Plutarch's Romane Questions · Plutarch
15.
_How it commeth to passe, that considering the Romans esteemed Terminus a god, and therefore in honour of him celebrated a feast called thereupon_ Terminalia, _yet they never killed any beast in sacrifice unto him_? IT is because _Romulus_ did appoint no bonds and limits of his countrey, to the end that he might lawfully set out and take in where pleased him, and repute all that land his owne so far as, (according to that saying of the Lacedæmonian) his speare or javelin would reach? But _Numa Pompilius_ a just man and politick withall, one who knew well how to govern, and that by the rule of Philosophie, caused his territorie to be confined betweene him and his neighbour nations, and called those frontier bonds by the name of _Terminus_ as the superintendent, over-seer and keeper of peace and amitie between neighbours; and therefore he supposed, that this _Terminus_ ought to be preserved pure and cleane from all blood, and impollute with any murder.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.