Prayer to Vesta

In 12 BC Augustus became pontifex maximus, and Vesta's shrine came to stand within his house on the Palatine. This is what Ovid is writing about.

His argument is one of kinship. Ortus ab Aenea tangit cognata sacerdos numina — a priest sprung from Aeneas touches divinities akin to him. Vesta came to Italy with Aeneas, the Julii traced themselves to Aeneas, therefore goddess and princeps are relatives, and cognatum, Vesta, tuere caput, guard the kindred head. The ground of the request is genealogy, as with Romulus before Mars (ovid-mars-002).

And in the last line the thing it was all written for is done. Vivite inexstincti, flammaque duxque — live unextinguished, both flame and leader. Vesta's fire and Augustus' life are placed under one imperative and one adjective. An extinguished fire meant the end of Rome; the poet ties the emperor to it grammatically, and that tie holds better than any panegyric.

The card cited lines 426-428; the couplet begins at 425, and 425 is given.