When he had reigned thirty and seven years there befell the thing that shall now be told. On a certain day he called the people together on the Field of Mars, and held a review of his army. But while he did this there arose suddenly a great storm with loud thunderings and very thick clouds, so that the king was hidden away from the eyes of all the people. Nor indeed was he ever again seen upon the earth. And when men were recovered of their fear they were in great trouble, because they had lost their King, though indeed the Fathers would have it that he had been carried by a whirlwind into heaven. Yet after awhile they began to worship him as being now a god; and when nevertheless some doubted, and would even whisper among themselves that Romulus had been torn in pieces by the Fathers, there came forward a certain Proculus, who spake after this manner: "Ye men of Rome, this day, in the early morning, I saw Romulus, the father of this city, come down from heaven and stand before me. And when great fear came upon me, I prayed that it might be lawful for me to look upon him face to face. Then said he to me, 'Go thy way, tell the men of Rome that it is the will of them that dwell in heaven that Rome should be the chiefest city in the world. Bid them therefore be diligent in war; and let them know for themselves and tell their children after them that there is no power on earth so great that it shall be able to stand against them.' And when he had thus spoken, he departed from me going up into heaven." All men believed Proculus when he thus spake, and the people ceased from their sorrow when they knew that King Romulus had been taken up into heaven.
And now it was needful that another king should be chosen. No man in those days was more renowned for his righteousness and piety than a certain Numa Pompilius that dwelt at Cures in the land of the Sabines. Now it seemed at first to the Senate that the Sabines would be too powerful in the state if a king should be chosen from amongst them, nevertheless because they could not agree upon any other man, at last with one consent they decreed that the kingdom should be offered to him. And Numa was willing to receive it if only the gods consented. And the consent of the gods was asked in this fashion. Being led by the augur into the citadel, he sat down on a stone, with his face looking towards the south, and on his left hand sat the augur, having his head covered and in his hand an augur's staff, which is a wand bent at the end and having no knot. Then looking towards the city and the country round about, he offered prayers to the Gods and marked out the region of the sky from the sunrising to the sunsetting; the parts towards the south he called the right, and the parts towards the north he called the left; and he set a boundary before as far as his eye could reach. After this he took his staff in his left hand and laid his right on the head of Numa, praying in these words: "Father Jupiter, if it be thy will that this Numa Pompilius, whose head I hold, should be King of Rome, show us, I pray thee, clear tokens of this thy will within the space which I have marked out." He then named the tokens which he desired, and when they had been shown, Numa was declared to be King.