Blackwell Reference Online

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Religious rituals were a favorite subject for Roman sculptors and painters; we possess countless images of processions and sacrifices, but only a very few that explicitly show a worshiper in the act of praying. This is not surprising given both the difficulties of portraying and characterizing speech and by contrast the unambiguous and visually more interesting scenes of ritual action. In any event, sculptures and paintings are mute: we do not hear the sound of the pipes or the priest dictating the prayer formulae or the magistrate repeating the solemn words. And yet, all sacrifices and offerings were accompanied by prayers, most simply defined as words addressed to divine powers. Clearly prayer was the most ubiquitous form of religious ritual in Rome, since it not only accompanied all ritual acts but could stand alone as an independent speech act. This chapter attempts to restore the voices to those silent images. After opening with a consideration of the potency of ritual words, I analyze a series of prayers illustrating the different varieties of prayer and characteristics of their performance. The chapter concludes with consideration of the role of prayer in the socio-political life of ancient Rome. Answering the question “do words have any potency?,” Pliny the Elder responds that “a sacrifice without prayer is thought to be useless and not a proper consultation of the gods” ... log in or subscribe to read full text