This form of
government the Romans call an interregnum.
III. But, although they appeared to manage things so smoothly,
suspicions and threatenings of disturbance arose, for men said that they
meditated altering the form of government to an oligarchy, in order to
keep all political power in their own hands, and would not therefore
elect a king. Hereupon the two factions agreed that one should select a
king from the ranks of the other. This, they thought, would both put an
end to their quarrels for the present, and also ensure the candidate who
should be chosen being impartial, because he would be friendly to the
one party because it had chosen him, and to the other because he
belonged to it by birth. The Sabines gave the Romans their choice which
they would do; and they decided that it would be better to choose a
Sabine king themselves, than to be ruled by a Roman chosen by the
Sabines. After deliberation amongst themselves, they chose Numa
Pompilius, a man who was not one of those Sabines who had settled in
Rome, but whose excellence was so well-known to all, that the Sabines,
as soon as they heard his name, were even more eager for him than the
Romans who had chosen him. When they had informed the people of their
decision, they sent an embassy to Numa, composed of the leading men of
both parties, to beg of him to come to Rome and assume the crown.
Numa belonged to a celebrated Sabine city, Cures, from which the united
Romans and Sabines called themselves Quirites.
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