Still greater changes took place under Numa, the next ruler, who reigned alone, as did all the kings who followed him; and the buildings that he made on the Forum tell us that he taught the Romans many things.

Now Numa was a man so good and wise, that the Romans had sent messengers to his quiet country home to invite him to become their king; and when it was known that he was nearing the city, the people went out to meet him, and brought him into Rome with great rejoicings. Then they led him to the Forum, where all the citizens gathered together to prove that every man was content to have him king, and when this vote was taken the people agreed as with one voice, while their cheers rang far down the valley. Upon this, the chief men offered Numa the royal robes, but these he refused to accept until he had first asked the favour of the gods, and to do this, he and the priests went up on the Capitoline Hill, while the crowd waited in great silence below. After he had prayed to Jupiter, some birds flew by on his right hand, in token, so said the wise men, that all was as the gods desired. Then Numa came down to the waiting people in the Forum, and, with shouts of joy, they hailed him as their king.

He ruled over the Romans many years, not only governing justly, but building wisely. First, he enclosed the public fire in a round temple to Vesta, the goddess of the Hearth, who had no statue, but was represented by the living flame that burned, not only on her altar, but in every household, and who was the special guardian of every home. And next to this he built a house, called the Atrium, for the young maidens, her priestesses; thus teaching this warlike nation the gentle duties of the home. Near the Temple of Vesta, he also built the king's house, called the Regia, where he lived as both priest and ruler; thus teaching the Romans that their king should direct the worship of the gods, as well as control the affairs of men. He also changed the altar of Janus, the god of Entrances, into a temple having doors, which were to be opened in time of war, and closed in time of peace; thus teaching that the people set about with enemies must watch out from their entrances, but that those who are at peace need no sentinel, and may leave their gates unguarded. During all the days of Numa's reign, the doors of the Temple of Janus were shut, for he turned the fierce Romans from battle and conquest to the ways of peace, showing them how best to worship and to please the gods, and how to govern and to make themselves good laws.

The makers of these wonderful laws were given a house by Tullus Hostilius, the next king, during whose reign no other building was added to the Forum. It was built on the Comitium, still the meeting-place of the ruler and his counselors, and was called the Curia, or Senate-house, or more often, the Curia Hostilia, after its royal founder. When Tullus first became king, the senators used to meet in a small hut of clay; for they no longer came together in the open air under the green trees, as in the days of Romulus. But this did not please the king, for not only was it small, but its floor was often wet by the overflowing waters of the little brook Spinon; so he caused it to be torn down, and he made there a house of stone, entered by steps, and raised from the ground so as to be safe from floods. And there, in the Curia, on the Comitium, the great Roman Senate met for many hundred years.

After the building in which the laws were made, came the building in which those who disobeyed those laws were punished, and in the side of the hill, just above and behind the Comitium, Ancus Martius, the fourth king of Rome, made a dreadful prison. Now Ancus was the grandson of the good Numa, and, loving peace and order, even as did that wise king, he tried to make clear to all the people the meaning of the laws. First, he had the rules, given by Numa for the worship of the gods, written on tablets of wood and hung in the Forum, that every man might learn them; and then, because there are bad men as well as good, he made the prison, that the Romans should respect their government and fear its power. But wrong-doers were not many in the simple days of the kings, and this prison was not at all like our great prisons, with their barred windows and iron doors; it was only a single cell, underneath the ground, and hewn from the solid rock. After a while, a second cell was made, over the first, but still in the rock; and the prison became knows as the Tullianum, because of the little jet of water, or "tullus," which sprang from the ground of the lower cell. Small as was this prison, it was held in dread by all men, for its two cells told only tales of cruelty and horror. When the prisoner had been tried on the Comitium, he was brought up to the prison by a flight of steps, heading from the Forum to the Tullianum, and was fortunate indeed if kept in the upper cell, for the lower dungeon was but a pit, cold and damp from the waters of the spring, and almost without air or light, its only opening being a round hole in the floor of the cell above. Through this hole the miserable victim was dropped into the black depth beneath, and there was strangled, put to death by torture, or cruelly left to starve. No marvel then that the word "Tullianum" filled the hearts of the people with fear! As years went on, the Romans made other prisons, but none were so dreaded, or so filled with terrible memories, as was this one of the Forum.

And now took place the greatest of all the changes made in the valley of the seven hills, for Tarquin, who reigned after Ancus Martius, drained the marshy land, and made it dry and firm, so that it was fit to bear large buildings, and the weight of many men. This king was called Tarquin the Elder because, later, another Tarquin ruled over Rome.

Great were the dreams of this first Tarquin for the glory of the Romans and for their city. He made long drains through the valley, built stone embankments along the sides of the river Tiber, that it should no more overflow the plain, and enclosed the little brook Spinon in a huge sewer called the Cloaca Maxima, or "the greatest of the sewers," which was made to pass under the Forum, at about its centre, and to empty into the Tiber.

These drains were not like our drains, which are large pipes made of clay or iron, but were formed of blocks of stone, so closely and so wonderfully fitted together that no cement was needed to hold them, or to prevent the water from leaking through. The work was done so well that, although many hundred years have passed, these great sewers are still used by the city of Rome, and the vast Cloaca Maxima is pointed out to-day with the same pride that was felt by the ancient writer who boastingly said that it was so large that a Roman hay-cart could be driven through it, and so strong that a falling house could not shake it!

Then Tarquin went yet further in his great work, for having prepared the ground, he planned to improve and adorn the Forum. Perhaps, as he looked upon the grassy plain at the upper end of the valley, he saw, not the market, nor the Senate-house, nor the rude temples, but beheld, instead, as in a vision, vast buildings and beautiful monuments, standing in the centre of a most splendid city—the Rome that was to be. So the King planned for the years to come, and ordered that the length of this large, open space be bordered by shops and houses, all having porticos facing the Forum, that the place should be regular both in look and form. And the King's will was done, for the men to whom he sold the plots of land about the Forum build as he had said.