§1.19.1qui regno ita potitus urbem novam, conditam vi et armis, iure eam legibusque ac moribus de integro condere parat. §1.19.2quibus cum inter bella adsuescere videret non posse, quippe efferari militia animos, mitigandum ferocem populum armorum desuetudine ratus, Ianum ad infimum Argiletum indicem pacis bellique fecit, apertus ut in armis esse civitatem, clausus pacatos circa omnes populos significaret. §1.19.3bis deinde post Numae regnum clausus fuit, semel T. Manlio consule post Punicum primum perfectum bellum, iterum, quod nostrae aetati dii dederunt ut videremus, post bellum Actiacum ab imperatore Caesare Augusto pace terra marique parta. §1.19.4clauso eo cum omnium circa finitimorum societate ac foederibus iunxisset animos, positis externorum periculorum curis ne luxuriarent otio animi, quos metus hostium disciplinaque militaris continuerat, omnium primum, rem ad multitudinem inperitam et illis saeculis rudem efficacissimam, deorum metum iniciendum ratus est. §1.19.5qui cum descendere ad animos sine aliquo commento miraculi non posset, simulat sibi cum dea Egeria congressus nocturnos esse; eius se monitu, quae acceptissima diis essent, sacra instituere, sacerdotes suos cuique deorum praeficere. §1.19.6atque omnium primum ad cursus lunae in duodecim menses discribit annum; quem, quia tricenos dies singulis mensibus luna non explet, desuntque dies solido anno, qui solstitiali circumagitur orbe, intercalariis mensibus interponendis ita dispensavit, ut vicesimo anno ad metam eandem solis, unde orsi essent, plenis omnium annorum spatiis dies congruerent. §1.19.7idem nefastos dies fastosque fecit, quia aliquando nihil cum populo agi utile futurum erat.
Having thus obtained the kingdom, he prepared to found anew, upon a basis of law, ordinances, and customs, the new city which had been founded by force and arms. Since he saw that they could not become accustomed to these things in the midst of wars, because their minds were rendered savage by military service, and thinking that the fierce people should be softened by disuse of arms, he built the temple of Janus at the bottom of the Argiletum as an index of peace and war, so that when open it might signify that the state was in arms, and when closed that all the surrounding peoples were pacified. Thereafter, it was closed twice after the reign of Numa: once during the consulship of Titus Manlius after the completion of the First Punic War, and a second time—which the gods granted to our generation to see—after the battle of Actium, when peace had been established on land and sea by the Emperor Caesar Augustus. When, after it was closed, he had united the minds of all the neighboring peoples through alliances and treaties, lest their minds, which fear of the enemy and military discipline had kept in check, should grow soft with leisure now that the anxiety of external dangers was laid aside, he thought that first of all, a fear of the gods should be instilled, which was a most effective means for an ignorant and, in those times, uncivilized multitude. Since this could not penetrate their minds without some fiction of a miracle, he pretended that he had nightly meetings with the goddess Egeria; and that by her advice he instituted the sacred rites which were most acceptable to the gods, and appointed for each of the gods their own priests. And first of all, he divided the year into twelve months according to the courses of the moon; and because the moon does not complete thirty days in each month, and days are wanting to the full year which is measured by the solar revolution, he so regulated it by the insertion of intercalary months that in the twentieth year the days should agree with the same starting point of the sun from which they had begun, the full periods of all the years being completed. He also made some days sacred and others common, because at times it would be useful for no business to be transacted with the people.