to disturb the general peace,