d in this
manner? If the republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, shall be
safe and preserved as I wish it may, from these wars for the next five
years, (the war which is between the Roman people and the
Carthaginian, and the wars which are with the Cisalpine Gauls), the
Roman people, the Quirites, shall present whatsoever the spring shall
produce from herds of swine, sheep, goats, oxen and which shall not
have been consecrated, to be sacrificed to Jupiter, from the day which
the senate and people shall appoint. Let him who shall make an
offering do it when he please, and in what manner he please; in
whatsoever manner he does it, let it be considered duly done. If that
which ought to be sacrificed die, let it be unconsecrated, and let no
guilt attach; if any one unwittingly wound or kill it, let it be no
injury to him; if any one shall steal it, let no guilt attach to the
people or to him from whom it was stolen; if any one shall unwittingly
offer it on a forbidden day, let it be esteemed duly offered; also
whether by night or day, whether slave or free-man perform it. If the
senate and people shall order it to be offered sooner than any person
shall offer it, let the people being acquitted of it be free. On the
same account great games were vowed, at an expense of three hundred
and thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three _asses_
and a third; moreover, it was decreed that sacrifice should be done to
Jupiter with three hundred oxen, to many other deities with white oxen
and the other victims. The vows being duly made, a supplication was
proclaimed; and not only the inhabitants of the city went with their
wives and children, but such of the rustics also as, possessing any
property themselves, were interested in the welfare of the state. Then
a lectisternium was celebrated for three days, the decemviri for
sacred things superintending. Six couches were seen, for Jupiter and
Juno one, for Neptune and Minerva another, for Mars and Venus a third,
for Apollo and Diana a fourth, for Vulcan and Vesta a fifth, for
Mercury and Ceres a sixth. Then temples were vowed. To Venus Erycina,
Quintus Fabius Maximus vowed a temple; for so it was delivered from
the prophetic books, that he should vow it who held the highest
authority in the state. Titus Otacilius, the praetor vowed a temple to
Mens.

11. Divine things having been thus performed, the dictator then put
the question of the war and the state; with what, and how