Plutarch - 'Numa Pompilius'

According to Plutarch, Numa Pompilius was the second king of Rome. The first king was the legendary Romulus and after he died there was quite a dispute over who should succeed him. At the time, the city of Rome was basically peopled by two tribes, the Sabines and the Romans. In trying to find a successor, both tribes wanted one of their people to lead them. As a compromise, each tribe decided to pick someone from the other. This exercise made it clear that Numa should be their new king.
He was reluctant but they argued him into the spot. He consulted the augers and they told him that the gods were fine with it. So he accepted. One of the reasons that he held back is because he thought that Rome would want to continue its warlike ways and he was a man of peace. In fact his reign was something of a pause for the Romans.
Numa was scholarly and deeply dedicated to pleasing the gods. In his time he created several temples and orders of priests. In fact, the word Pontiff is thought to come from his name.
He also tried to fix the calendar so that it matched up with the solar cycle. He did fairly well at this but didn't account for the quarter day (or so) of slippage. It fell to Julius Caesar to add in the leap year.
I was moved by this:

At his own wish, it is said, the body was not burned, but placed in two
stone coffins and buried on the Janiculum Hill. One of these contained his body,
and the other the sacred books which he himself had written, as Greek
legislators write their laws upon tablets. During his life he had taught the
priests the contents of these books, and their meaning and spirit, and ordered
them to be buried with his corpse, because it was right that holy mysteries
should be contained, not in soulless writings, but in the minds of living men.
. . .
Four hundred years afterwards, when Publius Cornelius and Marcus Baebius
were consuls, a great fall of rain took place, and the torrent washed away the
earth and exposed the coffins. When the lids were removed, one of the coffins
was seen by all men to be empty, and without any trace of a corpse in it; the
other contained the books, which were read by Petilius the praetor, who reported
to the Senate that in his opinion it was not right that their contents should be
made known to the people, and they were therefore carried to the Comitium and
burned there.

We are all dust in the end but it's particulary sad when books are lost forever.