"...whether the birthday of the divine Caesar (Augustus) has brought more joy or blessing, a day which we would rightly account equal to the beginning fo the world, if not by nature, at least in practical usefulness,

since at a time when everything was falling apart and turning out disastrously, he restored it and gave the whole world a new look, the world which might have welcomed dissolution if Caesar had not been born as a common blessing to all. The fact of his birth was an end and bound to our misery, and we may rightly account it the beginning of real life...

...and since it is not easy to give thanks commensurate with his beneficent actions without designing some new expression of gratitude suited to all his good deeds, ...

It was decreed by the Greeks in the province of Asia ...

Whereas the providence which divinely ordered our lives created with zeal and munificence the most perfect good for our lives by producing Augustus and filling him with virtue for the benefaction of mankind, blessing us and those after us with a savior who put an end to war and established peace;

and whereas Caesar (i.e., Augustus) when he appeared exceeded the hopes of all who had anticipated good tidings, not only surpassing the benefactors born before him but not even leaving those to come any hope of surpassing him;

and whereas the birthday of the god (i.e., Augustus) marks for the world the begining of the good tidings through his coming...

...and suggested for the honor of Augustus a thing hitherto unknown by the Greeks, namely beginning their calendar with the god's (Augustus') nativity...