Hereupon the Feciales urged the Senate to deliver the man up to the
Gauls, but he appealed to the people, and by their favour escaped his
just doom. Soon after the Gauls came and sacked Rome, except the
Capitol. But this is treated of more at length in the 'Life of
Camillus.'
XIII. The priests called Salii are said to owe their origin to the
following circumstances: In the eighth year of Numa's reign an epidemic
raged throughout Italy, and afflicted the city of Rome. Now amidst the
general distress it is related that a brazen shield fell from heaven
into the hands of Numa. Upon this the king made an inspired speech,
which he had learned from Egeria and the Muses. The shield, he said,
came for the salvation of the city, and they must guard it, and make
eleven more like it, so that no thief could steal the one that fell from
heaven, because he could not tell which it was. Moreover the place and
the meadows round about it, where he was wont to converse with the
Muses, must be consecrated to them, and the well by which it was watered
must be pointed out as holy water to the vestal virgins, that they might
daily take some thence to purify and sprinkle their temple. The truth
of this is said to have been proved by the immediate cessation of the
plague. He bade workmen compete in imitating the shield, and, when all
others refused to attempt it, Veturius Mamurius, one of the best workmen
of the time, produced so admirable an imitation, and made all the
shields so exactly alike, that even Numa himself could not tell which
was the original.
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