Phoebus Apollo, Diana, queen of the forests,
O deities the glories of the sky,
Most worthy to be worshiped, grant, we pray,
Our prayers in the sacred season.
Now is the time the Sibylline Leaves ordain
That the chosen maidens and pure young men should sing
The poem written in honor of the gods
Who favor the Seven Hills.
(Hor. Carmen Saeculare1–8, trans. David Ferry)Horace’s hymn unites the poetic and religious strains of Latin carmina, deftly mani-
pulating the repetition and rhythm characteristic of both. Unlike most hymns, the
Carmen Saeculareis not apotropaic in nature. “It is a hymn to confirm by incanta-
tion the glory of the Roman status quo” (Putnam 2001: 98; Feeney 1998: 32– 8).
Performing Politics
It is the nature of performance that there be both actors and audience. In the home
or on the estate, the ritual actor was the pater familiasor his substitute; the audi-
ence, the family or larger household. In the public arena, the actors were typically
magistrates and priests; the audience, the citizen body or some segment thereof. In
either context, the ritual performance marked the social status of actors and audi-
ence. Just as the pater familiaswas the head of the family, so the magistrate was
head of the state. In the public sphere, social and political prominence were for the
most part co-extensive; magisterial positions were held by members of a small but
powerful elite. Furthermore, the same elite group regularly provided the personnel
for priestly offices, which could be held at the same time as civil offices. It was unavoid-
able therefore that public prayers, like public religion, were inextricably intertwined
with politics. Beyond the elite personnel, we have already seen that many occasions
for prayer were also political in character, from election and inauguration of magis-
trates to the preparations for wars.
The prayers themselves also speak of political concerns. It is the protection and
blessing of the state that is the primary objective of every public prayer. Accordingly,
the annual republican vow for the state, which served as a model for subsequent
prayers for the emperor and his family, requested protection from dangers, together
with the preservation or growth of the state. Petitionary and gratulatory prayers on
the occasion of war addressed similar issues of safety and success. Interestingly, com-
parison of these wartime prayers to debates in the senate over the award of triumphs
reveal parallel issues. Senators raised issues concerning the general’s meeting of require-
ments for a triumph: his authority, the number of enemy killed or Roman lives lost,
the conclusiveness of the victory, and the return of the army to the city. The prayer
that best illustrates this content is a Plautine parody, in which a slave gives thanks
for the success of his intrigue, using the language of a thanksgiving offered by a
triumphing general:
Performing the Sacred 245