in the central living area of a house (atrium) and often resembled a miniature temple
with pediment and statuettes (see chapter 14). Funerary rituals took place in the
home, as well as at the place of burial, as did annual ceremonies on behalf of deceased
members of the family. Within the grounds of an estate, there were several other
locations where prayers and sacrifices were regularly made: at boundary stones, springs,
groves, and fields. In his second-century bctreatise On Agriculture, Cato the Elder
preserves four traditional prayers to be offered before sowing, harvesting, and prun-
ing a grove or for purifying an estate (Agr.132, 134, 139, 141).
Of course, temples and shrines are the most familiar scenes for religious ritual,
which took place in front of the building, where the altar stood, not out of sight
behind closed doors. There priests observed annual festivals on the day of founda-
tion, which served as the deity’s feast day. In times of crisis, the senate sometimes
decreed public days of prayer, on which the whole citizenry, men, women, and
children, went from temple to temple throughout the city praying for divine aid
(supplicationes). In turn, a favorable outcome of such prayers often led to public days
of thanksgiving, on which the citizen body gave thanks for their deliverance. Some
sacred buildings and altars also provided the setting for regular clan rituals aimed at
securing the well-being of the larger groups of families (sacra gentilicia). Although
private individuals might offer prayers at any place, many chose to visit temples or
shrines where the presence of the deity seemed especially close. Countless votive tablets
proclaim answered prayers for aid in childbirth or sickness and protection on jour-
neys. These worshipers often stood before the statue itself to make their prayers heard.
In addition, there were numerous roadside shrines, where passers-by paused to salute
deities with word and gesture.
Of the many temples in the city of Rome, the best-known was that of Jupiter
Optimus Maximus, Juno, and Minerva on the Capitoline hill. This large and ancient
edifice served as the stage for grand public rituals before great crowds of citizens
assembled to observe their magistrates and priests address the chief gods of the Roman
state. On the day that consuls entered office, their first act was to offer sacrifice and
prayers at this temple. When a commander set out on a military expedition, he first
ascended the Capitoline to make a vow for the successful outcome of his mission.
If successful, and the senate decreed a triumph, the triumphal procession wound its
way through the city to come to an end at the same temple, and the commander
offered prayers and sacrifices of thanksgiving to the same gods to whom he had made
his vows. And yet even in this great temple of the Roman state, individuals offered
personal prayers. Seneca mocks those who come to the Capitoline to “ask the gods
to put up their bail and those who present their legal briefs and expound their cases”
(Aug. Civ.6.10).
Not all prayers were spoken in settings that we would identify as sacred. Anywhere
that public business took place could be the scene for prayer. When the centuriate
assembly met for electoral purposes in the Campus Martius, the consul prayed for
divine blessing: “that this business turn out well and propitiously for myself and my
pledged magistracy and for the Roman people and plebs” (Cic. Pro Murena1.1).
At the close of the census, again in the Campus Martius, the censor prayed, at least
until the latter half of the second century bc, that the gods “make the possessions
238 Frances Hickson Hahn