Petition

Cato the Elder preserves this prayer for the purification and protection of a farm, which provides an early model for the structure and wording of a traditional petitionary prayer:

Father Mars, I pray and beseech you to be favorable and propitious toward me and my family and household; wherefore I have ordered this sacrifice of a pig, sheep and bull to be led around my farm, land and estate, so that you may prohibit, avert, and ward off diseases seen and unseen, barrenness and devastation, destruction and intemperate weather, so that you may permit the produce, grains, vines, and bushes to grow large and flourish, that you may keep safe the shepherds and sheep, and that you may grant health and wellness to me, my family, and household; wherefore, for the purpose of purifying and making pure my estate, land and farm, as I have spoken, be honored with the sacrifice of this suckling pig, sheep, and bull. Father Mars, for this purpose, be honored with the sacrifice of this suckling pig, sheep, and bull. (Agr. 141)

A petitionary prayer such as this, a simple request of the gods, is the most common type in extant sources. In fact, the verb precari, which is typically translated “to pray,” essentially means “to request” and may refer to requests of humans as well as of gods. These petitions are represented by numerous prayers for cures, protection, blessing, and aid found in texts of all genres.

The structure of Cato’s petition is typical of Roman prayers of all types. It opens with an invocation of the god (“Mars”), including honorific epithets (“father”). Here could be added descriptive phrases to more carefully identify or praise the deity. Next follows a verb or verb phrase that identifies the objective of the prayer; in this passage the words “pray and beseech” mark this as a prayer of petition. The primary part of a petitionary prayer consists of the request itself. Beyond that specific request, petitions frequently include, usually at the end, a more general appeal for the favor of the invoked deity, without which no prayer could be effective (“that you may be favorable and propitious”). An essential component of any petition was an exhaustive listing of the beneficiaries of the request (“me and my family and household”). Finally, petitionary prayers commonly make some reference to the reason that the deity should respond favorably, most often, as here, a reference to present or future offerings.

Cato’s prayer also illustrates the typical style of prayers, which is characterized by redundancy. Most obvious is the use of synonyms (“prohibit, avert, and ward off”), which may reflect anxiety about the use of proper terms, but is more likely simply a rhetorical device to increase the prayer’s efficacy. A related phenomenon appears in the listing of the component parts of an object (“produce, grains, vines, and bushes”). In these metonymic lists and elsewhere, there is a tendency to use alliteration (“shepherds and sheep”), another form of repetition. The speaker also repeats entire statements (“be honored with the sacrifice of this suckling pig, sheep, and bull”). Over all, the various lexical, syntactic, and rhythmic patterns would have facilitated memorization and correct recitation. More importantly, however, the repetitive patterns of sound and rhythm gave persuasive power to the ritual words.