17.3
He also appointed social gatherings and public assemblies and rites of worship befitting each body. And thus, at last, he banished from the city the practice of speaking and thinking of some citizens as Sabines, and of others as Romans; or of some as subjects of Tatius, and others of Romulus, so that his division resulted in a harmonious blending of them all together.
17.4
Praise is also given to that measure of his whereby the law permitting fathers to sell their sons was amended. He made an exception of married sons, provided they had married with the consent and approval of their fathers. For he thought it a hard thing that a woman who had married a man whom she thought free, should find herself living with a slave.
18.1
He applied himself, also, to the adjustment of the calendar, not with exactness, and yet not altogether without careful observation. For during the reign of Romulus, they had been irrational and irregular in their fixing of the months, reckoning some at less than twenty days, some at thirty-five, and some at more; they had no idea of the inequality in the annual motions of the sun and moon, but held to this principle only, that the year should consist of three hundred and sixty days.
18.2
But Numa, estimating the extent of the inequality at eleven days, since the lunar year had three hundred and fifty-four days, but the solar year three hundred and sixty-five, doubled these eleven days, and every other year inserted after the month of February the intercalary month called Mercedinus by the Romans, which consisted of twenty-two days.
