1When these decrees of the senate had been completed, Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, the pontifex maximus, when the praetor consulted the college, gives his opinion that first of all the people must be consulted about the sacred spring: it could not be vowed without the people's order. 2The people were asked in these words: 'Do you wish and order these things to be done thus? 2If the republic of the Roman people, the Quirites, shall be preserved for the next five years, as I would wish it safe, in these wars — the war which the Roman people has with the Carthaginian, and the wars which it has with the Gauls who are on this side of the Alps — then let the Roman people, the Quirites, give as a gift whatever the spring shall have produced from the herds of swine, sheep, goats and cattle, and whatever shall not be consecrated, to be sacrificed to Jupiter from the day which the senate and people shall have ordered.
4Whoever shall sacrifice, let him sacrifice when he will and by what rite he will; 4in whatever way he does it, let it be deemed properly done. 5If the animal that ought to be sacrificed dies, let it be unconsecrated, and let there be no sin. 5If anyone harms or kills it unknowingly, let it be no offence. 5If anyone steals it, let there be no sin on the people, nor on him from whom it was stolen. 6If he sacrifices on an unlucky day unknowingly, let it be deemed properly done. 6Whether by night or by day, whether slave or free man sacrifices, let it be deemed properly done.
6If it is sacrificed before the senate and people have ordered it to be done, let the people be absolved and free of it.' 7For the same purpose great games were vowed at a cost of three hundred and thirty-three thousand, three hundred and thirty-three and a third asses, and in addition three hundred oxen to Jupiter, and to many other gods white oxen and other victims. 8When the vows had been duly pronounced, a supplication was proclaimed; 8and to offer supplication there went with their wives and children not only the city population but also those of the country folk whom, having some fortune of their own, concern for the public welfare also touched.
9Then a lectisternium was held for three days, with the decemvirs for sacred rites in charge. 9Six couches were on view: one for Jupiter and Juno, a second for Neptune and Minerva, a third for Mars and Venus, a fourth for Apollo and Diana, a fifth for Vulcan and Vesta, a sixth for Mercury and Ceres. 9Then the temples were vowed. 10A temple to Venus Erycina was vowed by Quintus Fabius Maximus the dictator, because it had been declared from the books of fate that the one who held the highest authority in the state should vow it; 10a temple to Mens was vowed by the praetor Titus Otacilius.