Apollo, as it is prescribed for you in those books — and for this reason may every good fortune attend the Roman people, the Quirites — let sacrifice be made to you with nine popana, and nine cakes, and nine phthoes. I beg and pray that you may increase the sovereign power and majesty of the Roman people, the Quirites, in war and peace; as you have always watched over us among the Latins. Forever may you grant safety, victory and health to the Roman people, the Quirites. May you bestow your favor on the Roman people, the Quirites, and on the legions of the Roman people, the Quirites. May you preserve the health and welfare of the people of Rome, the Quirites, and may you always remain willingly favorable and propitious to the people of Rome, the Quirites, to the college of the quindecimviri, to me, to my house and household.
Commentarius · Commentary
From the record of the Secular Games of 17 BC, cut in stone: the prayer at the offering to Apollo and Diana on the Palatine.
This is not literature but administration — and it is the more valuable for that. The prayer is not reproduced here but abbreviated by cross-reference: cetera uti supra, "the rest as above". The stonecutter declines to repeat the formula and refers back to the full text given earlier. A prayer with a cross-reference is something possible only in a document.
The offering speaks too: nine popana, nine cakes, nine phthoes — nine of each of three kinds, and all three names Greek. The Palatine rite for Apollo is deliberately kept in a Greek register, unlike the nocturnal sacrifices on the Tarentum.
The card's English silently expands the cross-reference and writes the formula out in full; the Russian follows the stone and is therefore a third of the length.
