Censorinus de die natali 17. 2:
saeculum est spatium vitae humanae longissimum partu et morte definitus.
A saeculum is the longest span of a human life, measured from birth to death.
Servius Commentary on the Aeneid 8. 526:
Varro de saeculis auditum sonum tubae de caelo dicit.
Concerning saecula [Marcus Terentius] Varro says that a sound of a trumpet is heard from heaven.
Censorinus de die natali 17. 10:
The first Ludi Saeculares after the kings were exlpelled were held 245 years after Rome was founded, by Valerius Publicola [509 B.C.] . As stated in the Commentarii of the XV Viri, [the first] were held in the 298th year, when Marcus Valerius and Spurius Verginius were consuls [456 B.C.] . . . and in the 408th year after the founding of the City (or as stated in the Commentarii of the XV Viri in the 410th year) the second were held (346 / 344 B.C.) when Marcus Valerius Corvus (for the second time) and Caius Poetilius were consuls . . . . The third were held, according to [Valerius] Antias and Livy, when Publius Claudius Pulcher and Lucius Junius Pullus were consuls (505th year, 249 B.C.). There are three versions of the fourth Ludi. [Valerius] Antias and Varro and Livy state that they were produced when Lucius Marcius Consorinus and Manius Manilius were consuls in the 605th year after the founding of Rome (149 B.C.). But Piso Censorinus and Cnaeus Gellius and Cassius Hemina (who lived in those times) state that the fourth Ludi Saeculares took place three years later, when Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus and Lucius Mummius Achaicus were consuls, that is in the year 608 (146 B.C.).
Valerius Antias Fragment 18, in Hermann Peter, Historicorum Romanorum Reliquiae:
For it was so established that the Ludi Saeculares should take place every hundredth year, as Antias and Varro and others state.
Emperor Augustus Fragment 5, in Peter HRR:
Vulcatius aruspex in contione dixit comiten esse qui significaret exitum noni saeculi et ingressum decimi, sed quod invitis diis secreta rerum pronuntiaret, statim se moriturum, et nondum finita oratione in ipsa contione cconcidit. Hoc etiam Augustus in libro secundo de memoria vitae suae complexus est.
Vulcatius the Haruspex announced in a public meeting that his was the comet which signified the completion of the Ninth Saeculum and the beginning of the Tenth Saeculum, but because he made public the secrets of the universe against the will of the gods he was going to die immediately, and though he had not yet finished his speech in that very public assembly he fell down dead. Augustus has treated this incident as well in Book II of the de memoria vitae suae.
Vergil Eclogue 4:
Ultima Cymaei venit iam carminis aetas;
magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Iam redit et virgo, redeunt saturnia regna;
iam nova progenies caelo demittitur alto . . . .
Vergil Aeneid VI. 792:
Augustus Caesar, divi genus, aurea condet
Res Gestae Divi Augusti 22. 2:
pro conlegio XV Virorum magister conlegii collega M. Agrippa ludos saeclares C. Furnio C. Silano cos. feci.
In behalf of the College of the Quindecemviri, as master of the College, with Marcus Agrippa as my colleague, I presented the Ludi Saeculares, in the year in which Caius Furnius and Caius Silanus were consuls.
Julius Obsequens Prodigies (from Livy) CXXXI:
Fax coelestis a meridiano ad septentrionem extenta luci diurnae similem in nocte fecit.
A heavenly firebrand which extended from the meridian to the north made it like daylight during the night.
[also mentioned in Cassius Dio 54. 19.]
Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum I second edition p. 29: (Fasti Capitolini)
LVDI SAECVLARES QVINCT
IMP CAESARE DIVI F AVGVSTO
C SENTIO C F C N SATVRNINO
M CLAVDIO M F M N MARCELLO
M FVFIO M F STRIGONE
D LAELIO D F D N BALBO
MAG XV VIRI
The Latin text of the official notice of the Ludi Saeculares
Notes on the events of the Saecular Games
John Paul Adams, CSUN
john.p.adams@csun.edu