up with thanksgiving. To say “I give thanks that” is to thank and praise. The utter-
ance in and of itself has force or power. Similarly, to say “I vow” is to perform the
act of committing oneself to a future action; the promise comes into existence only
through and at the moment of the speech act. The phrase “I swear” or “I summon
witnesses” is the essence of oath-taking. Likewise, to say “I pray and entreat that”
is to perform the act of petition.
Prayers may also be termed performative in the sense of dramatic performances,
since they involve actors and an audience, a set-apart space and time, and conven-
tional words and movements. In this dramatic sense, any Roman prayer other than
an individual’s lone address distinguishes between actors and human audience. But
even that individual typically spoke prayers aloud, like an actor soliloquizing on an
empty stage. Unlike the common Christian practice, there was no collective prayer
in which all present participated verbally. In the private religion of the family, a sin-
gle individual, most often the pater familias, offered prayers on behalf of the group,
while other family members stood quietly by. Similarly in public religion, typically
a single designated speaker addressed the divine, while the citizen audience stood
watching silently. On official occasions, the speakers of prayer were usually either
magistrates or priests, although children or women might be specially selected to
perform a hymn. In another characteristic shared with dramatic performances,
music, often played on pipes, accompanied public prayers. Choral performances would
have seemed even more dramatic in their use of multiple instruments and in the fre-
quent addition of movement. On certain occasions, choruses walked in a solemn
manner in a ritual procession reminiscent of Greek cult practices and the closely related
dramatic performances. The Arval priests performed a three-step dance while reciting
the words of their ancient hymn to Mars (CIL6.2104 =CFA296). In a similar
fashion, the Salian priests of Mars danced while processing through the city and singing
(Dion. H. 2.70.1–5). Even non-choral prayer included some movement, generally
the lifting of arms toward the heavens (e.g. Sall. Bellum Catilinae 31.3; Livy
5.21.15).
There’s a Time and Place
Roman prayer, like other rituals, was distinguished by set times and places. Each
setting had its own characteristic prayers, be it home, cemetery, temple, forum, or
battlefield. For each of these places, there were regular times for ritual performances:
meal-time, birth, death, festival, inauguration, battle; and each of these times had
its own characteristic prayers. This is not to say that there was an invariable form
for every performance. While the public prayers of magistrates and priests typically
followed set forms recorded in books, the private prayers of individuals were more
open to variation in structure, language, and content.
The home was the primary setting for worship of protective deities of the family.
Every day before the primary meal, offerings accompanied by a brief prayer were
made to the household deities at the hearth or at a portable brazier. Birthdays were
also set apart as times for offering and prayer at the household shrine, which stood
Performing the Sacred 237