of both upper and lower classes. While spontaneous prayer at public temples pro-
vided an outlet for fear and joy, the institutionalization of that practice protected
public order and focused attention on the beneficent and necessary role of the state’s
leaders.
Even more important than the need for more scholarly attention to the prayers
themselves is that for a more integrated approach to the study of ritual, including
both word and deed. For the most part, the tendency has been to divorce the study
of prayer from the study of ritual actions, with prayer texts left behind for the dis-
section of philologists, while historians of Roman religion focus on the details
of procession and sacrifice. Of course, this very chapter perpetuates the false dicho-
tomization of speech and action. Such scholarly compartmentalization artificially
separates elements originally fused. Thus an important direction for future research
will be the reintegration of prayer into the study of Roman ritual.
It is good news that there has been in recent years a resurgence of scholarly inter-
est in prayer. In 1997 there appeared under the auspices of the Society of Biblical
Literature a critical anthology, including translations and commentaries of prayers
from the Hellenistic world, directed primarily to students of classics and theology
(Kiley 1997). In addition, a scholarly group in Strasburg formed to promote
“Recherches sur les Rhétoriques Religieuses,” directed by Freyburger and Pernot,
has already published an anthology of Greco-Roman prayers with commentary and
an analytical bibliography (2000) and further volumes. These texts provide an
excellent starting point for future research and promise new projects on the near
horizon. To conclude these prefatory comments as did Livy: “If it were our custom
also, as it is for poets, we would gladly commence with good omens and vows and
prayers to the gods and goddesses that they grant a propitious outcome to this con-
siderable undertaking” (Praefatio, 13).FURTHER READINGAppel (1909) is the fundamental collection of texts and citations of Roman prayers and their
performance; Chapot and Laurot (2001) offers an extensive selection of texts with transla-
tion, brief commentary, and bibliography. Halkin (1953) is a comprehensive collection of gratu-
latory supplications together with detailed description of performance in the republican period.
Alan Watson (1993) offers an analysis of fetial formulae for waging war and a comparison to
legal procedure. A lexicographical study of the language of petitionary prayers is to be found
in Hickson (1993). Versnel (1981b) addresses several questions including methods for mak-
ing the gods listen to petitions and the rarity of prayers of thanksgiving.248 Frances Hickson Hahn