Prayer to Janus

Ausonius is entering on his consulship, and on the eve of the January Kalends, having taken up the fasces, he speaks a New Year prayer. The year is 379.

The first line is three imperatives of one verb: veni … veni … veni. Three are summoned at once, and two of them are not gods in the ordinary sense but the new year itself and the renewed Sun. The New Year rite addresses time as a person.

The second line puns on the author's name: consulis Ausonii Latiam visure curulem, the curule chair of the consul Ausonius, where Ausonius is both his family name and "Ausonian", that is Italian. The poet writes himself into the name of the country whose consul he has become.

It is worth remembering who is speaking: Ausonius was a Christian and the tutor of a Christian emperor, and the prayer is pagan to its last word. In the fourth century a text like this is not a profession of faith but the ritual of an office, detached from belief.

The work has been corrected: the card cited "Epigrammata 3-5"; this is the Precationes.