[Libri de Fastis] Conclusio

AUSONIUS TO HIS SON HESPERIUS, greeting (to be appended to the Consular Book, which I have compiled, one out of all the consuls). Lest the seasons of eternal Rome be unknown to you, drawn out under the rule of kings and of the fathers, I have arranged the annals and the names of the swift-flying age, if any lie scattered through Latin history. Let this be your profit: receive my wakeful nights; our lamp obeys your zeal. Do you too reckon the coming years of Janus through their long course, as my page has arranged the past ones. You have now your father's example, that the purple may straightway add you too to the Ausonian consuls.

THE RECKONING FROM THE FOUNDING OF THE CITY TO OUR CONSULSHIP. To eleven hundred years join four, and weave eleven and one more above the three-year span. This will be the series from the origin of eternal Rome.

ADDED AT THE END OF THE SAME BOOK. Thus far I have written down the annals; if fortune wills, I shall add more beyond: if not, you who read shall add them. Do you wish to know who I am? Seek the title which is fourth from the bottom: you will read the name of the consul Ausonius.

ON THE SAME. When you receive, Proculus, the series of years, drawn down from Quirinus, the king of eternal Rome, you will read that a thousand years and a hundred and twice nine have flowed by, right up to the name of the consul Ausonius. It may chance that, when a lustrum has heaped itself upon these, Proculus may mark a completed Olympiad.