Livy preserves the prayer formula used for making a devotio. Although Livy was writing at a time when the religious innovations of Augustus were often cloaked in old-fashioned piety and appeals to tradition, archaic aspects of the prayer suggest that it is not an invention, but represents a traditional formulary as might be preserved in the official pontifical books. The attending pontifex dictates the wording. The syntax is repetitive and disjointed, unlike prayers given literary dress during this period in the poetry of Ovid and others.[6] The deities invoked—among them the Archaic Triad of Jupiter, Mars, and Quirinus—belong to the earliest religious traditions of Rome. Livy explains that he will record the archaic ritual of devotio at length because "the memory of every human and religious custom has withered from a preference for everything novel and foreign."[7]
The prayer is uttered by Publius Decius Mus, the consul of 340 BC, during the Samnite Wars. He vows to offer himself as a sacrifice to the infernal gods when a battle between the Romans and the Latins has become desperate:
The pontifex instructed him to don the toga praetexta, to veil his head and, with one hand held out from under his toga touching his chin, to stand on a spear laid under his feet and speak as follows: 'Janus, Jupiter, Mars Pater, Quirinus, Bellona, Lares, divine Novensiles,[8] divine Indigetes, gods whose power extends over us and over our enemies, divine Manes, I pray to you, I revere you, I beg your favour and beseech you that you advance the strength and success of the Roman people … As I have pronounced in these words … I devote the legions and auxiliaries of the enemy along with myself, to the divine Manes and to Earth.'[9]