A source-book of ancient history - The Search For Mecca

468 The Founding of the Principate
And whatever I see or hear against them, either said or
plotted or done, that I will report, and will be an enemy to
the one who says or plots or does any such thing. And
whomsoever they judge to be enemies, such persons I will
pursue and ward ofif by sea and land. But if I do anything
in violation of this oath, and fail to fulfill it to the letter,
I invoke upon myself and my body and soul and life, and
upon my children and all my race, destruction and ruin
even to the uttermost generation; and may neither earth
nor sea receive the bodies of me and mine or of my children,
and may not earth bear fruit for us.
IV.
The Centenary Festival (Ludi S^culares) of the
Year 17 B.C.
In the upper classes of Rome at this time there seems to have been
a widespread beUef that the social legislation of Augustus, 18 B.C.,
marked the close of the reign of vice and the dawn of an age of purity.
The "board of fifteen for performing sacred rites," among whom was
Augustus, consulted the Sibylline Books, and found in them directions
to make ready, by the celebration of the Secular Games, for
the pure reign of Apollo. Tradition declared that this festival was
first celebrated in the early years of the Republic for the purpose of
expelling a pestilence, and that it was repeated every century—or
rather, every hundred and ten years. The latter was an era established
by the Etruscans with the idea that it was the longest possible
limit of human life.
In addition to this Etruscan element, there were
also Greek and Roman elements in the institution as it existed in the
Augustan age. The following epigraphic account of the Augustan
celebration of the festival is from the minutes of the "board of fifteen,"
translated by the editors.
Prayer of In the following night in the Campus Martins, on the
bank of the Tiber,
Imperator Caesar Augustus sacrificed
according to Greek rite nine female lambs, and nine shegoats,
and prayed: . . . "I pray and beseech you that
ye augment the power and majesty of the Roman people