His legislation about images was also connected with the Pythagorean doctrine, which says that first principles cannot be touched or seen, but are invisible spiritual essences; for Numa forbade the Romans to worship any likenesses of men or of beasts. Among them there was no image of a god, either carved or moulded, in the early times. For a hundred and seventy years they built temples, and placed shrines in them, but made no image of any living thing, considering that it was wrong to make the worse like the better, and that God cannot be comprehended otherwise than by thought.
