The city had originally but a
small territory of its own, and Romulus gained the greater part of its
possessions by the sword. All this Numa distributed among the needy
citizens, thereby removing the want which urged them to deeds of
violence, and, by turning the people's thoughts to husbandry, he made
them grow more civilised as their land grew more cultivated. No
profession makes men such passionate lovers of peace as that of a man
who farms his own land; for he retains enough of the warlike spirit to
fight fiercely in defence of his own property, but has lost all desire
to despoil and wrong his neighbours. It was for this reason that Numa
encouraged agriculture among the Romans, as a spell to charm away war,
and loved the art more because of its influence on men's minds than
because of the wealth which it produced. He divided the whole country
into districts, which he called pagi, and appointed a head man for
each, and a patrol to guard it. And sometimes he himself would inspect
them, and, forming an opinion of each man's character from the condition
of his farm, would raise some to honours and offices of trust, and
blaming others for their remissness, would lead them to do better in
future.
XVII. Of his other political measures, that which is most admired is his
division of the populace according to their trades. For whereas the
city, as has been said, originally consisted of two races, which stood
aloof one from the other and would not combine into one, which led to
endless quarrels and rivalries, Numa, reflecting that substances which
are hard and difficult to combine together, can nevertheless be mixed
and formed into one mass if they are broken up into small pieces,
because then they more easily fit into each other, determined to divide
the whole mass of the people of Rome into many classes, and thus, by
creating numerous petty rivalries, to obliterate their original and
greatest cause of variance.
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