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

470 The Founding of the Principate
the Roman people the quirites, grant thy favor to the
Roman people the quirites and to the legions of the Roman
keep safe the republic of the Roman
people the quirites,
people the quirites,
Roman people the quirites, to the '
be good-willed and propitious to the
fifteen for performing
the sacred rites ' and to us. . . . These things we, the hundred
and ten married matrons of the Roman people the
quirites on our bended knees beg and beseech of thee."
[Reference is then made to further rites including a
sacrifice and prayer to Terra Mater and to Apollo and
Diana on the Palatine Mount.]
After the completion of this sacrifice twenty-seven boys
to whom it had been ordered, whose fathers and mothers
were both alive, and the same number of girls (of the same
description) sang a hymn (on the Palatine) and in the
same way on the Capitoline.
Q. Horatius Flaccus composed the hymn.
[The festival closed with various other ceremonies].
V. From the Secular Hymn
To Apollo
and Diana
(Composed
by Horace
f jr the Secular
games,
with which
Augustus, in
17 B.C., celebrated
the
opening of
a new Sceculum,
or age.
In the plan
of Augustus
the saeculum
was to consist
of a hundred
and ten
vears, but
Ye powers divine,
Unto our docile youth give morals pure!
Ye powers divine,
To placid age give peace,
And to the stock of Romulus ensure
Dominion vast, a never-failing line,
And in all noble things still make them to increase I
And oh! may he who now
To you with milk-white steers uplifts his prayer.
Within whose veins doth flow
Renowned Anchises' blood, and Venus' ever fair,
Be still in war supreme, yet still the foe
His sword hath humbled spare!