The aim of the Oxford Classical Monographs series is to publish books

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Humaniores.
Prayer in
Greek Religion
SIMON PULLEYN

CLARENDON PRESS · OXFORD

1997
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 Acknowledgements vii
and encouragement: John Baines, Jonathan Barnes, Jeremy Black,
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Tom Braun, Stephanie Dalley, Richard Fynes, Oliver Gurney,
Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Anna Morpurgo-Davies, Ernest Nichol-
son, Richard Parkinson, Peter Parsons, John Penney, Alexis San-
derson, Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Elizabeth Tucker. Oxford
University Press kindly gave permission for me to reproduce, in
I HAVE noticed, in reading the acknowledgements pages of other an expanded form as part of Chapter 6, material which first
books, that, whilst many writers acknowledge debts of one sort or appeared as an article in Classical Quarterly.
another to their universities, not many mention the schools they On a persona] note, I owe to my parents far more than I could
attended as children, I, on the other hand, feel very fortunate to ever possibly say. I also wish to record my gratitude to my late
have been able to attend Leeds Grammar School, where I learned grandfather, a bequest from whom allowed me to build up a
much from Geoff Caseley, John Jordan, Philip Milner, Christopher complete working library whilst still a graduate student. Finally,
Slater, Peter Spivey, John Taylor, Geoff Thompson, Anthony I thank my wife Jane, to whom I dedicate this book. She has
Verity, and Walter Welburn. I am reminded almost daily what helped me enormously at every stage. -rl71-rot -raii-ra lovty 'Tf'a.v-r'
a huge debt I owe to them all. My greatest debt, however, must be ' ,
ayopEvw;
to Nicholas Richardson who supervised the dissertation on which
this monograph is based. He is a man who combines a rare S.J.P.
Merton College, Oxford
kindness and patience with the most astute critical acumen. I
September 1996
also wish to thank my old tutor at Balliol, Jasper Griffin. As an
undergraduate, I benefited enormously from his erudition and
generosity and have continued to do so ever since. I am also
grateful to Oswyn Murray whose suggestion it was in the first
place that I should work on prayer. He gave me some very useful
advice at the beginning of my research. The Warden and Fellows
of Merton College elected me to a Senior Scholarship and then to
a Lectureship. I am very grateful to them on both counts. I have
enjoyed in Merton the pleasantest surroundings in which to work
and some very congenial company. John Gould and Robert Par-
ker examined the thesis. I thank them both for many important
insights. Robert Parker, in particular, has been extremely gener-
ous with his time and help during the process of revising the
thesis for publication as a monograph. Without him, this book
would have been immeasurably the worse. Daniele Aubriot,
author of the recent Priere et conceptions religieuses en Grece anci-
enne (Lyons, 1992), a magisterial volume almost three decades in
the writing, has also given me much encouragement and the
benefit of her vast acumen. I also wish to thank my friend Marcus
Smith for many helpful interdisciplinary discussions. I have
benefited on countless occasions from his extraordinary clarity
of mind. The following have also been generous with their time
 CONTENTS

Texts and Abbreviations X

Glossary of Terms XIV

I. Prolegomena t
2. Reciprocity and Remembrance 16
3. Thanks and Praise 39
4. Prayer and Supplication 56
j. Curses and Justice 70
6. Magic and Names 96
7. Prayer and the Cult of the Dead II6
8. The Language of Prayer 132
9. Sitz im Leben 156
10. Prayer, Reason, and Piety 196
Appendices
I. Literary and Epigraphic Attestations of Some
Common Words in Greek Prayers 217

2. Aspect in Greek Prayers 221

Select Bibliography 227

Index Locorum 235

General Index 243

Index of Greek Words 245

 Texts and Abbreviations Xl

All translations are my own, unless otherwise stated. Thev are

TEXTS AND ABBREVIATIONS intended to help the Greekless reader and make no preten~e to
literary merit.

ABBREVIATIONS
TEXTS

The abbreviations used for ancient authors and their works are as
All references are to the Oxford Classical Text, except for the
in the Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd edn. Abbreviations of
following: periodicals are those used in L'Annee philologique.
Loeb The following abbreviations are used for certain other works:
Andocides; Antiphon; Apollodorus; Athenaeus; Dinarchus; AA B. Merritt and J. Traill, The Athenian Agora, xv
Diodorus Siculus; Greek Anthology; Hippocrates; Hyperides; (Princeton, 1974)
Isaeus; Isocrates; Pausanias; Pliny, Natural History; Plutarch; ANET J. B. Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relat-
Theophrastus. ing to the Old Testament" (Princeton, 1955)
Aubriot D. Aubriot-Sevin, Priere et conceptions religieuses
Teubner en Grece ancienne (Lyons, 1992)
Bacchylides (ed. Snell); Lucian (ed. Jacobitz); Pindar (ed. Snell- Ausfeld C. Ausfeld, 'De Graecorum Precationibus Quaes-
Mahler; Boeckh's numeration); Plato (ed. Wohlrab); Strabo (ed. tiones', NeueJahrbucher, Suppl. 28 (1903), 505-47
Meineke). Burkert W. Burkert, Greek Religion (Eng. trans., Oxford,
1985)
Other Burkert, HN W. Burkert, Homo Necans (Eng. trans., Berkeley
Akaeus (ed. Page); Callimachus (ed. Pfeiffer (Pf.) ); Sappho (ed. and Los Angeles, 1983)
Page); Theocritus (ed. Gow). Lyric Poets are cited from Page's CEG P. A. Hansen, Carmina Epigraphica Graeca (Berlin,
Poetae Melici Graecae (PMG). The Iambic and Elegiac poets are 1983)
cited from West's Iambi et Elegi Graeci2 (West). For fragments of Corlu A. Corlu, Recherches sur les mots relatifs a l'idee de
Hesiod, see Merkelbach and West, Fragmenta Hesiodea (MW). la pn·ere, d'Homere au:x tmgiques (Paris, 1966)
Tragic fragments are from Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum Frag- DT A. Audollent, Defi:xionum Tabellae (Paris, 1904)
menta~ (N 2 ) for Euripides, and Radt's Tragicorum Graecorum DTA R. Wunsch, Defixionum Tabellae Atticae = IG iii/3,
Fragmenta (TGF) for Aeschylus and Sophocles. Comic fragments appendix (Berlin, 1897)
are taken from the Kassell-Austin Poetae Camici Graeci (PCG). Faraone C. A. Faraone and D. Obbink (eds.), Magika
The fragments of Menander are either from the OCT of Sand- Hiem (Oxford, 1991)
bach or from Kock, Comicarum Atticorum Fragmenta (K). The JG Inscriptiones Graecae, various editors (1877- )
Presocratics are cited from Diels-Kranz Die Fragmente der Vor- ILLRP A. Degrassi (ed.), Inscriptiones Latinae Liheme
sokmtiker (D-K). For the fragmentary historians, Jacoby's Die Rei Publicae, i 2 (Florence, 1965)
Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (FGH) is used. Menander ISE L. Moretti, Inscrizione storiche ellenistiche
Rhetor is cited from D. A. Russell and N. G. Wilson, Menander (Florence, 1967 and 1976)
Rhetor ( Oxford, 1981). Details of epigraphic sources are in the list LSAM F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees de l'Asie Mineure
of abbreviations below. (Paris, 1955)
Xll Texts and Abbreviations Texts and Abbreviations xiii
LSCG F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des cites grecques (Paris, Van Straten, F. T. Van Straten, 'Gifts for the Gods', in H. S.
1969 'Gifts' Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope and Worship (Leiden,
LSJ H. G. Liddell, R. Scott, and H. S. Jones, A 1981), 65-151
Greek-English Lexicon 9 (with Suppl.) (Oxford, Versnel H. S. Versnel (ed.), Faith, Hope and Worship
1968) (Leiden, 1981)
LSS F. Sokolowski, Lois sacrees des cites grecques, Sup-
plement (Paris, 19'62)
ML R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek
Historical Inscriptions to the End of the Fifth Cen-
tury BC' (Oxford, 1988)
Nilsson, GR M. P. Nilsson, Geschichte der gr£echischenReligion,
i3 (Munich, 1967), ii' (Munich, 1961)
Nock A. D. Nock, Essays on Religion and the Ancient
World, ed. Z. Stewart, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1986)
Norden E. Norden, Agnostos Theos (Leipzig and Berlin,
1923)
OF 0. Kern, Orphicorum Fragmenta 3 (Zurich, 1972)
OH A. Athanassakis, Orphic Hymns (Atlanta, 1977)
PGM K. Pteisendanz, Papyri Graecae Magicae, 2 vols.
(Leipzig and Berlin, 1928-31; 2nd edn. 1973-4)
RE A. Pauly, G. Wissowa, and W. Kroll, Real-Ency-
clopiidie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, 83
vols. (Stuttgart, 1894-r980)
Richardson N. J. Richardson (ed.), The Homeric Hymn to
Demeter (Oxford, 1974)
Rohde E. Rohde, Psyche (Eng. trans., London, 1925)
Rudhardt J. Rudhardt, Notions fondamentales de la pensee
religieuse et actes constitutifs du culte dans la Grece
classique" (Paris, 1992) ,
SEG Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum (Leiden,
1923- )
'SGD' D.R. Jordan, 'A Survey of Greek Defixiones Not
Included in the Special Corpora', GRBS 26
(1985), 151-97
3
SIG W. Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Grae-
carum3 (Leipzig, 1915-24)
TLG Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (CD-ROM, Univer-
sity of California at Irvine)
Van Straten F. T. Van Straten, 'Did the Greeks Kneel before
their Gods?', BABesch 49 (1974), 159-89
 Glossar_v of Terms xv

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
LATIN

da-quia-dedi: give because I gave

da-quia-dedisti: give because you gave
Where practical, quotations in foreign languages in this book are da-quia-dedit: give because (s)he gave
accompanied by an English translation. These are not meant to da-ut-dem: give so that I will give
be literary, but basic idiomatic English. In some contexts, for da-ut-dare-passim: give so that I shall be able to give
example the technical discussions of the significance of the moods da-ut-des: I give that you might give
and tenses of the Greek verbs used in prayer, it is not possible to
give an English translation because the morpho-semantic cate-
gories simply do not e.xist in English. Certain Greek words do
recur extremely frequently in the text. Where the English equiva-
lent of the word is not in dispute, it is given in brackets after its
first appearance. The reader with no Greek may find it helpful to
know how to pronounce these words in his head as he goes along.
I therefore give a list of the commonest words, their approximate
meaning, and, in parentheses, their English transliteration. All
vowels are short unless marked long with a macron. Final vowels
should be sounded (e.g. mole has two syllables not one). Anyone
who wishes to learn how to read the Greek alphabet should
consult W. S. Allen, Vax Groeca 3 (Cambridge, 1991), 177ff.

apa:curse/prayer (ara)
dpdoµcu: I curse/pray (araomai)
~Mli: come! (elthe)
nlxri:prayer (eukhe)
Evxoµai: I pray (eukhomai)
tKEr,{a: supplication (hiketeia)
iKETEuw: I supplicate (hiketeuo)
KAv9i:hear! {kluthi)
}i{(1aoµai: I entreat (lissomai)
}i,T'TJ:entreaty (lite)
µ6k come! (mole)
[w[a: guest-friendship (xenia)
1rpoaKvviw: I abase myself or I raise a hand to my lips (proskuneo)
1Tp0'1KIJVT/ats:(the noun for the foregoing) (proskunesis)
xdp,s: favour shown/received (reciprocal relations) (kharis)
 I
Prolegomena

This is a book about Greek prayer as part of Greek life. No

attempt is made to use Greek evidence to produce a definition
of prayer valid for all religions. It is far from clear that the search
for universal definitions of cultural phenomena is the highest goal
of study. 1 However similar any two cultures may be, those simi-
larities ought not to be emphasized to the exclusion of all else.
Too much schematization leads to distortion. If two societies
share the same practice or institution, then, to use a mathematical
analogy, that factor may eventually, after due consideration of its
intrinsic interest, be discounted as a lowest common denomina-
tor. The societal remainder, the set of practices that distinguish
cultures from each other, often turns out to be the most revealing.
For example, if one began one's search for a universal defini-
tion of prayer with the attempt to formulate a definition that
would fit Greek religion and Judaism between 750 and 350 BC,
the task would be extremely difficult. Even something as banal
and general as 'Prayer is an act of communication with a higher
power' will not really fit the bill. Although true of most Greek
and most Jewish prayers, it obscures many differences. First, the
Greeks were polytheistic; the Jews were not. Greeks prayed to
heroes; for the Jews, Jahweh was the only proper recipient of
prayer. Secondly, in a monotheistic world, it is much easier to
develop a concept of a unified will of God. Alongside this goes
the Jewish concept of sin as a departure from the covenant with
their creator God. The Greeks did not share this sense of sin.
Furthermore, although there was plenty of intellectual reflection
about prayer in Greece, the Greeks had no Isaiah to remind them
that prayer had to be more than just an empty calling upon the
name of the Lord. 2 There are countless other telling differences
1
The best-known attempt at a universal synthesis must be F. Heiler, Prayer
2
trans S. McComb (Oltford, 1932). Isaiah 29: 13-14.
2 Prolegomena
to which one could point. One can see how undesirable it is, in
order to arrive at a definition that will serve in all cases, to strip
away precisely those details which give each prayer-tradition its
individuality. Surely we ought to be doing the reverse. Compara-
tive evidence is used in this study, but never as part of a quest for
the key to understanding a11prayer. It is used either by way of
contrast or else, in the case of evidence from other Indo-Eur-
opean cultures, to throw light on the ancient roots of Greek
practices. If we try to give an account of Greek prayer on its
own, specialists in other cultures will be able to see how it differs
from the practices of the peoples with whom they are familiar.
For the most part, this book uses a synchronic rather than a
diachronic approach. I have not set out to explain the origin of
prayer but rather how it works at a given period. 3 That period,
however, spans some four centuries, from Homer to the fourth
century. This may seem somewhat eccentric for an allegedly
synchronic study. However, our evidence for Greek prayer is
unevenly scattered. Some periods and places have produced
more evidence than others. When we speak of Greek prayer we
are actually talking about the practices of many independent city-
states. Only fifth-century Athens provides enough evidence for a
narrow study limited to one place and one time. But if we limited
ourselves to that area, we should have to ignore, among other
things, Homer; and that, as I hope to show, would leave a huge
gap in our understanding. Even if one were only looking at fifth-
century Athens, one would still have to take into account the
possibility that later, non-Athenian sources might preserve gen-
uinely old and relevant testimony. In retrospect, Greek prayer
seems to have altered very little over the period under considera-
tion. One is therefore not guilty of gross misrepresentation, I
believe, if one cites a passage of eighth-century Aeolic-lonic
Homer alongside a piece of fifth- or fourth-century Attic Lysias.
One might wonder about the legitimacy of using literary evi-
dence (e.g. Euripides) in a historical study of Greek prayer. Since
so much of this study relies on literary evidence, it ought to be
made clear at the outset why it has been used. Scholars are only
3
I have, however, allowed myself to comment on prayer formulae which may
be part of an ancient Indo-European tradition. For some, this may seem to be of
value merely as a curiosity.
Prolegomena 3
too well aware that literature is, in many respects, stylized. Can
we be certain, for example, that linguistic features present in the
literary sources would also have figured in real-life prayers? As it
happens, we are fortunate to have quite a large body of epigraphic
material containing prayers. I have examined these and drawn up
a table of common words used in prayer, giving wherever possible
literary and epigraphic attestations of each (App. 2). It will be
seen that most common prayer-words are attested epigraphically
as well as in the literature. I am only too aware that some inscrip-
tions are themselves consciously artistic productions-mimicking
to a greater or lesser degree the language of the high literature.
None the less, such compositions, if carved on stone at a sanc-
tuary, surely have a perfect right to be considered as part of the
realia of Greek religion. Consider, for example, the Delphic
paeans to Apollo. These are highly wrought pieces. The reason
they were set down was to preserve them for future generations.
There is every reason to believe that they were part of the
Delphic cult. They should be taken as genuine examples of cletic
hymns. The fact that they stand in a more literary tradition than
the average ex-voto is interesting evidence of the way that life and
art cannot be neatly separated out. It should not be seen as
detracting from the authenticity of the material.
If a word used by a tragic writer does not have an epigraphic
parallel, this does not mean that it was not a genuine part of the
real-life vocabulary of prayer. There are some things which one
simply would not expect to find on a stone. For example, the
worshipper who says l>.IU('come') is likely to do so either in the
context of a public ritual or in some private situation when he
earnestly desires the god's presence. He would have no reason to
carve it on a stone. Curiously, the word KAii8,('hear') is epigra-
phically attested (in late texts), when one might expect it to be
found only in spoken contexts. It is significant that of the three
epigraphic attestations of KAiilhthat are known to me, two appear
in hymns that have been carved on stone for posterity and one
appears in a grave-inscription that is clearly imitating Homer. 4
We can thus be confident, on the strength of this epigraphic
4
,.).f,IJ,-lt. t. 37,451, 5. I 15, IO. 278, 16. 514, 23. 770; Od. 2. 262, 3. 55, 4. 762, ;.
445, 6. 324, 9. 528. Other parts: Aesch. Chu. 139, 332. Epigraphic attestation: SEG
viii. 548. 35, 550. 19 (Egyptian hymns to Isis from the Jst cent. AD); SEG xxix. uo2
(an undated Lydian epitaph, clearly imitating JI. 23. 19).
4 Prolegomena
corroboration, that we are not following a chimaera when discuss-
ing words found in the literature. However, the epigraphic evi-
dence can only take us so far. For example, we shall be arguing that
JMU is not found in prayers accompanying sacrifice. Since all our
evidence for prayers accompanying sacrifice during the classical
period comes from literature, the inscriptions cannot help us. We
have to assume that the literature is correct. Quite simply, it is the
only source we have for certain questions. In cases where no
epigraphic examples are given, the reader must understand that
I am obliged to base my remarks on the only evidence available.
Beyond this narrow question of diction, however, there is
always the possibility, when one uses fiction as a source for
history, that one is dealing with a view of the world which, whilst
not wholly unimaginable, is nevertheless somewhat unreal. For
example, one could easily form the impression, from a superficial
perusal of Greek tragedy, that Greek women were powerful and
terrifying. That assumption would be as mistaken as the belief
that Elizabethan women were all like Lady Macbeth. The same
kind of caveat should apply to religious matters. Homer's Iliad,
for example, has almost nothing to say about hero-cult. That
does not mean that it was unknown in the eighth century. Rather,
he has omitted details of it because, one assumes, it would detract
somewhat from the pathos of death if heroes could look forward
to some special status afterwards. Similarly for prayer, it is clear
that artistic intention and dramatic conventions must be taken
into account if we are not to be misled by the imaginative litera-
ture. The central thesis of this book is the importance of xo.pis in
Greek prayer. That word is often translated 'grace' or 'favour'. In
fact, it refers to a whole nexus of related ideas that we would call
reciprocity. When one gives something to a god, one is giving
xapir in the sense that the offering is pleasing; but equally one is
storing up for oneself a feeling of gratitude on the part of the god,
which is also xap1s. The whole two-way relationship can be called
one of xapis. Although our sources for the workings of xap1s are
predominantly literary, the universal cohesion of the evidence
across the different literary genres means that we can be confident
that we are not dealing with a chimaera. It is well known that,
tragedy, comedy, rhetoric, and history can all take a different
stance with regard to religion. None the less, xapis is the same
for all of them. We ought not, therefore, to be unduly pessimistic
Prolegomena 5
overall about the value of literary evidence for historv. 5 In the
chapters that follow, this question will be taken up more fully.
Bearing all this in mind, we shall now consider what ought to
be the scope of a study of Greek prayer. What is a prayer in
Greece? Aubriot, in her recent comprehensive survey, defines
Greek prayer as: ' ... toute demarche par laquelle l'homme, ou
bien s'addresse a la divinite, OU bien tente de recourir a des
puissances superieures pour obtenir un resultat' ('any procedure
by which man either addresses a divinity or tries to appeal to
superior powers in order to obtain a result'). 6 She is unwilling to
say that prayer is simply a request. 7 This is partly because she
feels that the category of prayer should include other, not neces-
sarily verbal, acts which, being directed towards the gods, imply
an attempt to communicate with them. An example, she suggests,
might be the silent gesture of raising the hand to the lips to greet
a god when standing before his statue. 8 She would also like to
include loud ritual shrieks and dances. 9
This is a very broad approach. It is indeed clear that there was
great variety in the formulation of speech addressed to the gods.
We have only to look at Homer to appreciate this. Some addresses
are very formulaic and have a tripartite structure of invocation-
argument-request.10 Then there is a group where the structure is
not so rhetorical, but where we still have elaborate invocations
which the poet explicitly refers to as prayers. 11 Simpler still,
there is an abundance of optatives which are presumably meant
ultimately for the attention of the higher powers. 12 A few of these
5
If carried too far, this sort of scepticism can lead one to the view that the
ancient world contained two distinct things called 'literature' and 'life'. In fact,
the tv-m must have interacted in a very complex manner. Can it really have been
the case that people's religious lives were not to some considerable extent shaped
by myths, recitations of Homer, theatre, etc.? Similarly, their literature must
reflect the civilization that created it. 6
Aubriot , -'4 •
7
Ibid. r09f.
8
I~id. 91; not cited there but relevant are Lucian, Demosthenis /ncomium 49 ;
Apulems, Met. 4. 28. Aubriot 22
10
(a) da-quia-dedi; If. 1. 37ff., 503 ff.; cf. 8. 236ff. (b) da-quia-dedisti; Il. 1:
45fff., 5. 115ff., ro. 278ff., 284ff., 16. 233ff.; Od. 20. 98ff.; cf. 20. u2ff. (c) da-
q11ia-dedit;ll. 1.5. 372ff.; Od. 4. 762ff., 17. 24off.
11
Less fonnulai<: prayers: Il. 2. 412ff., J. n6ff., 351 ff., 6. 305ff., 476ff., 7. 179£.,
z,nff., 10. 462ff., 23. 770, 24. 308££.; Od. 2. 262ff .. J. 55ff., JSoff., 5. 445ff., 13.
356 ff., 20. 61 ff.
u Simple wishes: II . .1.. 371 f., 4. 288 f., 363, 7. 132 ff., 8. 538ff., 22. 41, 23. 650; Od.
2. 145, J. 346, 4. 34rff., 7. 311 ff., 8. 465{., 13. 41 f., 213, 14. 53 f., 440f., 15. 112, 180,
341 f., 17. I3Jff., ;i51ff., 354f., 475f .. 494, 597, 18. ruff., 202ff., 235££., 20. 169ff.,
199f., 24. 376ff., 402.
6 Prolegomena
optatives, however, are associated with the name of a god (e.g. Ii.
2. 371f.,&. yap ZEii TE Trll7Ep 1<at ,<a{Jfoo.Uov / TOWUTOt BI.Ka
'A871val71
µoi auµ,</JpdBµ,ovt:s 1:tEV'Axaiwv, 'O father Zeus, Athene, and Apollo,
would that I had ten such counsellors among the Achaeans') and
are actually described by Homer as prayers. 13 Moving to later
sources, we might also consider simple one-word exclamations of
cursing (e.g. oAoio,'go to perdition', Soph. Phil. 961) or blessing
(e.g. Et18atµovol71s,'bless you', Eur. El. 231). On the face of it we
have no way of knowing whether an utterance like oAow was
thought of as a prayer. Strictly speaking, in the ancient mind,
the gods were indeed able to carry out curses and bring men to
grief; but was the speaker always necessarily thinking in those
terms? Was he really invoking a divine mechanism any more than
a modem Englishman who says 'drop dead'? There is one exam-
ple known to me where the word oAornis explicitly said to con-
stitute a prayer, namely at Soph. Phil. 1019ff. Philoctetes says,
OAOW- Kat 001 wo.UaKt!,r&B'11vfdµ71v('Go to blazes; yet often have I
made this prayer ... '). But we cannot be sure that all other
Greeks thought like Sophocles or Philoctetes. There are also
comp 1amts. to d elt1es,
. . 14 an d a dd resses giving
. . . 15
t h em ad vice.
Although these are not always framed as straightforward
requests, they are often designed to persuade a god to change
his ways and thus may qualify as prayers.
Later in the book, we shall consider the importance of gesture
in prayer and also of inarticulate utterances such as ritual shrieks.
For the moment, however, we shall proceed on the working
assumption that prayers are articulate requests directed towards
the gods. How then to begin? Aubriot arranged her book around
an examination of the words £vxoµ.a,, iipaoµ.a.1,Alauoµa, (including
i1<1:T1:ow). It is quite clear that where we would use the word 'pray'
the Greeks might use any one of three or four different words.
This does not, however, necessarily mean that the Greeks had no
unified conception of prayer. We shall see in a later chapter that
the word Elixoµ.at can sometimes be used to describe prayers that
can also be described as a.pat or ,\,Tal It is very likely that the
Greeks would have recognized that EUX1/ is a general term for
13 II. 3. ;i:98 ff., 17. 561 ff.; Od. 7. 331 ff., z1. zooff.
14
e.g. /1. 3. 365 ff.; Od. 1z. 37 I; SEG xv iii. 365 fT'hasus).
15
e.g. Soph. OT 903ff.; Eur. Hel. 1093ff.
Prolegomena 7
prayer and that dpa and A1T71, whilst representing special sub-
categories, were none the less also 1:vxa{.
I believe that the most basic pattern for a Greek prayer, under-
lying all the different words that are actually used to describe
them, is an invocation and request such as r1JZEii, Ms µ01 vy,1:lav
(' Zeus, give me good health'). 16 Naturally, such an assertion calls
for substantiation.
In Plato's Euthyphro (14c), Socrates asks the following question
of Euthyphro: OVKOVV TO8vEtvliwpEia8alJan TOIS 81:ois, TOB°£vx1:a8ai
alTEivTovs 0tiovs;('Is it then the case that sacrificing is making a
gift to the gods and praying is making a request of them?').
Euthyphro says he agrees. How seriously should we take this
definition of Greek prayer? Few would want to claim that the
views of Plato and Socrates are representative of the views of the
average Greek, in matters of religion or anything else. But this is
not a reason for discounting altogether this interesting definition
of prayer. It is, after all, the opinion of Euthyphro, whom
Socrates is setting up for a fall. The great philosopher is not
very impressed by somebody who thinks that piety is an J.µ.1roptK'fJ
dxv71. Yet in all likelihood Euthyphro was doing no more than
saying what any Greek would have said if he had stopped to think
about the matter. The feeling that the relationship between men
and gods was essentially one of give-and-take through sacrifice
and prayer is very clear from the frequent association in our
surviving texts of the verbs 81fov ('to sacrifice') and 1:vxf.r,80.t('to
pray')_ 11
When the astonished messenger in Euripides' Helen realizes
that the Helen they fought over in Troy was just a wraith, he
exclaims (754ff.):
-r{ 871-raµ.aVTf.vo,u8a; Tois 8rni:<11
XP~
8vo117a,al-rf.iv dya.8d,µ.avn{a,; S' lii.v.
½'hy do we go in for prophecies then? We should sacrifice to the gods and
ask them for good things and leave prophecy alone.
16
e.g. JI. 7. 179{.; Aesch. Ag. 973; Pl. Phdr. 279b8ff.; CEG 3z6, 334, etc.
11
Burkert, 376 n. 4; Thuc. 8. 70. 1; Lysias 6. 51; Dern. lt. 52. For modem works
dealing \:\c'ithreciprocity, see W. Burkert, The Creation of the Sacred (Cambridge,
Mass., 1996), 129ff.; M. Mauss, The Gift (Eng. trans., London, 1954); R. Seaford,
&ciprocity and Ritual (Oxford, 1994); B. MacLachlan, The Age of Gmu (Prince-
ton, 1993),
8 Prolegomena
This is a very good demonstration not only of the intimate link
between sacrifice and the expectation of material benefits, but also
of the fact that the Greeks saw prayer as 'asking for good things'.
A similar idea underlies Clytemnestra's incredulous question in
Eur. IA n86: -,{ (101KO.Tffvt,r, -r&yat'.1611,
arpd.,wv TtKvov; ('What boon
will you pray for when you kill your child?'). Prayer and sacrifice
are seen as going together, and praying is once again presented as
asking for good things. This idea is very strongly corroborated by
Plato, Politicus 29ocd:
Kat fLTjvKai nl i£piwv aJ ')'EVO;, ws TOv.Sµ1µ&11 ,ln1a1,1tapa µlv ~,..,;ivilwp£as
Orni;ilui 8vmwv l1ticn-iiµ,6vECJTtKa-ra vouv lKdvms ilwpiii:a8a,,1tapd ilEE1<£1vw11
~µ,,v roxai'; KT'1J'111'
d;,a.Owval'T'1Jaa!18m· mum ilE iiuucovovTEM> ECJT{
µ6pm. dµ,fn!,rEpa.
Well, there again, priests as a group are customarily said to be skilled on
the one hand at presenting gods with gifts from us in accordance with
their wishes and, on the other, by means of prayers, at asking for good
things for us.
There is no reason to impugn the value of this evidence as being
the unrepresentative view of a lone philosopher. It is put into the
mouth of a foreigner in the shape of a question. The young
Socrates agrees that it looks as though this is indeed bow things
are in Athens.
So, prayer and sacrifice are intimately associated. Priests bring
together in one cultic act gifts and prayers from men to the gods
and in return the gods are expected to confer material benefits on
men. Burkert has asserted that there is 'no important prayer
without ritual: litai-thusiai, prayers-sacrifices, is an ancient and
fixed conjunction'. 18 Could it be that, for the Greeks, the only
proper prayers were those accompanied by sacrifice or some other
kind of offering? This is an awkward question and one which
needs some consideration.
We know how important the gods were in every department of
Greek life. Plato also tells us, this time in his Timaeus, 19 that the
gods are essential to the success of any human enterprise: £'!Ti
'!Tav-rd,&pµ.fiKal ap.11<pov 1Tpa.ypa-ro,81:ovail 'ITOV
Kai f.t€)'0.AOV KaAoii-
OIV. ('At the start of any undertaking, large or small, they always
invoke a god'). This, too, is not just an invention of Plato. The
18
Burkert, 73.
Prolegomena 9
20
other literary evidence bears it out. However, are we to think of
a Greek, about to go on a perilous journey, for example, simply
raising his hands to heaven and asking Zeus to protect him? For
those of us familiar with the Judaeo-Christian tradition, it is easy
to imagine that this is what happened. But if one could get what
one wanted by simple words, then what was the point of sacrifice?
The imaginative literature is full of examples of people who
pray without sacrificing, One might call these 'free' prayers, as
opposed to 'cultic prayers' which are accompanied by (or other-
\vise allude to) an offering. One only has to look at any Greek
tragedy to appreciate how frequent free prayer seems to be.
Neoptolemus, having received the bow of Philoctetes, says: 21
7TOV
iL 8,;o{,)l&OITO -raura v,j,ir ylvol'TO 6~
1rAous oiJp10; TE KEtla-raA,)s31to, 1to-r(
8Eb; 61Ko.1oi xwar6,\o; 1topaliVETa<.
0 gods, may it be thus for us. May we also have a favourable and swift
voyage, wherever the god approves and our mission tends.
Although these words are not accompanied by a cultic action,
Pbiloctetes sees them as a prayer, for he says at line 78.z, lU8o,Ka.
EVX~ <rox71>('I fear, my son, that the
<8'>, Ji 1Taf, fl~ ll'TffA~S'
prayer may not be fulfilled').
There are many other examples of utterances like that of Neop-
tolemus, although not very many of them are so helpfully and
explicitly labelled as prayers. 22 When the herald reaches Argos in
Aeschylus' Agamemnon, he prays to the local gods and addresses
Apollo (512ff.): vvv 8' ai-r" GWTTJPia81 Kat 1rcuwvrnS'/ avaf '11To,\,\ov
('Now be my saviour and my healer, lord Apollo'). Might it be
that whilst a member of the audience would passively recognize
that this was meant to be a prayer, he would not actively, in his
own dealings with the gods, make such a free prayer? Such a
query may seem hypercritical. If Greeks made free prayers in
tragedy, why should we believe that they did not do so in real life?
ln e.g. Od. 24. 518; Terpander, PMG 698; Soph. Phil. 1077; Ar. Eq. 763((.; Vesp.
.Them1. 295 ff; Ran. 87r ff., 885 ff.; Eccl. 171-2; Xen. Oec. 6. 1; Pl. Euthd. 275d;
R?z_;
Cn11. 108; Leg. 893b; Resp. 432c; Ti. 48de; Dern. 18. 1; Lycurg. Le(J(:r.1. 2;
Hyperldes I fr. 3; Epict. Dit$. J. 21. 12 ff. There is also the evidence of the frequent
ex~re-ssion .nlv /hair ('with the gods'). For references see Ausfeld, 508.
- Soph. Phil. 779ff.
n Hecuba's apostrophe to Zeus at Eur. Tro. 884 ff. is described 11s11prayer by
Menel11us at line 889.
 Prolegomena
The problem is that references to free prayer are unevenly spread
across the genres. It is much commoner in epic and drama than it
is in the historians and orators. There are, of course, some well-•
known prayers made by orators during their speeches, e.g. Dem.
18. 1:
npw-rov µbt, Ji uvllp,s .M017vaio1,wf, 11£0<<;
EVXOJ.L<II
miai K<Ii naaa,s, 001JV
Eilvoiav lxwv .lyw llmTEAUITjj TE 1TOAEI
Kai 1TG.Gtll
vµiv, Toaav711vvml.pfa, µDI
wap' vµwv d, TOVTOVI
TOV<tywva.
First of all, men of Athens, I pray to the gods that whatever goodwill r ·
have always had towards all of you and the city, l shall continue to be:
23
granted the same from you in this present triaI.
There is also the report in Plutarch (Per. 8.4) that Pericles a.Elwpds.
TOf311p.af3a8t(wv Evxero Tots 8t:oi,;p.118JpfJµ.aµ.118JvlKwt:01:iv«KOVTOS
n1hov 1Tpos'T~VwpoKnµl.vrzvXP£[nv avapp.oOTOV ('on his way to the
platform, always prayed to the gods that he would not unawares
let slip any utterance that was inappropriate to the matter at
hand').
Most references to prayer in prose are accompanied by some
sort of cul tic act. 24 However, in both of the above examples, the
person prays to the gods. This precludes, I think, taking 1:iixoµ.aiin
a weak sense to mean merely 'wish'. 25 Another exception_ seems to
be the occasion when the Greeks summon the aid of the Aeacids .
during the battle of Salamis. 26 We are told that they prayed to all
the gods but there is no mention of any offering. There are many
places where only prayer is mentioned and we simply cannot tell
if sacrifice was involved or not. 27
But it is striking that when the Greeks, according to Herodo-
tus, receive an oracle telling them that they must pray to the
winds if they want to gain allies (avl.p,ou'1iEiixea6cu,Hdt. 7. 178.
1), they immediately proceed to build an altar at Thyia. They do
not simply apostrophize the Zephyrs. This may lend force to
Burkert's idea that no importm1t prayer is uttered without an
offering. The problem is, of course, that we would involve our-
23 Cf. Dern. 18. 141, 324; Aeschin. 1. 116, 2. 180, J. 26o; Lycurg. Leoc. t;
Antiphon 6. 45; Hyperides I fr. J.
H Just a few examples; Hdt. i. 31. 4, 1. 132. 2, l. 52. I. 6. ! It. 2, 7. 192. 2, 9. 62. 1;
Thuc. 6. 32; fsaeus 8. 16; Lysias 6, 51, 8. 70. 1: Antiphon 1. 19, 6. 45; Dern. 21. 51.•
25 26
See LSJ, s.v, I. 3. Hdt. 8. 64.
27 Aeschin. 1. 133; Dem. 14. 39; Lysias 18. 26.
Prolegomena I I
selves in a circular argument if we said that any prayer not
accompanied by an offering cannot have been important. Equally,
it would be rash simply to assume that when an ancient author
wrote 'pray' he actually meant 'pray and sacrifice'. Accepting the
limitations of the evidence, one can only point out that there
appears to be a dichotomy between the imaginative literature
where free prayer is very common and the historians and orators
where it is comparatively rare.
One could probably add credibility to the idea that cultic
prayer was the norm in Greece if one could find some plausible
explanation for this apparent literature/life dichotomy. In the
case of tragedy, at least, there are good dramatic reasons why
free prayer should preponderate. It was, we know, not customary
to show murders, sacrifices, and other bloody acts on the Attic
stage. All such things had to be ref orted in messenger speeches
or otherwise obliquely mentioned. 2 So perhaps the audience of a
Greek tragedy simply understood these conventions and would
not find anything odd about such a preponderance of free prayer.
Furthermore, in literary terms, prayer is an extremely useful
expressive device. It can be used to reveal deep feelings and create
dramatic anticipation. 29 The poetry of Homer, however, presents
a problem for such a view. There, too, free prayer is much
commoner than cultic. Those poems, of course, unlike tragedy,
do not shrink from portraying bloody acts in gruesome detail.
There are several detailed and lengthy descriptions of sacrifices. 30
Yet there are also quite a few prayers accompanied by no sort of
offering at all. They all seem to be important requests (if we can
permit ourselves such a subjective judgement) and the poet expli-
citly describes them as prayers: 31
8
" Reports of sacrifice in tragedy; Aesch. Ag. 231; Soph. Tmch. 764ff.; Eur. IA
1185 ff. Reports of sacrifice accompanied by text of prayer; Eur. Hee. 534ff.; El.
Hosff.; He/. 1584ff.; IA 1570-t6o3.
29
These purely literary aspects of prayer fall outside the scope of this book.
The reader should consult J. Mikalson, 'Unanswered Prayers in Greek Tragedy',
JHS 109 (r989), 81 ff., esp. 85 n. 24; D. Aubriot, 'Sur la valeur religieuse de
quelques prieres dans la tragedie grecque', Journal des Savants (1994), 3 ff.; T.
Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1982), 264-6.
30
e.g. ll. 1. 446-68; Od. 3. 435-71.
31
e.g. II. 6. 476ff., Hec1or prays for Astyanax; II. 7. 202ff., the Greeks pray
about the outcome of the lot; Od. 2. 26off., Telemachus asks for Athene's atten-
tion; Od. 7. 331 ff., Odysseus prays for blessings upon Alcinous; Od. io. 98ff.,
Odysseus asks for a sign from Zeus. I omit from this list wishes expressed in the
optative coupled with the name of a god in the vocative, e.g. Jl. 7. 132.
12 Prolegomena
How do we make sense of a system where Hector prays for the
future of Astyanax without any kind of offering (Il. 6. 476ff.) ·
whereas Achilles offers Zeus a libation when he prays for the safe ··
return of Patroclus (ll. r6. 233 ff.)? There is also a problem with
the prayer of Menelaus who, at Ii. 3. 351, as he is going to face
Paris, prays to Zeus that he might defeat his nefarious opponent. •
He makes no offering. Agamemnon, on the other hand, at Il. 2.
412, when he prays for victory also sacrifices an ox. One might
explain this by saying that the scene with Agamemnon is more
leisurely, whereas in Menelaus' case Homer did not want to
interrupt the flow of his narrative with ritual details. To adopt
such an explanation, though, means that we have to accept that.
Homer is, in his way, as stylized as the tragedians in his portrayal
of certain sorts of religious behaviour. How can we tell if we are
dealing with a reflection of real religious practice or a literary
stylization?
Perhaps we should try to get at the rationale which linked
prayer and offering in Greek religion. At a Homeric sacrifice, it
was the killing of the animal that formed the dramatic climax of
the ceremony. The prayer was part of the build-up to this cli-
max. 32 However, it was also possible for a prayer to be accompa-
nied simply by a libation, the pouring out of a few drops of wine
(less commonly milk or honey) to a god. This is precisely what
Priam does when he makes his prayer to Zeus at Il. 24. 306ff. At
Sop h. El. 634 ff., Electra asks for incense to be brought 01rw,;
AVTYJplov,;I EVXOSavaaxwSeiµ.aTWV('that I may uplift prayers for
deliverance from my fears'). In this second example, it looks
rather as though the offering of incense is a prerequisite for the
making of the prayer. So it is possible to pray without animal
sacrifice. Here again, though, one might ask why anybody thought
he could induce a god to do anything for the sake of a few drops of
wine when the god could presumably hold out for a hecatomb.
To ask this, however, is to misunderstand the whole nature of
reciprocity in Greece. It does not appear that the favours of the
gods were conceived of as being for sale, with the price in pigs or
oxen increasing according to the magnitude of the favour
requested. Rather, the essence of x&p1,;is that the god is offered
32
For a typical instance of this pattern of prayer leading up to sacrifice, see ll.
1. 446ff.
Prolegomena
something pleasing. 33 The worshipper establishes with the god a
relationship not of strict indebtedness but rather one where the
god remembers the gift and feels well disposed in future. Croesus
made the mistake of believing that his lavish donations to Delphi
ought somehow to have guaranteed him special treatment {Hdt.
r. goff.). The ways of the gods are inscrutable. It is not always
possible to buy them off, despite the charges levelled by Plato. 34
They desire 1'tµ.~.35 That word is variously translated as 'honour'
or 'worth in the eyes of others'. Their nµ.~ is not crudely mon-
etarist. What counts is that a gift is made; the size of that gift is a
secondary consideration. 36 If the size of the offering is not the
main thing, one can see that there may have been room for totally
free prayer. Maybe it was not necessary to come bearing gifts as
long as one had either sacrificed in the past or promised to do so at
some point in the future. Perhaps all that mattered was that both
god and man recognized that they were in a relationship of xapt,;.
It must also have been the case that the circumstances of
individual prayers differed greatly. Conceivably, the prayer that
accompanied a regular calendric sacrifice to Zeus might some-
times have seemed little more than a formality. That is not, of
course, to deny its importance. Every sacrifice or offering was
accompanied by a prayer, and one sacrifice is, broadly speaking,
pretty much like another. 37 Since Greek gods were not invariably
33
34
The word belon~ etymologically with xalpw ('I rejoice').
Leg. 885b. s e.g. Eur. Hipp. t ff.
36
That this is so seems clear from the evidence of the sacrificial calendars
giving details of what was due to which god and when. The calendar from the
deme of Thorikos (SEG xxxiii. 147; c.430 BC), shows that over the year the deme
sacrificed 6 oxen, 1 large pig, and 27 sheep/goats. Oxen and large pigs were very
expensive (90 and :50 dr. respectively) whereas sheep were only 12 dr. This is
discussed by V. J. Rosivach. The System of Public Sacrifice in Fourth-Century
A them (American Clas,;ical Studies, 34; Atlanta, 1994), 69 ff. At pp. 22 ff., he gives
references to discussions of the dating of the calendar.
J7 Greeks did reserve certain types of offering for certain occasions but in most
cases what mattered was the sacrifice of a living thing. For example, horses were
rarely offered except to Poseidon (see Burkert, 13!!).This is not, however, to deny
that there was a considerable degree of specificity in the Greek sacrificial codes.
We possess the sacrificial calendars of three Attic Demes: Erebia (375-350 BC,
LSCG 18); Marathon (400-3.50 BC, LSCG 20); Thorikos (c,430 Bc, SEG xxxiii.
r 47). They are rich in details about what animal(s) should be offered to which
god{s) on which day of the month. However, this does not prove that the purpose
and meaning of the sacrifice was determined purely by the type of animal and the
day of the month. If it were so, then prayer would indeed have been otiose. The
fact that it was still thought necessary to pray means that prayer must have been
important-because it articulated the needs and desires of the participants.
r4 Prolegomena Prolegomena 15

conceived of as omniscient, they needed to be told what the, ,Bo]IVA'l]SKtl( 1"0V671µ,ov

awT17[platT'l]S" K]Iap1rwv
TwvA817va:lwvKa:[l1"WII
worshipper wanted. 38 The motive for the prayer will thus have Twv l.v rE, xwpai('for the health and safety of the council and the
been to make sure that the offering was correctly directed and its people of Athens and of the crops in the field'). JG ii2.569 (307/6
purpose properly understood. This point is very important and RC) refers to prayers for the people of Athens, but the inscription
cannot be overstressed. We find in the ancient sources many is so fragmentary that little else can be made out. Protagoras the
references to prayers made v1rJp ('on behalf of') other people. son of Nicetus from the deme of Pergase reported to the council
In the private sphere, we find people who sacrifice or dedicate in 165/4 BC that the sacrifices he had made, as priest of Asclepius,
offerings on behalf of other members of their families as well as had portended well for the safety of the Athenians and the
themselves, e.g. JG i 3. 857 (c.470-450 BC): [M]tK11017
µ dv£[017K1:v, · inhabitants of the villages of Attica (JG ii 2 • 950).
So a prayer may be made in order to specify the direction in
1:vg)dµh17~[€K~'"7VI Kai] V'TT£P
)l8]17vd,17tnl [aydAj.A,4 1Td[[SwvI K]al
which the worshipper wished the xdp,,; to be channelled. If, on
fovrq[s] ('Mikythe dedicated me as a pleasing gift to Athene
the other hand, a man was praying for the safe return of his son
having vowed a tithe on behalf of her children and herself.')·
from a war, he might make a special sacrifice purely in order to
Other examples of this are JG ii2. 4372, 4403, 4588. Such inter•
pray. So we can see that sometimes prayers simply accompanied
cessions can even extend to elephants, see SEG xxi. 1 528. At
an offering as a gift-tag whereas at others the whole purpose of
Isaems 8. 16, the grandchildren of Ciron report that he 71vx1:ro
t ,.. t J ~ ~,; ~ ,. I- il....{ • , ' :r/ ,
the offering was so that a prayer could be made.
1/fUII V)'1€1aVcnuova1 Kai K1"7lUtV
ayau,,v, WU'TTf.P
UKOS ovra 1TU1T1TOV
The main argument of this chapter has been twofold. First,
('prayed for our health and good estate, as a grandfather naturally
prayer for a Greek meant asking the gods for something. Sec-
would'). In the public arena, at Hdt. 6. ru. 2, we hear of the ondly, one had to give as well as take. One did not customarily
Athenian herald who Ke.trfllxf.rai. .. <Ip.aTE ~817valo1atMywv ylvf.a- approach the gods empty handed. Prayer was not of itself an
0ai ra d:yalM,Kat fl),a-,-m1:va1('prayed over the sacrifice, saying that autonomous mode of religious action. It relied on sacrifice. In
the benefits should accrue to the Athenians and to the Pla- the chapters that follow, however, we shall see that there were
taeans'), That the benefits of a sacrifice could be channelled in certain circumstances under which a prayer could be made with-
this way is a striking and fundamental feature of Greek prayer. out an accompanying offering but they were still seen as part of a
Xen. Mem. 2. 2. 13 refers to l1:pa8v&µ.wa ,hrEp-rij,;1TOA£WS" ('victims nexus of give and take. I shall argue that we can classify such
sacrificed on behalf of the city') and JG i 3 • 40. 65 has it:pa {nrEpr71, prayers according to the specific condition and circumstances of
Ev{Jotas 0vaat ('sacrifice victims on behalf of Euboea'). From the the person making the prayer in a way which, it is hoped, fits in
end of the fourth century, we find quite a lot of inscriptions ,vith the general observations about reciprocity made in this
which record that particular priests or magistrates report to the chapter.
council the sacrifices they have made on behalf of the city. JG ii 2 •
I 194 (c.300) speaks of a demarch who [rJOv,..JvTf. Twi LI]I1ov11awi
Vn'Epvyif.[las Kal aw711p£a]I,;1"WV671µ0Twv('sacrificed for the health
and safety of his demesmen'). JG ii2.668 (282 Be) alludes to the
sacrifices which the archon reported he had made l.ef/tly1t:lat ical
38 Despite the all-knowing claims of the Delphic oracle (Hdt. 1. 47. 3), we are
familiar from Homer with the idea that Zeus and the other gods are sometimes out
of touch with events, for example when they go to visit the Ethiopians (II. 1.
423ff.). Although they can hear from afar (ll. 16. 515; Aesch. Eum. 297,397). they
do not read our minds. They need to be called. An exception is Hdt. 2. 181. 4,
where Aphrodite reads the thoughts of Ladike; but that is a very unusual circum-
stance, the exception that prove,s the rule (cf. Od. 5. 444ff.).

2 observed that it is without any obvious formulaic precedent in
Reciprocity and Remembrance
In Homer's Iliad, the old priest Chryses, who has been insulted
by Agamemnon, goes away on his own to the sea-shore and prays
to Apollo (1. 37ff.):
l(AvfitµEv, dpyvp&roE'.,asXpuf11/Vap.if,1{1l{1711<aS'
K,Uav TE {afil71v Twl8oi& TE Lf,1dv&oaftS',
Iµiv8Ev, El1TOTtTOt xapiwT' l11l Vl)llVIPf!lla,
~ £l 81110Tt TOI l<'.tlTO.
w{ova p,71pl';,c71a 40
Tavpwv ~a· a,ywv, 7<l0Eµot Kp~71vovUA8wp·
rdauav Llavaol lµo. 8d.Kpuaooio, {1l:\rna1.v.
Hear me, you of the silver bow, who protect Chryse and holy Cilla and
rule with might over Tenedos, if ever I have roofed over for you a
pleasing temple or burnt up for you fat thighs of bulls or goats, fulfil
for me this wish: may the Danaans pay for my tears by your arrows.
We saw in the last chapter that there was good reason to think
that prayer and sacrifice belonged together as a unit. Here we
have what is possibly one of the best known prayers in all of
Greek literature and yet it is not accompanied by a sacrifice. The
purpose of this chapter will be to examine why this is so and to
ask whether such prayers had a genuine place in Greek life as
more than just literary constructs. As Carl Ausfe]d has shown, 1
this prayer belongs to an identifiable family of prayers in Homer,
characterized by its tripartite structure of invocation (37-9), argu-
ment (39-41), and request (41). 2 Most commentators remark that
the ef 1r0Te clause is a typical feature of Homeric prayer. Numeri-
cally speaking, this is simply not so. There are only fourteen
prayers that actually contain it, out of a total of nearly seventy
1
Ausfeld, jij.
2
The term argument ill a modern coining to describe an £<m,rE ('if ever') clause
of the kind we see in this prayer. Ausfeld (p. 52-5)called it the pan epica, and this
term is common in older works.
Reciprocity and Remembrance 17
prayers in Homer. 3 More importantly, nobody seems to have
any other ancient culture either at the time of Homer or before
and that such parallels as do exist can be used to throw a wholly
new light on the motivation of such prayers in Homer and the
later sources.
First, it must be pointed out that this formula, which seems
superficially like so many other Greek formulae for making bar-
gains with gods, is actually rather unusual. We are familiar with
the formula so commonly used in vows (da-ut-dem, 'Give so that
I will give' 4 ), where the petitioner promises to give something to
the god if his request is granted. Such prayers are obviously a
very significant category in that they represent a regular and
acceptable way of praying without making any immediate offer-
ing. Significantly, however, the offering is not avoided, just post-
poned. The element of x&pi, is conspicuously present. 5
In order to match the Homeric example given above, however,
we need an argument from past precedent. There is, indeed, a not
uncommon Greek prayer formula based on past precedent,
namely the da-quia-dedisti type ('Give because you have given';
e.g. Sappho, fr. I. 5). But there the deity is being urged to comply
on account of the fact that he did so once before. Since this is an
argument from the former actions of the god and not those of the
petitioner, it is not strictly comparable with the prayer of Chryses.
His prayer, and others of its kind, can be classified as of the type
da-quia-dedi ('Give because I have given') and da-quia-dedit
('Give because he gave'). The petitioner adduces as a reason
3
(a) da-quia-dedi: 11. r. 37ff., 503 ff., 8. 2.36ff. (b) da-quia-dedi$ti: fl. L 451 ff., 5.
115ff., 10. 278ff., 2.84ff., 16. 233 ff.; Od. 2-0.98ff., cf. 112.ff. (c) da-quia-dedit: ll. 15.
372.ff.; Od. 4. 762.ff., 17. 24off. Mme Aubriot {pp. 199ff.) has rightly pointed out
that there is no good reason to see the tripartite schema as the 'Platonic Form' of
the Greek prayer.
4
e.g. among a myriad of possible examples, Il. 4. 119ff., 10. 283 ff., 2-3. 194ff.
5
Prayers using •• ,,.,,.,.,also differ from the common formula do-ut-des (' I give so
that you will give'), used by a worshipper who is dedicating some gift to a god as
thanks for an answered prayer and asking for more good turns in the future (e.g.
JG i3.728, 862.; CEG 326). But since a gift is actually being made, these prayers do
not belong in a discussion of prayer without offering. Reciprocity is, however, still
very important in dedications. One makes an 01111 prayer in the form of a vow
(called ,Jx~,as in voveo). The god may then answer one's prayer. One then sets up
a dedicatory inscription alluding to this, and sometimes asks for more help in the
future. /G i 3 • 71 I HAS <ul, x]apu• l.vr,6ill;;. Lazzarini, no. 795 reads til 6', lf>o'i/klli&o,
xa.plF,na.v l.µ,:uF[av].
18 Reciprocity and Remembrance
why his prayer should be granted either his own past actions or
those of a third party to which he is somehow connected.
In what follows, I hope to demonstrate two things. First, that it ·
is not easy to adduce convincing parallels for the Greek ei Tro-re
prayer from other contemporary Mediterranean societies. It is a
specifically Greek phenomenon, not a cultural universal. Sec~ ·
ondly, such prayers relied on the same feelings about xap,swhich
governed relations among mortals in ancient Greece. To appreci-
ate this fully, we need to look at some comparative evidence. I
have chosen for this purpose the Old Testament 6 and Pritchard's
Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament. 7 This
may be taken as a representative sample of evidence from the
great ancient rnediterranean cultures except for Rome. Do any of
these texts offer parallels for ei Trore prayers? If so, are they
independent of Greek practice or did they influence it or were
they influenced by it? If we do not find parallels, why not? Is
there anything about the societies in question which rules out
talking to the gods in this way?
THE EVIDENCE OF CONTEMPORARY SOCIETIES
Hebrew Evidence
Although much of the OT is later than Homer in composition, it
contains many passages which are clearly very old and even the
later ones may well rest on a long ora] tradition and so reflect a
much earlier state of affairs. It is therefore worth while to look for
a parallel for the da-quia-dedi formula. If one were found, then it
would be necessary to look more closely at dating and origin. On
the surface, one would think that the ancient Israelites might talk
to their God in the same way that Chryses does, given that they
had a covenant with him. The crucial thing about the covenant,
though, is the fact that it was instigated by God. He will commit
himself to man because of his infinite loving-kindness, not
because mankind deserves it. At Gen. 17. 1-14 we have a clear
account of how God was the prime mover in the arrangement.
'' Hereafter OT; quotations ~low are frorn the Authorized Version.
7
Hereafter ANET.
Reciprocity and Remembrance 19
God also made a covenant with David, but all the references to it
stress that it was something freely entered into by God for man's
benefit (2 Sam. 23: 5; Ps. 89: 3, 28-9; Ps. 110: 4). The same thing is
true of the covenant of God with the priest Phinehas {Num . .25:
10-13).
It is not, then, particularly surprising to find that examples of
Jewish prayer in the Old Testament are somewhat deferential.
They never tell God that he owes it to mankind to help them.
When Jacob prays for deliverance from the hand of Esau (Gen.
32: 12), he says, 'And thou saidst, I will surely do thee good, and
make thy seed as the sand of the sea.' He is reminding God of a
promise that he, God, once made, and so this prayer is of the da-
quia-dedisti type. Moses seems remarkably forward with God at
Exod. 32: 13 when he prays, 'Remember Abraham, Isaac, and
Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swarest by thine own self, and
saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven.'
But this, too, is da-quia-dedisti. In fact, it seems conceptually
impossible for the Jews to talk to their God as the Homeric Greek
heroes seem to have done. The Deuteronomic writer is clear that
man should always be humbly mindful of the mighty acts which
God has previously performed for the love of his people (Deut. 4:
9, 3.2-9; 7: 18-19; 8: 2; 9: 25-9). Prayer in the covenantal frame-
work seems almost of necessity to exclude prayer of the Homeric
type. In the Psalms, however, we come quite close to the spirit of
self-assertion that we find in the prayer of Chryses. At Psalm 17
we read:
1. Hear the right, 0 Lord, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my
prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
2. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold
the things that are equaL
3. Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night;
thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth
shall not transgress.
4. Concerning the works of men, by the word of my lips have I kept
me from the paths of the destroyer.
5. Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
6. I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, 0 God: incline thine
ear unto me, and hear my speech.
7. Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, 0 thou that savest by thy right
20 Reciprocity and Remembrance
hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against
them.
Similar! y, at Psalm 26: I ff., we have:
1. Judge me, 0 Lord; for I have walked in mine integrity: I have
trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.
2. Examine me, 0 Lord, and prove me; try my reins and my heart.
3. For thy Jovingkindness is before mine eyes; and I have walked in thy
truth.
4. I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with
dissemblers.
5. I have hated the congregation of evil doers; and will not sit with the ·
wicked.
6. I will wash mine hands in innocency: so will I compass thine altar, 0
Lord:
7. That I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy
wondrous works.
These two psalms clearly do adduce the past actions of the
petitioner as reasons why the prayer should be answered. But
they differ from the prayer of Chryses in two respects. First,
they are protestations of innocence. The speaker says that he '.
has not done things which, if he had done them, would surely
have been sin (Ps. r7: 4; 26: 4). To say that one has 'hated the
congregation of evil doers' (Ps. 26: 5) is certainly to remind God
of one's past piety but the framework is totally different from
anything in Homer. We can compare the great oath of piety by ·
Job (eh. 31). It is a catalogue of protestations of innocence of the.
form 'If ever I have committed such and such a sin, you would be
right to punish me-but I haven't'.
Heinemann 8 has shown that Jewish prayer in the Talmud can
have its more self-assertive moments. But here again, we are
dealing with protestations of innocence or the presentation of
evidence which mitigates the alleged sin of the petitioner. Hei-
nemann has shown that these prayers are based on the language
of defence speeches in legal proceedings. This is quite a bold way
to talk to God. But the point of contact is limited to this con-
fidence felt by the petitioner before God. We do not get a cata-
logue of favours for which God ought to feel grateful.
Something which might superficially seem much closer to the
8
J. Heinemann. Prayer in tlle Talmud (Berlin, 19n).
Reciprocity and Remembrance 21
Homeric type under discussion is the prayer of Moses at Exodus
33: 13: 'Now therefore, I pray thee, if I have found grace in thy
sight, shew me now thy way that I may know thee, that I might
find grace in thy sight: and consider that this nation is thy peo-
ple.' At first sight, it is tempting to equate the 'grace' which
Moses may have found in God's sight with the xapfrvT• of Iliad
1. 39. The Hebrew word .ln(chen), translated above as 'grace' is
indeed regularly translated in the Septuagint as xap,s.This is,
however, somewhat misleading. In Hebrew, the 'grace' or 'favour'
. which God shows to man is not something which he owes them
because of their sacrifices to him. 9 What Moses is talking about is
not the same as building temples or sacrificing oxen. Further-
more, the formula can also be used in contexts where the peti-
tioner clearly abases himself. At Exodus 34: 9, Moses says: 'If
now I have found grace in thy sight, 0 Lord, let my Lord, I pray
thee, go among us; for it is a stiffnecked people; and pardon our
iniquity and our sin and take us for thine inheritance.' It is almost
as though Moses is not certain that he has earned God's favour.
At Numbers u: 15, Moses is even more self-abasing and says:
'And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, I pray thee, out of hand,
if I have found favour in thy sight; and let me not see my
wretchedness.' There is a world of difference, then, between
this formula and the prayer of Chryses or any other Homeric
hero who expects his god to pay back one good turn with another.
I think we can discern an a priori explanation of the absence
from the Old Testament of prayers such as that of Chryses. In
Israel, there was indeed a sacrificial religion but the OT makes it
fairly clear that even if God accepted sacrifices from his human
worshippers, it was not because he needed them in any material
sense. 10 In several places, it is explicitly stated that God wants not
0
See D. N. Freedman and J Lundbom, in G. J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren
(eds.), Theologisches Worterbuch zum Alim Testament, iii (Berlin, 19lb), 23 ff.; G.
A. Buttrick (ed.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville, 1989), s.v.
'Grace' 1(h); there is also a good entry on 'Grace in the OT' in the Supplementary
Volume.
!O Cf. the 'shewbread' mentioned in Exodus l5: 30. God does not really need to
eat the bread. The offering is more like an offering of first-fruits in Greece. See M.
Black and H. H. Rowely (eds.), Peake's Commentary 011 tlle Bible (London, 1963),
ad Joe. Of course, it is not dear that Greek gods actually needed sacrifices either.
See G. S. Kirk, A Commentary on Homer'i Iliad, ii (Cambridge, 1990), 9ff. See also
]. Griffin (ed.), Homer. Iliad IX (Oxford, r995), 137, on line 535.
22 Reciprocity and Remembrance
sacrifice but rather men with righteous hearts. 11 Therefore the ·.
most we can do in the way of reminding him of past piety is to
state that we have not broken his commandments.
Hittite Evidence
We might, then, turn to the Hittites. They, after all, are lndo..., ·
Europeans and might preserve something similar to Greek prac-,
tice. In Pritchard's ANET (pp. 394ff.), we have a record of the
prayers of King Mursilis II, son of Suppiluliumas, written in the.
third quarter of the fourteenth century BC. In§ 2 (p. 394), he says,
'When I celebrated festivals, I worshipped all the gods, I never
pref erred one temple to another.' This is a protestation of piety in
the face of disaster. Mursi1is, so far from asserting any absolute
right to help, humbles himself at § 7 (p. 395), 'Because I humble·
myself and cry for mercy, hearken to me, Hattian Storm-god, my
Lordi Let the plague stop in the Hatti land!' There is something
much closer to the Greek model in the Daily Prayer of the King:
(p. 396),
Thou, Telepinus, art a noble god; thy godhead and the gods' temples are
firmly established in the Hatti land. But in no other land anywhere are
they so. Festivals (and) sacrifices pure (and) holy they present to thee in<
the Hatti land. But in no other country anywhere do they present them
so. Lofty temples adorned with silver and gold thou hast in the Hatti
land. But in no other country anywhere hast thou their like. (ii) Cups and
rhyta, silver, gold and (precious) stones thou hast in the Hatti land. But
in no other country hast thou their like.
Whilst stress is laid in several places upon the present piety of the
worshippers, for example in the matter of prayers and sacrifices,
it also seems clear that the reference to temples and gifts refers to
past favours. There is no denying that this is quite close to da-
quia-dedi, but it is also more diffuse and less immediate than in
Homer. This may be because in Homer the formulaic language ..
makes this bargaining process seem more concise and matter-of-
fact than it actually was. We shall look at this more closely later. It
is worth noting, in passing, that this prayer is structurally very
similar to some Greek prayers. After the invocation, we have a
11 e.g. Ps, 51: 16-17; Mic. 6: 7-S.
Reciprocity and Remembrance 23
passage of speculation about all the places where Telepinus might
actually be at that moment. This reminds us of Ar. Ran. 659 and
Aesch. Eum. 292. We go on with the argumentum, as discussed
above. We then have a hymn and finally a request for blessings
and curses upon various people.
Then there is the prayer of Arnuwandas and Asmu-Nikkal
concerning the ravages inflicted upon Hittite cult-centres. We
read, from the beginning (ANET, p. 399):
The land of the Hittites is a land [that is devoted] to you, the gods. In the
land of the Hittites we are accustomed to present to you pure and really
[holy] sacrifices. In the land of the Hittites we are accustomed to show
you, the gods, reverence. Ye should know, 0 gods, by your divine
insight, that no one has ever taken care of your temples as we have;
that no one has ever paid more reverent attention to your implements;
that no one has ever taken care of the goods, silver (and) gold, of the
rhyta (and) cups (!) of you, the gods, as we have; [the catalogue con-
tinues] .... Ye should know by your divine insight what offerings of
sacrificial loaves and libations they used to present. [We], Arnuwandas,
the Great King, and Asmu-Nikkal, the Great Queen, shall again give fat
sheep (and) fine [oxen], fine sacrificial loaves and libations. [sma11gap]
So stand ye by us!
This could be taken in one of two ways. One might insist on the
fact that the king and queen are actually promising to make
sacrifices in the future on the scale which they have just described
as being typical of the past and conclude that we are, in fact,
dealing with a vow. The thought would be, 'Because we will
sacrifice to you, stand by us (da-et-dabo).' On the other hand, it
is difficult to ignore the catalogue of past good deeds. They are
presumably adduced in order to make the god realize that these
people feel they have a claim on his attention.
There is also the prayer of Pudu-Hepas to the Sun-goddess of
Arinna and her Circle (pp. 393 ff.). Pudu-Hepas was a Hittite
queen and consort of Hattusilis, son of Mursilis. She prays
(ANET, p. 394):
Because as a woman in travail I have in my own person made reparation
to the god, my lord, intercede for me, god, my lord, with the Storm-god,
thy father, and the Sun-goddess of Arinna, thy mother! Hattusilis, thy
servant, wore himself out in the god's service; he gave himself body and
soul to the restoration of Nerik, the beloved city of the god, my lord. So
 Reciprocity and Remembrance
he thou, 0 god, my lord, favourably inclined toward Hattusilis, thy
servant!
This is much closer to the kind of thing we are looking for. We
have references both to the queen's 'reparation', whatever that
was, and to the pious labours of Hattusilis himself.
Sumerian, Akkadian, and Egyptian Evidence
Close Sumerian and Akkadian parallels of this kind seem to be
lacking. For Egypt, we have a document of Amenhotep III (1413-
1377 nc; ANET, p. 375). It is a list of all the buildings which
pharaoh has erected for the god, followed by a list, spoken by the
god, of all the blessings that he has sent to pharaoh in return.
This illustrates very nicely the reciprocity between pharaoh and
god in ancient Egypt. But this is not a prayer and one has the
feeling that this particular document is actually a celebration of
the favourable results of a profitable co-operation between man
and god. In what has survived of the prayers of everyday peo-
ple, 12 the formula da-quia-dedi does not seem to crop up. There
again, the phenomenon we are dealing with in Homer may have
very little to do with everyday people.
ludo-Iranian Evidence
Finally, we ought to look at the evidence of early Indo-Iranian
texts because, if they contained parallels for ,ej 1r0Tf prayers of the
da-quia-dedi kind, it would both be an interesting comparative
fact and might, more importantly, suggest that we were dealing
with a formula inherited from the lndo-European tradition.
Contractual prayer formulae of the 'If ... then' kind are found
in the Rig-Veda, a text commonly supposed to belong to the end
of the second or the beginning of the first millennium BC. I am
aware, however, of only two examples. At Rig-Veda 7. 56. 15, we
find 'If, Marats, you have regard for the praise recited here ...
vouchsafe wealth to us'; at 8. 32. 6, we find 'If my libation makes
you glad, if you take pleasure in my praise, come from afar with
your godhead'. However, we can immediately see that in these
12
A. I. Sadek, Popular Religion in Egypt during the New Kingdom (Hilden;-
heim, 1987), 200 ff., esp. 23 1.
Reciprocity and Remembrance
prayers the god is being asked to grant the petitioner's request if
he is satisfied with the quid pro quo currently on offer. There is
no attempt to make the god comply on the basis of the peti-
tioner's previous gifts. The da-quia-dedi mentality is not, then,
something inherited from the Inda-European past. Furthermore,
on a purely linguistic level, the fact that the word 'if' (Vedic yadi)
is found in these formulae does not prove that we are dealing with
an ancient liturgical formula. We have already seen that 'if' is
common in contractual prayers from other cultures, e.g. ancient
Israel and ancient Anatolia.
Only one example of the da-quia-dedi mentality is known to me
from all of Indian literature. It occurs at Mahabhamta 3. 281. 96
and was brought to my attention by Rudolf Wachter. It reads, 'If
I have done penance, bestowed gifts, and poured out libations, let
this night be propitious to us.' Whilst this is very suggestive, it
must be home in mind that the Mahabhamta is, in some respects,
a rather late text. To my knowledge, nobody would date the
recension before 300 BC. Some, in fact, think it was still in pro-
gress in AD 300. By 300 BC, of course, the Greeks had already
reached India. Whilst we are all aware that late texts may contain
genuinely old material, it would be unwise, on the basis of a text
such as this, to conclude that we are dealing with an ancient Indo-
European formula.
Elizabeth Tucker has also drawn to my attention certain pas-
sages of the Persian texts of the so-called 'Younger Avesta'. There
are certainly examples of contractual language, e.g. Yast 5. 61-5,
where the speaker says he will make rich offerings if he gets home
safely. This, however, is a vow, a promise of what the petitioner
will do in future if the god performs a particular favour, and there
is no really good parallel for an established da-quia-dedi mentality,
except perhaps for Yast 5. 76-8. Here, the speaker says, 'By this
truth, by this correctly spoken statement ... it is the case that as
many deva worshippers have been slain by me as I bear hairs on
my head. So you leave ... a dry passage ... for me' (trans. W. W.
Malandra, An Introduction to Ancient Iranian Religion (Minne-
apolis, 1983), 125). Whilst this is certainly an allusion to the past
piety of the petitioner, the request is formulated in terms of an
'appeal to truth', a special mode of speech in the Zoroastrian
tradition. This way of addressing gods does not seem to have
26 Reciprocit_v and Remembrance
given rise to a generalized prayer formula of the kind that we fin ,
in Greek.
THE RELEVANCE OF THIS TO GREECE
These are the closest parallels I have found in the comparati
material. The Hebrew material looked promising at first, but
very idea of da-quia-dedi is almost ruled out by the theologi
presuppositions of Judaism. Nor did the Sumerian, Akkadi
Egyptian, or lndo-Iranian material provide any particularly co
pelling parallels.
It is the Hittite evidence which is most interesting. It ought
be said straight away, however, that some experts on Hitti
religion believe that the Hittites saw their relationship to thi
13
gods as being that of servant to master or subject to king.
would therefore be distorting to see them as being like Home '
heroes talking to their gods. Their prayers are perhaps more r o,f:,pa'TOI avr{Kavvv l!uoKatl!EKa{3oii, lvl "71<i'J
those Talmudic prayers already mentioned where the petitio
speaks boldly in order to assert his own innocence. The parall
between the Hittite and Greek material are striking but n
entirely cogent. We cannot really say that the Hittite eviden '
offers an obvious model for the use of the actual words d' 1roT£ •
Homer. However, it certainly does parallel a similar sort of co
fidence. Furthermore, as we shall see, the fact that some of th
Hittite prayers are spoken by people who are in extreme
unusual circumstances may go some way to explaining the d
tribution of da-quia-dedi prayers in Horner.
The rarity of da-quia-dedi in the Near Eastern evidence sho
that this is not a universal cultural phenomenon. One cannotj
say that this is the sort of thing any human being would
Furthermore, we must also rid ourselves of the idea that er1r
prayer is the most natural way for a Homeric Greek to exp
himself. We have already seen that such prayers are not parti
larly frequent in Homer. Normally, people praying express the
selves in other ways. 14 Furthermore, these tit 'ITOTti prayers
13 0. R. Gurney, Some Aspects of Hittite Religion, Schweich Lectures, l
(London, 1977), 1-3; id., The Hittites (I,ondon, 1952), I so-6o.See also AN
207 ff., 'Instructions for Temple Officials'.
14
This numerical paucity is even more marked in later sources.
Reciprocity and Remembrance 27
never accompanied by sacrifice. No Homeric sacrificer whose
words are recorded ever uses a da-quia-dedi{t) formula. At II.
I. 451 ff. we have a sacrifice with an ei' 1roT£
formula, but it is of the
da-quia-dedisti type. Similarly, at 16. 233 ff., we have a libation
,r
followed by noTe, but once again we are dealing with da-quia-
dedisti.15 The distinction seems to me important. The conclusion
must be that, when making a sacrifice, whilst it was reasonable to
remind the god of his previous favour towards oneself, it was
unnecessary to remind him of one's own previous sacrifices.
It is striking that no da-quia-dedi prayer is unanswered, except
half of the important prayer of Achilles at II. 16. 233. This high
success rate suggests that the procedure is not thought of as
unprofitable. If we consider the prayer of Theano to Athene
(ll. 6. 305 ff), we have a da-ut-dare-possim formula which Homer
explicitly tells us was rejected:
~11£Kai 0.VTOV
&fovI!~ Eyxo, .j,op,~1!110,,
1rp71vta.3o,7T£!1iuvlJKO.IWV1rpo1rapa,BEm,.\awv,
fjv1, ~K£!1'Ta,{rpnfoop.EV,ai K'l.\11~<T'[/>
a!1'TvTli Kat Tpwwv dAoxou, KO.l1"1)7Tt0. TJKva.
Break the spear of Diomede and grant that he himself may fall headlong
before the Scaean gates; so that we may straight away now sacrifice to
you in your temple twelve sleek untamed heifers, if you will have mercy
on the city and the wives of the Trojans and their young children.
Mabel Lang 16 has suggested that this was a bargain being left
open to the goddess. The implication is that people cannot sacri-
fice if they are dead. Lang thought that this was too offhand a way
to talk to a goddess and that the prayer may have been rejected for
that reason. Morrison 17 thinks narrative considerations are more
important than theology here. He notes that Theano has asked
for Diomedes to be killed, rather than just stopped. When Hele-
nus sent Hector to Troy to arrange for this prayer, the idea was
merely to stop Diomede. As Morrison points out, Athene was
15
There are plenty of parallels for da-quia-dedisti in other cultures. We have
already seen some of the Hebrew ones. I am aware of two Rig-Vedic parallels, Rig-
Veda 6. 35. 5; 8. 8. 6.
16
M. Lang. 'Reason and Purpose in Homeric Prayers', Classical World, 68
( 1<)$5). 309-14.
1
J. Morrison, 'The Function and Context of Homeric Prayers: A Narrative
Perspective', Hermes, II9 (1991), 145ff.
 Reciprocity and Remembrance
hardly likely to obstruct Diomede at this stage in the game but
how could she refuse the reasonable prayer of her pious priestess?
Homer gets round the dilemma by having Theano make a wholly
unreasonable prayer, which will definitely be rejected. Morrison's
narrative argument is ingenious and safer than that of Lang, who
is very bold in her conjecture that the da-ut-dare-possim formula
was theologically unacceptable. After aU, it recurs in Aeschylus
(Cho. 255 ff.), implicitly in Euripides (Held. 777 ff.), and occasion-
ally in inscriptions (e.g. SEG i. 42J). Furthermore, it is not prac-
tically all that different from the da-ut-dem formula so common in
vows. But we learn, in a roundabout way, that the da-quia-dedi
formula does seem to have almost irresistible persuasive power as
far as Homer is concerned and that it succeeds where less assertive
formulae fail. Da-ut-dare-possim has about it, after all, something
of the 'take-it-or-leave-it' mentality. If the god is not particularly
attracted by the idea of future gifts, he need not render present
help. It is not the same if a formu]a is chosen which explicitly
reminds the god of his indebtedness to the petitioner.
A clue to the reason why Ei?Ton prayer was so effective may lie in
the fact that the formulaic language which it uses precisely mirrors
that used in two episodes involving fe:vfo('guest-friendship'). In
the following list, the first two passages are examples of a human
claiming the rights due from a host to his guest-friend and the
second two are prayers:
(i) Od. 3· 98 ff.: )11aa&µ,<11,e:i7l'OTE:
7'01n 1ra-r~pfµ,&s,foOi\ds vava-
, I 'Y/
OEV'i, • 'Y/fi
~ f7TOS . ' TI fiP)'OJJ
. ' ' E5fTEr.Eaa£
V?Toara, 'i: I\ I •• , I TWV
. VtJV
. µ,01
/Lv,jaa,-addressed to Nestor CI entreat you, if ever my father,
noble Odysseus, performed for you some word or deed that he
had promised, remember these now, I ask you'). 18
(ii) Od. 4. 328 ff, Text identical to {i) but addressed to Menelaus.
(iii) Od. 4. 7cfaff.: ttAv9[f'EI!, aiyu:1xo10 J,ds- Tf.lW!,, ~Tp11Tc6V71, I £i
7l'O't! -rot 7TOAVµ1j'tl'i (Ill /J,f)'apoiow 08ml'OEIJS/ ~ /jobs ~ ofos /CaTll 7Tfova.
18
According to A. Heubeck, S, West, and J, B. Hainsworth, A Coonnrnta')' on
Homer's Odyue}', i; Books h'I (Oxford, 1988), 166, Berard and Schwarts have
suggested that these lines are an interpolation, This does not affect the point at
issue since the same lines appear at 4. 323ff., where their authenticity has not been
questioned, The requests of Telemachus {i}ll!ld (ii) are II little more complicated
than the prayers (iii) lllld (iv) becauiw they contain the word ,\foooµo:,, We shall
consider in more detail in Ch, 4the implications of "'"'""I"'" in an ,'l :rro,-,prayer. It
is II separate issue and ought not to affect the validity of the observation that ,i :rra,,.,
and f&(a are related,
Reciprocity and Remembrance 29
µ,rip,a.K1JE,
/ -rwv vvv µm µ,v71am... ('Hear me, child of Zeus who
bears the aegis, Atrytona, if ever wily Odysseus in his halls burnt
for you fat thighs of ox or sheep, remember these now, I ask you').
(iv) Od. 17. 24off.: vvµ,c/,cu1<p71va.ia.1, 1<ovpmJ,&s, e:i1roT'Vovaatvr;/
• '•f7Tt' /L'Y/Pla
Vftµ, ' IC1'JE
• • • • / • , • 7'00£
'" µ,ot 1<p1J1jVUT
' • fi£r.awp
"\~ ('N ymp h S of
the spring, daughters of Zeus, if Odysseus ever burnt thighs for
you, grant this wish for me').
When one puts these passages together in this way, it becomes
startHngly clear that the formulae of prayer and of f 1:vta are the
same. Just as Telemachus can ask Nestor for help on the strength
of Odysseus' friendship with Nestor, so Penelope can ask Athene
to save Telemachus on the strength of Odysseus' past piety.
Although examples (iii) and {iv) are of the third-person da-
quia-dedit type, I do not see why the observation should not
extend to the first-person da-quia-dedi prayers as well. We have
here two ostensibly separate kinds of behaviour, e:i'1roTEprayer
and fwfa, which both turn out to spring from the same notions
about reciprocity. We know of the importance of reciprocal guest-
friendships in Greek society both from the evidence of the
Homeric poems themselves and from the continuous record of
the later archaic and classical sources. I believe that £i.'1ro-r£
prayers and fEV{a.both rely on the same kinds of ideas about x.dp,s.
Since f01fo is an assertion of one's rights, we may conclude that
the Greeks made a daring step forward here. Heroes talk to their
gods rather as they talk to each other.
It is interesting to observe that all 1:,1ro-rt prayers of the da-
quia-dedi type are uttered by people who are not in a position to
make a sacrifice. At Il. I. 37 ff. we have Chryses on enemy terri-
tory, by the sea-shore. At II. 5. I 15 ff., we are on the battlefield. At
II. 8. 236 ff., we are in the middle of an assembly. At II. 10. 278 ff.,
284ff., two men who are undertaking an ambush do not have time
to make a sacrifice. At//, 15. 372 ff. we are on the battlefield again.
At Od. 4. 762 ff,, Penelope is grief-stricken in an upper room. 19
19
'Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution (Eng. trans., Cambridge,
Mass., 1992), 99-100, points out that this prayer and its context is difficult to
understand in purely Greek terms and that it is probably a borrowing from a
closely parallel scene in the Epic of Gilgamesh. It is also noteworthy that this
prayer is accompanied by an offering, This need not, however, invalid:1te the
findings. An offering of barley and an animal sacrifice are two rather different
things.
30 Reciprocity and Remembrance
With Telemachus, the paterfamilias figure, gone, she canno
easily organize a sacrifice. At Od. 6. 324 ff., Odysseus is on foreign
territory, in the grove of Athene. At Od. 17. 240 ff., Eumaeus is.
among the suitors and equally in no position to sacrifice. Ther'
are two other places where da-quia-dedi language is used. Botll
involve gods entreating other gods (ll. r. 503 ff., Zeus and Thet'
Il. 14. 233 ff., Hera and Sleep). Neither involves sacrifice,
course. It looks very much as though t:i' 1roT£prayers of the
quia-dedi type are used in Homer by people who might like
sacrifice but cannot. They are in awkward or straitened circu
stances. In real life, of course, people will rarely have fou
themselves faced with the same sorts of emergencies as t
Homeric heroes. So will they have needed or used such praye
Despite what we know of the frequency of sacrifice in anci
Greece, there must still have been times between sacrifices wh
people wanted to ask things of the gods. It is, after all, som
what implausible that every time a Greek wanted somethi
from the gods, he would make a sacrifice on the spot. Th
things take some time to arrange and one is entitled to doub
whether every Greek always felt compelled to wait until he ha .
a sacrificial gift to hand before talking to the gods. All the same.
one might ask, was it not precisely to deal with such cases
these that the vow came into being? Would not a person pray·
empty-handed have promised some payment in the future.
Maybe not in all cases.
It may be that the factor which determined whether one used
da-quia-dedi ( t) prayer or made a vow was the nature of th
request. Perhaps, if one had just a small request to make, o
might say, 'Remember that goat I sacrificed last week' and exp
the god to comply. Presumably, though, there will have been
limit to the number of times one could decently expect a god
do one a favour purely on the basis of one's past sacrifices. I d
not wish to suggest, of course, that Greek x&.pt,;was bluntl
mercantile. Presumably, one's previous offerings made the god.)
well disposed to one in a way that could not be crudely quanti..'
fied. It is not the case that one ox would buy divine hea]tJi
insurance for just one month. It may well be that the god woul
grant several requests, made on several different occasions, if
felt so inclined. However, if gods were anything like hum
there must always have been the risk that they would withdraw:
Reciprocity and Remembrance 31
their favours altogether if their goodwill was presumed upon too
far. Telemachus can ask a great deal of Nestor on the strength of
the latter's friendship with Odysseus; but one imagines that
Nestor might have drawn the line if Telemachus had simply
moved in and demanded free meals for life. Therefore, if one's
request was so big that a whole new sacrifice was called for, one
might either sacrifice at once or make the prayer at once and
promise to honour the god later. The fact that I know of no
instance of a da-quia-dedi ( t) prayer offered in conjunction with
a vow reinforces my belief that the two types served different, but
complementary, purposes.
LITERARY CONSTRUCT OR REAL LIFE?
Having said all this, can we be sure that the £i TrO'Tt' mentality is
anything other than a Homeric construct? I think we can. Lysias,
recalling the Persian Wars (2. 39) asks 1roi'a18' otlx tK£T£la, 8u'i,v
Jylvovro ~ 8uc,1wv&.vap,117]C1HS; ('What manner of supplication and
reminders of sacrifices did not take place?'). It is difficult to
interpret 8u111wvdvap..111]Gfl,; as referring to anything other than £1
1ron prayers of the da-quia-dedi/dedimus type. Another suggestive
piece of evidence is Hdt. r. 87. 1, referring to Croesus' invocation
of Apollo to save him from the pyre: [sc. .,.JvKpoic,011] J1r,~wc,o.c,8a,
rov :41r&,Uwvo. Jm,ca>.loµ..£vov,£i ·d ol K£Xapiaµlvov If o.vTov J6wp17817,
1ro.paarijvo.1Kat p1foac,8a[µ,iv iK -roil1raplovTos KO.Kou('Croesus with
a loud cry called on Apollo, if he had received any pleasing gift
from him, to stand by him and rescue him from his present
trouble'), Both Lysias and Herodotus are referring to situations
where people are unable to sacrifice and so the £i 1ro-rE-typeprayer
is the appropriate thing to use. These are the only prose attesta-
tions of the Ei ,ron mentality known to me. They are none the less
very valuable.
Turning to the imaginative literature, we find some suggestive
parodies of Ei TrOTE language in Aristophanes. The first comes at
Pax 385, where the chorus begs Hermes not to carry out his threat
to kill them all. There is a feeling of real urgency in the preceding
.. scene, and Trygaeus begs the chorus to intercede with Hermes.
What they actually say is as follows:
 Reciprocity and Remembrance
w8forrofl' 'Epµ.i/,µ.718aµwr,µ.718aµ.wi;,
µ.'1]8aµiji,;
E7 n nxap1r1µ.&ov xo,p,8mv ola9a TTap'lµov ')'E Kan87180Kws;,
TOUT(> µ~ ,pavAOVvoµ.,r lv TqJ8ET,j, <vvv> 1rpd.yµ,an
Never, never, never, 0 master Hermes, if you are aware of having
gobbled up any pleasing piglet from me, do not consider this a trivial
thing in my current predicament.
The Kfixapiap.lvov ( 'pleasing') of line 386 echoes that in Hdt. I. 87,:
and puts one in mind of Chryses' fit 1ro7J."f'Otxap1.1:v"f''lrrlV7JOVlp€
{'if ever I roofed over for you a pleasing temple') at ll. I. 39. As we
saw, this is a comic scene. It is true that the words Et 1ro"f'1:do not
appear in this scene, but it would definitely come under t
category of Lysias' flvcn&v dvaµ.v71cms.
The second parody comes at Acharnenses 404 ff., when Dicaeo-.
polis comes to visit Euripides; he cannot get past Cephisophon at
the door so he calls out to Euripides in the following words:
EvpmtS'f/, Evpi1rtS1ov,I V1T<1KOIJ(JO'II, Et1rEp1TW1TOT' dv8pwwwv Tl .·
('Euripides, Euripides dear, harken unto me, if ever you have?
given ear to any man'). The use of the word avlJpwTTwv (men, 5 as:
opposed to gods, i.e. humans), in particular, suggests parody . actually a da-quia-dedisti formula.
prayer language. Euripides is being addressed as though he were{
a god who might occasionally deign to hear mortal prayers. The~
verb vwaKovw ('hear') is paralleled in the prayer at Nub. 274/
The substitution of 1rul.1ro"f'e('ever yet') for 1ro"f'E ('ever') does not
materially affect the argument. 20
The question is, however, whether these parodies were based;
on formulae which the audience would recognize from real life 01-r
whether they were meant rather to be a playful adaptation of the
high epic style. 21 We know that Aristophanes frequently went in
for pastiche of tragic diction and it would be very much in his
20
This particular example is of the da-quia-dedisli type. It seems proper that II
discussion of the authenticitv of the ~i ,ror• formula and mentality should cover
this form of expression as w;ll as dtNtuia-dedi or da-quia-dedit.
21 I shall not say any more about parody in this study. Two excellent treatments;
already exist: H. Kleinknecht, Die Gebetsparodif!'in der Antike (Stuttgart and
Berlin, 1937) and W. Hom, Gebet 1111d Gebetsparodie in den Komildien des Aristo-
phanes {Nuremberg, 1970). Kleinknecht has shown at length that Aristophanes is
parodying real prayers. There is no need to repeat this work here. Furthermore, I
believe that the consistent agreement over prayer formulae in our purely literary
sources is a strong argument for their reality. It is difficult to imagine that the
poets could have developed a set of private formulae that bore no relation to rellf •.
life.
Reciprocity and Remembrance 33
manner to do the same for the language of epic. Naturally, we
cannot rule out the possibility that these parodies are purely
literary. Equally, however, we cannot say with certainty that
they did not at the same time also reflect actual practice.
Aristophanes also, however, preserves examples of the 1:i -rro"f'1:
mentality in contexts which do not seem quite so parodic. Equites
590 ff. is an invocation to Pallas to bring Victory:
vvv oJv BEvpo<f>d.'117/8,·8Ei
y<ip"f'Ot, dv8pd.cn"f'oiuBE TTd-
!11} "f'tXV'{J
1roplaa, aE vf-
KTJV Ef1rep1TOT£ ,ca.lvw.
Now then, appear here. For with all your skill you must give men victory
now if ever.
The words Et1r£p won Kal. viiv may simply mean 'now if ever (i.e.
it's really urgent this time)', as LSJ point out in citing this very
passage (s.v. El VII. 3(f) ). However, LSJ also note that "' 1ron is
used in prayers, and cite ll. I. 39. Since this passage is, in fact, a
prayer, it is more than likely that what we have in this passage is
If this example is controversial, there is a much clearer one at
Thesm. II55ff. Once again, it is an invocation, this time of
Demeter and Kore:
fU)At,TO'II lMJe-rov.dl!"f'oµ.£9'w
6Eaµ.orp&pw1roA111To"f'Vfo,
£1Kal 1rp&np&v1ro7'l1TTJKOw
,t;MJE"f'OV, ,KE·
<l,\(h,TE> VV'II,def,1KE!18'
TEl/0/J,EV e118ME ".t'iµ.iv.
Come, come, we entreat you, most reverend Thesmophorian deities, if
ever before you heard us and came, come now, come to us here, we beg
you.
This has about it nothing comic or obviously parodic. It looks
like an imitation of a formula known to exist in real life.
The tragedians also preserve quite a few examples of el 11:o"f'E
prayers. The very words 1:i' TTOTE appear at Sophocles OT 164 f.,
where Athene, Artemis, and Apollo are being invoked to come to
the aid of Thebes: E11'fo"f'EKat 1TpOTEpa, chas vw1:popvvµ.ivaswoAn,/
,ivvcwr'IK"f'01T!aV ('If ever, in the past,
c/>Mya'"T/P.a"f'OS,€A8€TE KOL'11111!
when ruin was imminent for the city, you averted the baneful
34 Reciprocity and Remembrance Reciprocity and Remembrance 35

flame, come now also'). Here, however, we are dealing with an children of a man who so often sacrificed to Zeus. The god owes
antistrophe which already contains a couple of Homeric forms . them something. Part of the reason why men will no longer
(ra1o'.oxo11(160), iKa{l6>.ov(163)) and we cannot discount the pos- believe in signs and portents if Zeus does not help is that they
sibility of a verbal reference to Homer, especially since the same will have lost their faith in the workings of reciprocity.
words are being used to entreat Apollo to stop the plague in·· There is a dark humour in Agamemnon's prayer to Hades at
Thebes as Chryses used in Iliad I to get him to start one. 22 Helen 969 ff.:
Just as we saw with Aristophanes, however, there are in the
cLvlpTEp'"A1871,Kilt (1£ avp,µaxov KllAW,
tragedians other attestations of the Ei'll'OTE mentality which are not ·
so easy to dismiss. At Aeschylus' Septem (179f.), when the chorus
8,; m/M' ,a,,w Ti/a8' £Kan awp,arn
1TEaOV'TaTwµ,i, ef,aayt11'f./),
1uuOov8' lxn,·
is imploring the gods for their help, they remind them of the
sacrifices they had previously received: ef,t>.ofhfrwv 6l -rot 116AEoS' 0 Hades down below, I call upon you too as an ally; who received on
&py[wv / µ.v-rfuropesro-r-Eµ01 ('Remember the city's rites accompa-
account of this woman here many corpses who fell by my sword, and you
have your reward.
nied by sacrifices, I beg you').
At Choephoroe 255 ff., Orestes tries to persuade Zeus to help In the same play, Helen herself brings similar pressure to bear
him, by reminding him that Agamemnon had been very con- when invoking Aphrodite (10~>7ff.):
scientious in sacrificing to Zeus and doing him honour. He goes .
av 8', ii ;,.,Twµq>KaAAOS' iK'T~IJW ydµq,,
on to say that it would be unwise for Zeus not to protect the
children of such a man because nobody else would feel inclined to i<&p Kv11p•,µ~ µ' i,wrd."?I.
11,::hd.i1'7],
sacrifice if they witnessed such a failure on Zeus' part to help his And you, who by my marriage won the prize for beauty, Cypris daughter
worshippers: of Dione, do not destroy me.

,m,
Kaha, 81.rri/pa,; c,., .,.,p,wvTas;µJya The implication is that Aphrodite has benefited by Helen and
1raTp,k vEaaaovs Tovuo' d.1ro</,8Elpa, 1r6(Jn, ought now to help her schemes.
lfEl's dp,o,a; xupifr Ev8a,vov ytpa;; These are examples of people reminding the gods of their own
oii,-'aluoii ytv£8A'd1to,p8dpos 1rt1Aw past sacrifices. But tragedy also has examples of the da-quia-
1T£fL1TEII' lxo1, iiv c,~µa,-'EV1r18ij{3poTOi<;. dedisti prayer. In Euripides' Alcestis, the chorus appeals to Paean
oifr' dpxii<o, 1101 was; 88' ava11iM,m,8µ.~v
(Apollo) to avert death as he did before. The lines are corrupt but
/lwp,ois dp~fu /fov8iJ,-01-. Iv qi,a11,v.
the important words are secure (221 ff.):
And yet if you destroy these chicks of a man who sacrificed and
honoured you greatly, where will you find the honour of a sumptuous JJ11a[llaiav.
feast from a hand like this? If you destroy the eagle's offspring, you l[wpc p,71xavd.vnv"Allµ1Tf./l KaKwv.
will not be able to send to mortals signs that they will believe in; nor if 1r6pt{£817 Kai 1rdpo, yap
"ITOptCE·
this whole royal tree shrivels up will it help your altars on days when tTou8'I~upE,t, Kal viiv
oxen are sacrificed. >.vriip,o-.i.K 8av&rov yEVou,
4,avwv8' dm)1TQVC101' 'i'!tllav.
This is partly, of course, an argument about the god's self inter-
est. Dead men do not sacrifice. But underneath all that there is Lord Apollo, find Admetus some solution to these evils. Provide one, yes
provide one. For in the past you found a way out; so now too bring
the notion that it would be particularly improper not to help the
release from death and check bloody Hades.
22
There is a similar problem with and,,.,,,.~ prayer at Pind. lsth. 6. 43 ff. Since
Pindar is so steeped in Homer, this passage may be suspected by some as having
The same sort of mentality appears in a prayer of Iphigeneia in
more to do with a Homeric tradition tban with real life. Euripides' Iphigeneia Taw-ica 1082.ff.:
36 Reciprocit}' and Remembrance Reciprocity and Remembrance 37
,;; 1TOTV1:t'f1r£pµ' AvA10o;KU:Ta 1TTIJXllS Homer, too, and our later sources, we have a formula, 1:1 1roT1:,
ll£1V?j;luwaai; EK1rarpo1<rovov X£p6,, alongside several other less simple ways of saying a similar thing.
a<iiuov /J-EKal VVI! TOUCTOl
r'.
Normally, having considered these literary parallels, one might
Lady, who saved me before in the glades of Aulis from the terrible attempt to verify the historicity of a particular form of words by
murderous hand of my father, save me again, and these people too. reference to the epigraphic record. Unfortunately, the phrase Ei
A third example of da-quia-dedi is to be found in the fragmentary woTe does not appear in any inscription from the archaic or
Phaethon (fr. 781 N 2, lines 59f.): classical periods. Not only does the phrase not survive, there is
not even an example of the mentality. The explanation of this is
ail 8' W<;wd.po<;8~(11ro111a
.d7Jp.'l}Tpo;KOP'I/ not far to seek. Nearly all our prayers on stone are of the ded-
-r'laTl
·H,pa.taTE lloµ,o,; rp,oii;.
1TpEVfJ,EV£i'; icatory type. 26 If anybody's past deeds are commemorated in a
And you, lady daughter of Demeter, and Hephaestus, be favourable to dedication, it is the kindness of the god in answering a prayer. So
my house as before. these inscriptions are simply a different kind of thing from the
prayer containing da-quia-dedi ( t). In the nature of things, there
The above examples all attest the same mentality but use
was simply no need to record every casual request on stone.2 7 If
slightly different words to express it. We find side by side Ei1up
the prayer was answered, that was the time to erect a monument.
1ron:, fit 1ron, ElwwwoTe, and el 1rp0Tepov.This is scarcely surpris-
ing, of course, since there is no reason to believe that the Greeks As I said above, these casual prayers will sometimes have been
had a fixed liturgy. There is an interesting parallel for this sort of vows, sometimes requests of the da-quia-dedi variety. Whichever
distribution in the Hellenistic dedication epigrams preserved in sort of prayer one chose, the fundamental issues are xd.p,!i and
Book 6 of the Palatine Anthology. Festugiere 23 has studied the nµ:ri. Either one tells the god he is already indebted to you for the
formulae used in these dedications, drawing special attention to T,µrfyou have conferred on him in the past or else you promise to
the phrase &vO'cLv ('in return for which'). It is a do-ut-des formula, confer some more T1µ,17 in the future if your request is granted.
equivalent to the xap1v&vnlH8o('return the favour') formula of One can see that the relationship of the Greeks with their gods in
the epigraphic dedications. He notes that the formula livf! tliv prayer as in all other respects can best be thought of as a con-
occurs only twice, but that the idea is expressed very many times tinuum of reciprocal xd.pt!i extending both forwards and back-
in different words (art. cit., p. 415ff.). This is exactly parallel to wards in time. It is not necessary for every prayer to be
the situation we have between Homer and the later sources. 24 accompanied by an offering as long as it is understood that it is
The phrase &v(J' cLvis attested epigraphically and so we do not have made within a framework of reciprocal trust between god and
to worry about its being a purely literary fiction. 25 In the AP this votary.
simple formula, attested in the epigraphic record, exists alongside We can thus see that there is a good deal of evidence to suggest
several other less simple ways of saying a similar thing. In that the et 1Ton mentality existed in real life. Even when possible
parodies or stylistic throwbacks are discounted, there are several
23 "- J F-tu .. ..~ • ]a formu ]e ' en ec
. h ar,ge de quoi., dans l a prtere
,,.. . ~~ g1ere, nvv"' wv, "' attestations of the mentality which it would be imprudent simply
grecque hellenistique", Rem,e des sciences philosophiques et theologiques, 60 (v;n6), to dismiss as the result of the influence of a literary tradition.
38g-,pll.
24
Examples of periphrases of ,i ,mn in Homer are If. 10. 278 ff., 284 ff., 16. Furthermore, if fifth-century attestations of et 1TOTE were to be
236ff.
25 26
It appears in a sepulchral inscription from Rhodes, dated to 360-350 BC (CEG M. L. Lazzarini, 'Le formule delle dediche votive nella greda arcaica', Atti
690), b.v9'awol &.,µwv foO!lo; ,,,.o,ro
p,q,.It also occurs in CEG 533, 1.:6, 745, and della accademia naziooale dei Lincei, Memorie, Classe di St:ienze momli, storiche e
875. We may feel that these inscriptions, being in verse, are not good evidence. But filologiche, 8th ser., 19/2 (Rome, 1976).
there is a multitude of verse inscriptions surviving from this period and only a 27
The ll.N ET evidence reeords prayers to be used in an emergency, but they
small number have any obvious claim to be part of a literary tradition. Indeed, I are mostly words written down beforehand for use on a future occasion or
can find no parallel so far for this formula in earlier literary sources. recorded for posterity.
 Reciprocity and Remembrance
dismissed as mere Homeric reminiscence and nothing to do with
real life, one would have to ask oneself precisely what purpose it
would have served for Homer to invent the Elnort: prayer and why
later authors were so keen on preserving it. There are many
features of Homer that are stylized (e.g. no mention of hero-
cult) but other authors rarely perpetuate these distortions. The .
Ei'non mentality is, in fact, entirely to be expected in a society
which placed such importance on reciprocity in all its shapes and
forms. The evidence of Homer, Comedy, and Tragedy, along
with Herodotus and Lysias coheres so strongly with itself and
with everything else we know about Greek society that it is '
unthinkable that it could be just a chimerical literary construct.
Having looked at how one obtains things from a god, we shall
go on in the next chapter to consider the ways in which Greeks .
said thank you to their gods.
3
Thanks and Praise
In the previous two chapters, we examined the importance of
reciprocity in petitionary prayers. We saw that one ideally needed
to be able to offer a god some sort of recompense in return for his
help. Under some circumstances, it was possible to remind them
of one's past services. In this chapter, we shall look at some of the
ways in which humans thanked the gods when their prayers were
answered. It has been said that prayers of gratitude are not very
frequent in archaic and classical Greece and that when one does
find them, they are not particularly effusive. 1 The corpus of
Greek drama furnishes some representative examples. In Euri-
pides' Electra (415f.), the heroine instructs her husband to bring
the old man indoors:
1}o8~aeTat TOI Kal 1rpoa£1)f,;_Ta,
8£01;,
Cwvr',;lauKo6aa<;1rui8'811EKacf>t,;;1
1r0Tl.
He will indeed rejoice and pray to the gods, when he hears that the child
whom he once saved is alive.
At line 764 of the same play, when Aegisthus has been killed, the
messenger says: aA.\n8t:otaw EVXEC18cu XPEWII('Now, we must pray
to the gods [sc. in thanksgiving]'). The prayer, when it comes
(771 ff.), begins as follows: J, Ow(, .JlKTJ'TE n&:vO'
6pwa: if,\8Es 'lTO'rE
('O gods, and Justice who see all, you have come at last'). It is
rattier similar to a prayer in the Heracleidae (869-70), where
Alcmene says to Zeus:
Iii Zni xpovtp µiv Tr1µ'(1TEIJK(Y,WKO.Ka,
j
xapw {:/oµw; /JOI 'TWII1Tti1TpayfJ,b>WII
1:xw.
Zeus, it took you a long time to heed my troubles; but none the less I am
thankful to you for what has been done.
1
For bibliography and an excellent treatment of the whole question, see Vers-
nel, 42ff.
40 Thanks and Praise
We saw in Chapter I that it does not really make sense to think
of Greek prayer as an autonomous religious action .. The most
normal context for a prayer is accompanying a sacrifice. Where
this is not so, there is usually a reference to past sacrifices or a
promise of future ones. Is one to conclude, on the basis of the
literary examples just given, that it was sometimes permissible
for some people to thank the gods without offerings? Unless we
could show that such occasions were very rare, we would have to
ask ourselves why anybody would have gone to the expense and
trouble of making an offering if he could have avoided it. It is
more than likely, then, that these literary prayers of thanksgiving
are subject to the same dramatic conventions as the other tragic ·
prayers discussed in Chapter r. In the Heracleidae, offering is not
ruled out. Although Alcmene herself makes no offering to Zeus, ·
she envisages her children doing so in thanksgiving for their
deliverance (877). The god will not go without his due honour.
In the Electra, there is mention of dinner (8afra, 414) and it could ·
well be that the old man would make a food or wine offering to
the gods. If, in any case, prayer and sacrifice were known to
belong together, Euripides may have felt it unnecessary for Electra
to mention this obvious detail. Later on, at El. 764ff., the con-
ventions of the Attic stage would not permit a sacrifice. One
supposes that libations might have been possible but the para-
phernalia that would involve would interrupt the overa11 pace of
the scene. Electra wants news from the messenger. She is scarcely
going to rush indoors to prepare a libation.
Perhaps our best example of how acts of thanksgiving are
compounded of prayer and offering is the colossal mass of ex-
voto inscriptions which survive from the ancient world. Various
different types of formulae are used. One example, found on the
Athenian acropolis and dated to 500 BC (JG i 3 . 776) reads: hEp-
flE11mT08E] I ayaAµ.a [Stoos] I xapw lv[Ba.8££.10711<€11 0111[6,Bto]
Is
IoativEs hi[vE1<a]{'Oenobius the herald, in commem-
Kipuxs µ.[vEµ.]
oration, set up here this statue to Hermes, returning a favour').
What Oenobius says, though, is not really a prayer. It is not
addressed to a god in any direct sense; there is no vocative.
Furthermore, there is no request. It is simply a bald statement
of fact. This is an extremely important and central practice in
Greek life. When one has receved a favour from a god, it is only
correct to give something in return. The x&.ptsfelt by Oenobius
Thanks and Praise
was reciprocated by an offering which, itself in turn, would make
the god well disposed to help in the future.
We very often find the formula t.:v!aµ,€1/oS d.vl8711<E
('dedicated in
fulfilment of a vow') e.g. on an inscription (JG i3 • 857) from the
Athenian Acropolis dated to 470-450: [M],Kvlh,µ'avi[871KwI !4.8]1j-
"al71tTO [ayaAµ.a ev[]aµ.£V'I]Mmh71v I 1<al]v-rrip1ra[t6wv I 1<]ai
eaunj'[s] E{,qipwv[l1ro,711aEv
('Micytha dedicated me as a pleasing
offering to Athene, having vowed a tithe, both on her own behalf
and that of her children. Euphron made me'). Micytha, like
Oenobius, is neither addressing a god explicitly nor asking for
anything. In the formula Ev[aµ.Evosavl871KE ('dedicated in fulfil-
ment of a vow') the word Et~,aµ.EVos, here translated by 'vow' is in
fact nothing other than the aorist participle of E(,xoµ.at('I pray').
Clearly the vow was a species of EVXT/· One presumably made
one's request and promised to deliver the quid pro quo as soon
as was practicable. Micytha's dedication is not a prayer in the
sense of containing a request but it is an integral part of the nexus
of reciprocity. Unless one is going to conclude that any kind of
dealing with a god is a prayer, one will have to exclude inscrip-
tions of these kinds from consideration as prayers.
However, we do find explicit addresses and requests, e.g. in an
inscription from Boeotia from the first quarter of the seventh
century (CEG 326): Ma.VTLl(AOS µ.' &.vl871KEFEKa/30Ao1 apyvpo-ro{ot
,ris {o}8EjKd.rns·TV 6l, <Po(fJt.:,
atoot xaplFETTUV &.µ.oi,?[av]2
('Manti-
cles dedicated me from a tithe to the Far-shooter with the Silver
Bow. Now do you, Phoebus, give a pleasant return'). Similar
examples from thank-offerings are JG i3 • 1014 (480-460), which
ends [hois x6.pu avTi8[8o]3 ('return the favour') and JG i 3 • 791
1
4
(c.soo) which ends [ai, x]apw d.11T18(60. This formula may seem
a little vague. The request is not at all specific; perhaps the
worshipper has no immediate needs. Sometimes, however, the
offering is actually accompanied there and then by a new prayer.
2
K. Strunk ('Der bootische lmperativ 3f8oi', Glotta, 39 (1961), n4-.23) has
shown that au,,,, is a present imperative.
3
This is a restoration, cf. [Anacreon], AP 6, 138,
4
Versnel, 47f., has pointed out that, in these early texts, it is odd to find
xaplmaav &µo</3~vand x&po• rubbing shoulders. Are they synonymous? It is easy
enough to see that a xap,€0110.11 l,.p,o,f:l~v
is a pleasing concrete return. Versnel
suspects that xlip,, therefore denotes something less concrete. I think it is a sort
of invisible credit, bestowed by the god on a votary and which can be cashed in at a
later stage, if necessary, to obtain material help.
 Thanks and Praise
A mid-sixth-century example from Boeotia is a dedication to
Apollo (CEG 334) which ends with the request: roi; -rv, F&vax!r'
t/>E</,vAaxao,8[801o'&p<i:>Tnv [Ti:Kai oA.8011]
('Guard them, Phoebus,
and give them pre-eminence and fortune').
Ex-voto dedications are, of course, essentially a private thing.
It was equally possible, however, for a whole community to thank
the gods after something particularly favourable had occurred,
Such acts often took the form of a public sacrifice called xapia..,,
-njpia ('favour offerings') or niayyiA,a ('offerings made when goo<.J,
news is received'). Various prose sources show us that the e~ay..
yJiha was a public act, usually involving the f3ovA1 (executive
council of the Athenian state). Isocrates, alluding to recent dis
astrous losses for the Athenians, ironically says (7. ro) ''";, TmaM
TCllS 7Tp~i:atv EvayyE1i\,af'6' Ots;-q871
-ri:8vKCliJ,€11
('for faring like this
[sc. badly] we have already made good-news offerings twice'h
Xenophon refers to an incident (Hellenica 4. J. 14) where Age
silaus pretended to make a sacrifice of thanksgiving in order
raise morale among the troops. 5 It was imperative that they'
believed that Peisander had won the naval battle, so Agesilaui
l/3ov8vn1 ws Evayy£Ata 1m, 1roMois-0t£7T€f'1TE TWII -rd)vµ,E1vwv ('sacri~;
ficed oxen as though it were a good-news offering and distrib-'
uted the sacrificia] meat to many of them'). Public thanksgivin
then, involves gift-giving just as much as tbe private spher
does.
It is interesting to note, as Versnel has done, that the word!J
xapw lxw/ot8o.,are actually rather rare in Greek. 6 He points o
that, if a Greek wished to express his thanks in a way other th
dedicating an ex-voto, he was likely to offer praise to the go
(using the verb l1ra111w).Praising the gods, it seems, was an
acceptable way of thanking them. 7 Xenophon, in the Cyropaedeui
(4. I. 2), represents Cyrus as saying:
"'PWTOIJ µ,iv TOV'ii(Ju:,vs;cyd,r' (Traww ciaov 8vvaµ;a1,Ka, f!µ,£<'iiOt.7TltVTE'ii,
olµ«i·i
v(wqs Tf yap n-rvx,$1mµ.tcvKa, amTT/pla,;.TOVTWIJ µ.lv oi!v XP~ xapw-nipia, div .
ail lxwµ.£11,-rofr /Jrn,, U'TTOTfAfllJ,
5
On sacrifice after battle md military thanksgiving in genel'!II, see W.
Pritchett, The Greek State al War (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979}, iii. 186 ff.
6
Versnel, 49. See the importmt article of J. H. Quincey, 'Greek Expressions
Thanks', YHS 86 ( 1!,166),133-58.
7
Versnel, 56 ff. He shows that both men and gods were the recipients of su
praise.
Thanks and Praise 43
First of all, I praise the gods with all my strength. So do you, too, I
imagine. For we have gained victory and salvation. So we must make
thank-offerings to the gods for these things with whatever we still have.
Versnel has collected ample evidence to show that this is not just
a Persian custom. Rudhardt, like Versnel, had noted the rarity of
formulae to express thanks, but he puts forward a rather different
explanation: 'La priere de pure action de grace parait relative-
ment rare . . . pour exprimer sa gratitude ou, apres un succes, le
sentiment de son accord avec les dieux, le Greene se contente pas
de parler. ll chante. Sa priere prend la proportion d'un hymne.'
('Prayers of pure thanksgiving appear to be relatively rare ... in
order to express his gratitude or, after a success, his feeling of
harmony with the gods, the Greek is not content just to speak. He
sings. His prayer takes on the proportions of a hymn.')8 If thanks
and praise are connected in this way, what is the status of the
hymn? Clearly hymns involved praise of the deity. But few, I
suspect, would argue that they are just a kind of thanksgiving.
Versnel rejects Rudhardt's remarks as 'unjustified extrapolation
leading to dubious conclusions' .9
To answer this question, we have to get to grips with the tricky
question of what a hymn was for the Greeks. 10 The word iJµ.vo,;
seems to have had three different uses in Greek. In its only
appearance in Homer (Od. 8.. 4-29), the word is used to describe
Demodocus' song of tl!e Trojan Horse. It is probable that any
hexameter composition coul<fbe caTieaa iJµ,vos.This may include,
hut is not restricted to, songs addressed to gods, as we find in the
Homeric Hymns. 11 Secondly, vl-'vosmeant any song directed at a
god. Several of Pindar's Epinician Odes describe themselves as
12
vµ:voL. In other contexts, too, we find songs for the gods
8
Rudhardt, t99. 9
Versnel, 45.
10
See the excellent recent discussion of W. D. Furley, 'Praise and Persuasion in
Greek Hymns', JHS ns (1995), 29ff.
11
At Hymn. Hom. 9. 9, when the poet says that he will now proceed to another
iiµvo;, it looks very much as though what we have just had was itself a iip.vo,(unless
&A.lo,is being used, as it sometimes is, to mean 'here's something else as well' as in
'lions, tigers, and other bears'; but we cannot prove this either way). This formula
recurs in Hymn. Hom. Ven. (5.) 293 and Hymn. Hom. 18. 11. Later writers also
refer to Homer as writing hymns. Pind. Paeanes, fr. 52 h JO reads: KEA..8,~aa8'
vµJvov.-,/ 'Oµ~pov [B.-µ~ Tp<J~•• KaT' dµ,a.f,.,&v/ loVTES('sing out hymns, but not
following the worn path of Homer'). The scholia to Pind. Nem. 2. t ff. ("" Schol.
vet, Pind. iii, p.31, 10 Drachmann) say that Hesiod, fr. 357 (MW) refers to hymns
which he and Homer allegedly smg in Delos in honour of Apollo.
12
Ol. 1. 8, m5, 2. 1, 7. 14; Pyth. 10.. 53; Nem. 3. 65; lsth. 8. 6o.
44 Thanks and Praise
13
described as i!p.110,. Thirdly, in a more specialized sense, the
vp.vof was a particular kind of song for a god-, tobe distinguished;;
from the paean, the dithyramb, the proem, and the prosodion. 14
It was a genus within a species. 15 It seems to me that the second ,
sense is the commonest in classiciiLJ]reek. The difference·
between the first and second use might b~ d~eto the pas.S.!l,.B!_Of,
time. A word which originally described several types of song
de"-eloped a more restricted meaning, referring only to songs/
addressed to gods. However, the difference between the second ,
and third usage is more complex. It depends largely on external ·.
evidence. It is only because some ancient commentators saw fit to.
divide Pindar's work into distinct categories called hymns,
paeans, dithyrambs, etc., that we recognize the narrower category,
It is on the basis of such secondary ancient evidence that J. M.
Bremer has recently stated that 'a hyllln_is a sung p.i::ayer'.16 This'
sort of definition is clearly something far more specific than those.
we have just been considering. In support of this, he quotes
Plato's classification of the different kinds of music (Leg. 7ooab)i •
6t'[/PTJP.EVT/ a.;
yilp T6T£ 1JV,iµ,fv 11p.ovuuo) KtlTO.fioTJ 'TE fovrq'i 0.1'Tll Kal
lh,o6s, &vop.aa; iJµ,1101 l'11"EKa,\otiv-ra,
a;('l)P,tl'Ta,,ml TI ,Iv elllos q;lifis ulxal '11"pos
At that time, music was divided up according to its various species and
forms; and there was a species of song consisting in prayers to the gods,
and they were known as hymns.
Plato goes on to discuss other forms of song, dirges, paeans, and:
dithyrambs. He is the only Greek author as far as I know who
defines hymns in this way. What ought we to make of this? For
one thing, Plato is clearly not telling us the whole story. It is
possible to have very terse prayers of the kind 'O so-and-so, do
such-and-such'; 17 but we never find anything this short set to
music and called a hymn. One has an instinctive feeling that
hymns are mea~~tistic; to demonstrate that their compo#
sers have.exp_ena~clJiQ.lll_eeffort. It is thus by no means cleari:hat
we ought to take Plato's definition at face value. Perhaps he is not
ll Aesch. Supp. 10:25; Lasus, PMG 702; Ar. A" 905, 1743.
14
By proem, I mean things like the Homeric Hymns. We possess Pindar's
hymns and we know that they were seen as separate from his prosodia, dithy•
rambs, and paeans; see Vil. Ambr. pp. 3, 6ff Drachmann.
15
,rp&,r•v<>,,
Proclus described them as ,1'811 Chrestomathia, p. 244 apud Photius;
Bibl. 32o•n Bekker.
1~ See Versne], 193, 11
e.g. CEG 334; JG iii. 4319; Il. 23. 770.
Thanks and Praise 45
passing on objective facts but arguing for his own particular view
of the evolution of musical genres.
There is another passage in the Laws which might bear on this
matter. At Saia, proposals are put forward for laws to govern
religious ceremonies. It is agreed that there ought to be prayers
to the gods. This is referred to as a voµ.o,; µ.ovu,Kfj<; ('a law of
music'). Another voµ.o,; µ.ovu,Kfj,; is:
OTLyv6vmr llEi1'0Uf '71"0!171'ilS:, 8rowvo.l1"1)1msElut, 8Ei 81}76V voiiv
<1,,El'xai '11"0pa
au-raus mf,o6pa1rapixuv, µ:17'ITOTE ,\a8wu, l<aKtJV <l,s aya8ov alwt1p.Evo,.
That poets must recognize that prayers are requests to the gods and pay
special attention lest, without realizing it, they ask for something evil as
though it were good.
'What is meant by including prayers as part of µ.oua,K71('music')?
Surely not all prayers are sung or accompanied on a musical
instrument. 18 There is also the fact that these prayers are said
to be going to be composed by poets. What Plato probably has in
mind are the sorts of prayers that are embedded in choral songs
sung at festivals, e.g. Pindar's odes or dithyrambs. He is again
subconsciously equating hymns and prayers. Just as at 8oia he
treats poetic prayers as if they were the main type of prayers, so at
700b, he treats the prayer element within a hymn as if it were the
main constituent of the hymn. This seems wrong in both cases.
The historical value of this evidence should not therefore be
pressed.
But elsewhere Plato seems to refer to hymns and prayers as
separate entities. At Leg. So1e we read:
p.ETO YE p.~1•-rav7a vµ,vot 8,;wv ,cal ly«JJµm KEKOIVWV7/µ.tva filxafs: J.8017' &v
dpB&rn.'ra,«al f',E'rO. 9u,iis cLuatl'TWS: 1Tfpl80.lp.ov,Ss7£ 1ca1rjpwas:µ.rr' iyKwµ.{wv
ulxai yiyvo1111'' iiv 1'0t1'!'01; '11"0.a1
1rplwo11ua1.
Then hymns to the gods and encomia associated with prayers would be
sung most correctly; and after the gods, in the same way, for spirits and
heroes, there would be fitting prayers for them all, along with encomia.
"
18 It seelllll difficult to avoid the conclusion that µovu,tj does refer to music in
the modem English sense. Clio, the 1\luse of history, is the only Muse who is not
in some way connected with music and in antiquity the Muses were effectively a
byword for it.
 Thanks and Praise Thanks and Praise 47

It looks as though a hymn is therefore different from an enco.
mium accompanied by a prayer; and hymns, prayers, and enco•i
mia are all different things. 19
At Euthyphro , 4c, Plato defines €1'.ix1:u8at Tov,01:o&t
as alT1:111
('asking the gods'; cf. Leg. Sora). One wonders how he would
then account for the fact that in the hymns we possess, the actual
request (or prayer) only occupied a few lines towards the end?20;
The question is whether a Greek, given a song consisting of;
twenty lines of praise of the god and ending with a request, would,
have construed this as a sung prayer. Is something that began as a·
song of praise to be judged retrospectively as a prayer simply
~because it ends with a prayer? I rather suspect that any Greek
would have recognized that what he was dealing with was a hymn
that contained a prayer. The fact that the prayer was musical by
virtue of being part of a hymn does not make the whole hymn
into a sung prayer. Aelius Aristides implies this when he advises:
(Or. 14. 228) Kpa-ru:1wvOVIIwu1r1:pol TWIIodlvpap,flwv TI: Kat 11'0.lO.II
110111Ta1 Twa 1rpou8r.na ovTw «a-ra«A1:iaa,TOVA&yov('It is bes(
12vx1111
to finish the speech with a prayer as the poets did in theit
dithyrambs and paeans'). 21
So, I am not at all inclined to accept the idea that a hymn is a.
sung prayer. It looks very much as though the evidence of Plato is:
confused, contentious, and should not be allowed to dominate
our interpretation. A J!Lmn need not,, necessarily contain - any
-,-_,=-, ___
19
There is a question of bow one ought to understand 1u1.(in the phrase iJµvo,·
11,wvJ<a.1 fyt<wiua .,,..,owwVTJ,uva,ilcxafr('hymm, to the gods and encomia joined to.
prayers'). If it means not 'and' but 'Le', as it often can, then hymns are encomia··
aocompanied by prayers. This is the definition of schol. Lond. Dion. Thrax 451. 6
(Hilgard), which says .Jµvo; la-r, ""'<fl/Ul ,r,;p,ix,,v 6,wv ~y..,,I,µ.,o Ka.l~p<iiwvµer'
•~xapw-r{a, ('a hymn is a poem containing encomia of gods and heroes with;
thanksgiving'). On the other hand, we learn from Ammonius, Diff., p. 5l (Valek•'
enaer, 182.2.), ,,.,,., µkv u/Lvov.,rva, 6,wv, -ro8/, ;yxwµwv l1V1JT<,w ('hymns are for gods/)
encomia for mortals'). Rhetorical definitions are often tendentious (see the article
'Enkomion', Kleine Pauly, ii. 2.69f.). Plato himself seems unclear as to whether
there is any distinction. At Rerp. 007114,he refers to U/Lvo,r,Owi, Ka.Ily.-wµ.,a ,,-ois,
dya.llois,{'hymns for gods and encomia for the good') in a way that might make us
think that iJ/Lvo;was the proper word to use for pntise of a god and fy.-wµ.mv for ..
that of a mortal. However, at Ti. :zra3, he envisages that men should,,.~, 9~ov, .•
ly.-w/Lui{rn• ('make an encomium of the goddess with hymns'). So gods
ilµ.vovv-ra.S'
can receive l:yJ<wµ.w., More confusing still, we find at Resp. 468d9 a suggestion that ·
men should be honoured .J/Lvo,,.If one thing is clear, it is that Plato has no single,
clearly worked-out definition of hymns, encomia, etc.
20
See Richardson, 321. 11
Cf. Men. Rhet., p. 34J..
reguest to the god. The short Homeric Hymn 9, to Artemis, is an
exa;;;pfeofibis:
Jtpnp.w VfWEIMoiiua KaUl')'V17TT/V 'E1d1.ro10,
1rap(Uvo11 loxia,pav, Jµ&rpo,f,ov ~1r&,\,\wvof,
rj r' rmroll!, l.paaaa fJa8vcrxolvoio MEATJT~
f,l,.,.,f,a8111 lipµ,a 8ul,Ket
l:µVpVTj'I1T«')'XpVu12011
E!>K>.apov liµwe,\&maav, &ff lipyvp6ro[o, :A1r6,\,\wv
,f(r1tl.L µ..1µva,wv iKaTTjf16i\.ov
loxEa1pav.
Kai (1V µ.b' OVTW xaipe 81:al(! '11,Ul 71'0.0al dowtj ·
ail-rap lyw (1£ 7Tpwra Ka1 lK al.Bev 11.pxoµ.' lie,l>ew,
uev fl lyw lip[a.µ.a,o; µ.erafJ11aoµ.a,a,\,\av l, up.vov.
Muse, sing of Artemis, sister of Hecate,
the maiden that delights in the arrow, sister of Apollo,
who, having stirred up the horses of Meles with its deep reeds,
swiftly drives her all-golden chariot through Smyrna
to Clarus with its vines, where Apollo of the silver bow 5
sits waiting for her who shoots from afar and rejoices in the arrow.
And do you too, and all goddesses together, rejoice in the song.
But I sing of you first and I begin my song with you,
and having begun I shall go on to another ;;p.vo,;.
It is immediately clear that this piece consists entirely of glorifi-
cation of Artemis and Apollo. There is no request; nothing that
could count as prayerful. How then can this hymn be a sung
prayer? There are, it seems, several gradations in the extent to
which a hymn is prayerful (in the sense of containing a request).
It is possible, for example, to have praise of the deity followed by
a request that he should come and join the festival. This is the
cletic hymn. An example might be the Elean invocation of Dio-
nysus (PMG 871).
l,\81:iv ,fpw Llt6111J<1£
:A,\tlwv l,; va&v,
ayvov OUI/ Xapt-reaaw
, vaov
€<; '
rep/JoEqi1raliiOowv. 5
ae'1eravpE, a{u, T«UpE.
Come hero Dionysus, to the temple of the Alei, rushing with your bull's
foot to the sacred temple along with the Graces. Worthy bull; worthy bull.
The main purpose of this invocation is to request the god's
presence (lMhi:v, line 1). The praise is limited to describing bis
 Thanks and Praise Thanks and Praise 49

bull-like form and saying that he is worthy. According to Plutarch, In my view, our appreciation of the difference between hymns
this was a iJ/Lvor; used by the women of Elis. 22 Sappho's invocation. and prayers can be much improved if we examine their function.
to Aphrodite (fr. 2 Page) is of the same kind. Aphrodite is asked to At the end of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, the poet addresses
come and pour out nectar into golden cups as part of the general Demeter and Persephone and says (494): 1rpoq,poveso.vr'cli8ijs{Jlorov
festivity (lines r3 ff.). This may not be a genuine cultic prayer but . 0vw,fpe'o'll'a{uv ('with ready heart give us a lovely life in exchange
it is more than likely that it is representative of the type. 23 for this song'). 26 Th.eJ!ymn is c:le!!.1:Jiseenas a gif:Lo.tJlffe..rin&i_!!I
One of the best-known theoretical works on the definition of aya>.µ,afor the god. This is not a wholly isolated example. Pindar
27
hymns and prayers is Book t of the third-century AD rhetorician seemstoreter-whis Epinicians as o.ya.>iµ,a-ra.Clearly hymns had
Menander Rhetor. 24 He classifies prayers into eight groups (p. the power to confer nµ.71('honour') on the god in the way that a
333) viz.: cletic, apopemptic, scientific, mythical, genealogical, simple prayer seems not to
have done. We may recall the episode
fictitious, precatory, and deprecatory. We have already encoun- in Homer'slliad-when the Greeks at Chryse propitiate Apollo
tered the cletic kind. I expect Menander would have classed the. after the debacle over Chryseis (ll. 1. 472 ff.):
short Homeric Hymn to Artemis as mythological. It is, however,.t ol Bi 'll'0.1'7/µ/;p101
µoli.rrfi 8EOV lMatcoVTo
striking that he has a class of precatory hymns. He calls these} tcali.ovltElooVTES' 1ra11ova Koiipoi ifxaiwv,
EVKTtKol (333. 24) and says they are ol ipt>.~vEVX17Vlxov-rer;&vw TWV iKIJ.Epyov· &
/J,tA'll'OVTE', a, ,f,plva. TEpnn' AKoOwv.
a>.>.wv f,LEpwv WVEr'll'Of',EV
('those which contain a bald prayer with- All day long the Achaean youths propitiated Apollo with song, singing a
out any of the other parts we have mentioned'). Similarly, deprei beautiful paean to the Far-worker. He rejoiced in his spirit as he
catory prayers are bald requests that something shall not happen .. listened. 28
What might these bald prayers be? He gives as examples of Pindar, however, may have gone further than this. Not only
precatory hymns (now called 7rpoaEVKTtKo{, 343. I ff.) the prayer does he ~11 his ~a,ra,\µ,a, an adornment for the god to
of Odysseus at II. 10. 278 ff. His example of a deprecatory prayer" delight in, but there is also an anecdotafHeltenistic ~on that
is 11. 2. 412ff., when Agamemnon is praying that the sun should'" he ref erred to it as a 8vala, the word usually reserved for a
not go down before he should take Troy. One would not imme.! sacrificial offering of an animal. 29 The attribution of these words
diately think of these utterances as hymns. The poet calls thee to find.ar. depends primarily o~!fl1!~.jJL.Philodem~ De
prayer of Agamemnon a evx11(Il. 2. 411) and that of Odysseus an, musica 4 (p. 89. rn K);3° he says, in the context of a discussion
dpd. ( ll. 10. 277). I can only conclude that Menander has made an of}~o'!music.andsong-can.generate~wJffi]Ji~gqgs: ,c;qft,..Jov
error, calling them hymns because he is obsessed with genre; 8vuwv 1ro['ifaEa]8at8,8v Ipaf-LfJov
lllv J 8apov OVTW voµ,[l{luv, c>Jr' eef>71
these prayers occur in a hexameter context and hexameters are; ('Pindar also thought thus, when he said that he would compose
the metre par excellence of the hymnic genre. 25 We should do his dithyramb as a sacrifice'). A similar tradition, preserved by
better to regard them as prayers, as Homer himself does. Eustathius, 31 tells us: LlEAtpoaE Si tpwT7/8Et!;rt '11'0pE<1TL 8vawv,
21
Quaest. Groec. 299ab. lij On the way in which hymns could be a gift and how they fit into the nexus of
21
This, of course, raises the whole question of just what it is licit to cite as xap,r,see C. Calame, 'Variations enonciatives, relations avec les dieux et fonctions
evidence when talking about Greek hymns. I think it is pretty clear that if one poetiques dans les Hymnes homcriques', MH 52 (1995), 2.ff., esp. rnff.
27
restricts one's attention to works which we are certain were actually used in cult/ Pind. Nem. 8. t6., where the scholiast comments that the d:ya,\I"' is T<>v
then the list will be short. None the less, even a sceptic would surely concede that/. ,ro,1<0.ov/1µ,vov;also Nem. 3. 13, with the commentaries of C. A. M. Fennell, Pindar,
all the literary hymns we possess, from Homer to Callimachus, via Sappho and. Nemean and Isthmian Odes (Cambridge, 1899), 28, and J.B. Bury, Nemean Odes of
Greek tragic choruses, must bear some relationship to the authentic genre. See F.' Pindar (London, 1890), 47.
28
Adami, 'De poetis scaenicis graecis hymnorum sacrorum imitatoribus,' Jahrb. 1'hill passage does not contain the word iiµ,vor.I am assuming that a paean is a
29
klass. Phil., Suppl. Ui (1901 ), passim, and J. Bremer, in Venmel, p. 213. hymn. Fr. 86a reads 8vawv 8J1i,pa.µ,/3ov.
24 30
Russell-Wilson, Menander Rhetor. J. Kemke, Philodemus (Leipzig, 1884).
25 31
Bremer, equally, confuses hymns and prayers, see Versnel, 195--6. Eust. Prooem. comm. Pind. 31 (Schol, vet. Pind. iii, p. 302, 15 Drachmann).
 50 Thanks. and Proise
"muava" 1:t1T1: ('When he {sc. Pindar] arrived at Delphi, he was
asked what he had come to sacrifice. He said "a paean"').
Whether these traditions preserve genuine facts cannot now be
determined with certainty. That other Hellenistic poets were
playing with the same idea can be seen from Callimachus (fr.
494 Pf.): O.Ka1Tvayap aUv &:0180{ I 8vopa, ('We bards always make
smokeless offerings'). It seems an obvious assumption that he is
referring to his poetry. Pfeiffer cites a parallel from the Palatine.
Anthology (6. 321ff.) where we read the following words of
Leonidas: 8u1:1UOI TOO£ ypaµ,µa I ... Movaa A1:uw{8ew·I KaJ.>.161T7Js
yap a'.Ka'ITVOJ/
d1:lBvos ('The Muse of Leonidas sacrifices this writ-
ing to you; for the sacrifice to Calliope is always smokeless').
Eustathius, referring to the passage in Callimachus, says that
there was an ancient proverb that bards always made smokeless
offerings. 32 Perhaps by ancient he means nothing more than that
it was current in Callimachus' day. Perhaps he is just guessing
that this line derives from a proverb. All the same, his report of
Pindar's words on arrival at Delphi merits our attention and
cannot lightly be dismissed.
I do not, of course, mean us to conclude from this evidence
that the two activities of sacrificing and singing hymns had an
equivalent value in the ancient world or that hymns were more ·
important than sacrifice; that would make nonsense of the whole
institution of animal sacrifice. 33 I simply wish to point out that
hymns appear to be negotiable commodities in a way that prayers
are not. The only seeming exception to this of which I am aware
seems, to my mind, to prove the rule. When Odysseus arrives
back on Ithaca, he addresses the nymphs as follows (Od. 13.
357 ff.): vvv 6' nlxw,\ys ayavfia, I xo.lpn-' ('for the moment, rejoice
in gentle prayers'). The nymphs may rejoice in the prayer but it •
is not a gift; he goes on to say o:nlp KO.f 8wpa.816waoµw, liJS 7() 7fctpos.
1T1:p ('but I shall give you gifts, as before'). The prayers are just a
n Eust. De vii. mtJnach., in Opus,., p. 235, p Tafel: ;xu ,,.,,;.,.,,i,,,rapo,µlav
1mpa,eEoas A: rrJi'l(T'Jp◊v liv&.1TTa.w, ,call ~1,1 TCI;f MaUatur tiKo.ff'll«, 9Vavaw o{ lto,OOt/
(' "Kindling the wax" is an imitation of an old proverb, according to the words
of which bards make smokeless offerings to the Muses').
33
It is only in the very different traditions of Stoicism and Epicureanism that
we find such things. Cf. Furley, 'Praise and Persuasion'.
Thanks and Praise 51
stopgap. He would ideally like to re-establish the network of give
· xapis.
an d ta k e t h at 1s , 34
In what, precisely, did this Ttµ,~ consist? Most obviously, there is
the fact that humans have seen fit to expend their creative skill to
delight the god. What material is to be included and how shall it be
arranged? If it is not a hexameter hymn accompanied by the lyre,
then it will be choral and this requires the training of a chorus of
singers. One particularly important feature of the hymn, though, is
that its very language is fulsome'. .It reh~§.c;s the attributes and
explo1ts~]lie:goo.TFie Homeric Hymn to Demeter makes one
reflect on what an august, powerful, and yet also beneficent power
that goddess could be. On the smaller scale, too, the use of certain
divine epithets can also have a laudatory function. A brief excursus
on this will allow us to appreciate better both the nature of hymns
and what distinguishes them from prayers.
Several literary and inscriptional prayers use only the name of
the god in the vocative and omit any epithets, e.g. Eur. El. 137;
Soph. Aj. 708; JG i 3 • 662, iv. 1372; SEG xxvi. 266; CEG 764. In
those prayers where epithets are used, their function is often to
distinguish between different aspects of the same deity, e.g. Zeus
Herkeios and Zeus Xenios. However, not all epithets were actu-
ally attested in cult. Although we have plenty of good historical
evidence for the cult of Athene Nt1<17 ('Atbene Victory'), there is
no attested cult of Athene I',\av1<w1rt,, despite the use of that
epithet to describe her at II. 8. 373. Such non-cultic epithets
may be described as ornamental or decorative. 35
.14 I do not think we ought to see Il. 17. 567f. as an exception. After Menelaus
has prayed to Athene. Homer tells us wr ,f,&ro,y,i8']GE11 Ii.: (J.,/,yAa111<ru,r,, I
~8'1/l/1'/,
arr,{,J.ol .,,.,iµnpw"ralfoiiv ~P"l"""o ,,.,i.,.,wv ('So he spoke, and the owl-eyed goddess
Athene rejoiced, because he prayed to her first of all the gods'). The scholiast bT
at this point quotes as a parallel Eur. Hipp. 7-8, where Aphrodite says that gods,
like men, care about their .-,µ.,,.
However, I do not think the .,..,..,, in this case
consists in the prayer itself but in the fact that she is the first goddess to whom
:Menelaus turns. She is flattered. At Eur. Baceh. 4S f., Dionysus says he is angry
because Pentheus =o~C.v ,i,,.o / wlJ£i µ~ •• £lixa.,-r .,-•
oi,&µoii l'-"•fuv lx•"('drives me
away from his libations and never remembers me in his prayers'). It is not that
prayers of themselves confer honour--it is the libations that do that. Dionysus
finds the whole situation intolerable because Pentheus simply refuses to recognize
his claims to divinitv.
35
Greek is very rich in such ornamental epithets, as can be seen from a glance
at C. F. H. Bruchmann. 'Epitheta Deorum', in W. H. Roscher, Ausfti.hrliches
Lexikon der griechischen und romiuhen Mythologie, Suppl. 1893. He amasses over
two hundred pages of epithets, only the tiniest fraction of which are attested in
cult.
52 Thanks and Praise
Many literary prayers heap up epithets and fulsome descrip-
tions of the god's powers in a way that makes them stand out, e.g.
II. I. 37ff., 2. 412ff., 6. 305ff., 16. 233ff.; Sappho, fr. 1. 1ff. to
name but a few examples. Exhaustive documentation is provided
by Adami. 36 Nicholas Richardson has noted that 'verses consist-'
ing only of epithets or accumulations are rare in epic but a regular •
feature of hymns'. 37 I suspect that the feature was hymnic from
the very beginning and its appearance in literary prayers was due.
to the influence of hymnic style. A god would obviously be more
inclined to grant one's prayers ~en delighted ful-
so~m-~ic language.
How exactly did this come about? Because prayers are so often•
em~c:le§ in hymns, it is only to be expectealliatthere will be
cross-fertilization in terms of language. If we look at the corpus
of Greek drama, we can see this very clearly. Som~Jlr.eek.tragfo
choruses are clearly meantJo .be hymnic. in style and they us~
decorative epithets (Ar. Thesm. 368ff.), allude to legends of a
god's birth (Eur. Bacch. 89ff.), describe his home using relativf
clauses (Soph. Ant. 11 I 8, Phil. 394), speculate on where he might
actually be at the moment (Ar. Nub. 269ff.; Eur. Bacch. 556ff.),
and refer to parentage using the formula 'son of N' or 'daughter
of N' (Eur. Bacch. 550; Aesch. Supp. 36o). However, exactly the
same kind of language is found in iambic, non-choral, prayers'
elsewhere in the corpus. The chorus-leader in an iambic passage
of Aeschylus' Septem (255) calls Zeus 1ro:y1<pa:rls ('All-powerful'),
just as the chorus did in Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae;1:
Socrates uses a relative clause to describe the power and domin--.
ion of Air (Ar. Nub. 264); Orestes speculates on where Athene
might be (Aesch. Eum. 292ff.); Menelaus reminds Poseidon that
he lives in the sea (Eur. He/. 1584); and the interest in parentage is
either compressed into patronymic epithets (Cypris, Latoidet1,
Latogeneia, etc.) or expressed in the formula 'child of •.. '
(Eur. Hel. 1098 and passim). So, within the corpus of tragedy,
one can see how the language of hymns has affected that of:
prayers.
People in real life borrowed these ornamental literary epithe
when addressing their gods in inscriptions. A seventh-centu
36 Adami, 'De poetis scaenicis', z15ff. l7 Richardson, 1 59.
Thanks and Praise S3
metrical dedication from Boeotia (CEG 326) mentions FiKa/joAo,
&.pyupoTofo, ('the Far-shooter with the Silver Bow'). A sixth-
century dedication from Attica (JG i3. ro12) refers to Apollo as
xpvaoKop,os ('golden haired'). A fourth-century metrical epitaph
from Cleoptolemae (SEG xxv. 298) complains to woAvKAav8''4.W7J
('Hades who causes much weeping'). No doubt the writers were
thinking of Homer and the authors of the Homeric Hymns who
created many of these epithets in the first place. What is particu-
larly interesting here, though, is that we have examples of how
life and art are inextricably bound together. As far as I know,
there was no cult of Apollo Far-shooter with the Silver Bow, nor
.·
of Apollo of the Golden Locks, nor again of Hades who Causes
Much Weeping. All these deities (even Hades) had cult, right
a' enough, but the epithets are purely decorative. Therefore people
must have used them on inscriptions because they had met them
in imaginative compositions. This has a parallel in the modem
world. Some people find themselves almost instinctively using
the language of the Book of Common Prayer in their own
private prayers. The analogy is not perfect, of course. The
Homeric poems, which I identified as the probable source of
the reference to Apollo FiKaµ&>.o,apyvpor6foi., were precisely not
like the Book of Common Prayer. They were not liturgical
documents. But the point of the comparison is that people
can use in their private devotions a language which is not of
their own devising. The collects were written by Cranmer-they
were an artistic composition. It is doubtful that many English-
men of the period would have spoken to God in precisely these
terms if left purely to their own devices. Gradually, though, this
language has been accepted as traditional. So it was in Greece.
If one asks how it is that we can be so sure that hymns
influenced prayers and not vice versa, it has on.ly to be pointed
out that a prayer does not necessarily need to contain anything
more than an invocation followed by a request. No doubt those
prayers which incorporated more highly wrought elements did
so in order to flatter the god and increase the chances of being
heard. 38
.
38
N ..G. Devlin, •~e Hymn in Greek Literature' (Diss. Oxford, 1994), 5, takes
issue with my content10n (as expressed in my 1993 Oxford doctoral thesis) that
fulsome enumeration of the attributes of a god is primarily a hymnic feature. She
54 Thanks and Praise
Having seen just how closely the language of hymns affected
that of prayers, we can see that it would be impractical to try to
distinguish between the two genrJ;!s sirnnlY-ao the basis of con-
tent. 39 We have to be guided in part by what the ancients them-
selves tell us. The words of Chryses at ll. I. 37ff. are a prayer,
because Homer tells us so.40 The most o~us~_pe1ficilJ.l differ-
ence between hymns and prayers consists in the fact that hymns
were ()J._JheiIessence musical and prayers were pot 1 41 A prayer
can in principle htLvery simple. When one starts- rehearsing a
catalogue o( the attributes of the deity, one is getting onto dif-
ferent territory. When one puts the whok.~hi.ngjn,t<> verse and
sets it to music, it has moved a long way from being a prayer.
·This, though, is only a superficial distinction. Versnel has
discussed the use of the word ·~na~~s a form of thanksgiving.
From the example he quotes fro~enophon, and from Versnel's
says, 'Is flattering elaboration really so exclusive to the hymn tradition and so
intrinsically alien to prayers? Many prayers include a reminder to the god of past
sacrifices rendered or a promise of future gifts and conversely many hymns
conclude with a prayer for favours "in return for my song". Behind both of these
is the desire to secure the god's favour. Suppliants who use flattering elaboration
are thus incorporating something in their prayer which will make it more likely
that the deity will respond. We have no grounds for thinking that this element was
not always common to both hymns and prayers.' Whilst 1 recognize that there do
exist composite entities (hymns with prayers in them and prayers with hymnic
elaboration), I still maintain that we could not recognize them as composites
unle$S we had an idea of the hymn and the prayer as separate forms. It is
presumably safe to say that ,1, Zeii, 66~;1<>t G>.{Iov
is a prayer devoid of any hymnic
features at all. We have also seen that it was possible to have a hymn without any
request (Hymn. Ham. 9). Furthermore, whilsr it will be clear from the general
argument of this chapter that l agree that referring to gifts and describing the god
in fulsome language are both strategies designed to achieve the same end, i.e.
divine compliance, l would still want to insist that, as means to that end, they are
significantly different. Referring to gifts is a somewhat bald statement of a social
fact. It makes explicit the existence of bonds of x&.p,~.Praising the god with
elaborate descriptions of his life and power is very different. It is by nature a
more highly wrought, artistic dimarche; this is, in essence, hymnic.
39
On the linguistic cross-over between hymns and prayers, see Adami, 'De
poetis scaenicis', 213-<>2;H. Meyer, Hymnische Stilelenumte in der friihgriechischen
Dichtung (Diss. Wiirzburg, 1933); P. WOifing, 'Hymnos und Gebet', Stud. Class.
Also II. 16. .z.33ff.--both contain hymnic elements which describe the god's
attributes but are still called E~xa.lby the poet.
41
This, of course, applies only to c~.c hymns. Purely literary compositions,
such as the hymns of Callimachus, do not fit into this definition. It is not of the
essence of a prayer that it should be in verse. It might, of course, become so in the
context of, say, a Pindaric ode.
Thanks and Praise 55
other examples, we see that it is not enough merely to speak the
word. There was also a sacrifice or offering made. 42 Now, we have
also seen that hymns had-a.!!!:Et1~s somf!~b.!1.!}i~ethatgfim ..2ffer-
jt1g. How~snot mean, as Rudhardt thought, that they
were intrinsically a species of thanksgiving. Certainly, some
hymns may, for all we know, have been. composed and sung
SJ?.irit;:'.Df
thanksgiving; but I know ofno' hy![ln which e;&:p .U y
calls itself an offering of thanksgiving.in return for a particular
divine favour. Equalty;-anot~·might have been offered in the
hope of gaining some future benefit. Several of the Homeric
Hymns end with more or less specific requests. In so far as the
hymn is a kind of negotiable commodity, it could presumably be
used for several purposes. It may have been directly associated
wi~ and_sacrifice. 43 It may have been meant ~peti,!ion
or thanks. There again, it may just have been meant to honour
44
the cif!ity, The xapc<;thus generated may need to be drawn upon
at a later date. The uses to which hymns could be put thus appear
strikingly similar to what Theophrastus said about sacrifice;
-rpiwvW£KO.(JVTf.OV-rofs 0£ofr· ~ y<i.p8,<i.-r,µ,~v~ 8«1xap,v ~ 8ut XPElo.v
-rwv aya8wv ('There are three reasons to sacrifice to the gods:
either to honour them, or to thank them or to ask them for
good things'). 45
So it seems to me, in conclusion, that the most significant
functional difference between a hymn and a prayer is that the
former is ~ 5.~rt of negotiable ~l'.~.'!- which generl:l!t:s xap,,;
whereas the latter is not. Having examined in these first three
chapters how prayer relies on reciprocity, whether explicit or
implicit, we shall go on to consider those prayers which are closer
in nature to supplication and where the deity is offered no real
quid pro quo.
42 43
Versnel, 50. Dern. 21, 51; Pl. Leg. 799ab.
44
Hymn. Hom. 9, to Artemis, quoted in full above.
45
Theophrastus, 1r.:p1,va,{J,La.~,
fr. 12 Potscher, 42-4.

4 people who 'incubated' in the sacred precinct. 2 In these texts, it is
Prayer and Supplication
In the foregoing chapters, we saw how give-and-take was a cen-
tral modality underpinning Greek prayer and sacrifice. In this
chapter, I wish to examine those prayers where the question of
reciprocity is less to the fore and where the petitioner more or less
throws himself on the mercy of the deity.
We looked at the Et ,roTE prayer in Chapter 2. It is based,
beyond doubt, upon the same nexus of ideas as was f w!a
('guest-friendship'). However, there are some places where
prayer appears to be associated with the quite opposite social
institution of tKETEta ('supplication'). Whereas l£V1aconfidently
asserts a right, lKET«da is an action whereby one person, who is
normally in dire straits, requests the aid and protection of
another, thereby putting him under an almost sacral compulsion
to comply. 1 The rights of suppliants are upheld and enforced by
the gods. It might therefore seem odd to speak of humans putting
gods under any sort of sacral compulsion by means of prayer.
None the less, tKETEta is not exclusively an inter-human institu-
tion. There are examples of human beings supplicating the gods.
In his description of the Athenian plague of 430 BC, Thucydides
tells us that neither medicine nor any other human art was of any
help to the sufferers. He goes on to say (2, 47. 4), Jaa n -rrposiEpois
t f 'I\ # \ ., I t I .I 'I-
7Jµ.aVTno1s
IKETEVO'aV Kat TOIS TOIOVTOIS EXP7JUIJ.VTO, 1TO.l'Ta O.VW'f'E"T/
('as for their supplication at temples and their use of oracles and
such like, it was all to no avail'). Here we have a concrete picture of
human beings approaching gods not as partners in xdpts but as
desperate suppliants. We also have a series of inscriptions from
1 she supplicate Zeus, if she is then going to remind him that she is
J. Gould, 'Hiketeia', JHS 93 (1973), 74 ff. Throughout this chapter, I contrast
prayers based on tw11>and those based on IKn~•"-·The reader should note that
when I use such terms, they are a convenient shorthand. It must be home in mind
that they are not separate species but different sub-genera of the genus 'prayers
based on human interactions', which is in rum part of the overarching species
'prayer'.
Prayer and Supplication 57
Epidaurus detailing the cures effected by Apollo and Asclepius on
repeatedly stressed that the patient was a t1<fr71,or iKiTt<;('suppli-
ant'). So there clearly were occasions on which humans
approached the gods in full physical supplication.
There also exists, however, a category which Gould calls
'figurative supplication'. In these, standard words of supplication
are used but there is no bodily contact and the whole procedure
does not have the same ritual significance as full physical suppli-
cation. An example is Odysseus' figurative supplication of Nau-
sicaa at Od. 6. 141 ff. 3 This intensified language of entreaty was
also directed at the gods.
The first example of full physical supplication of a god in
Greek literature is perhaps the most controversial because it
depicts a goddess supplicating another god. At Iliad t. 500 ff.,
Thetis intercedes with Zeus for her son Achilles:
Kai pa. 1r&po18' a1hoio Ka.8t{€ro, ,cai }.,J.{11,
yo6vwv
!1Karfi,fili[inpfi 8'11.p'
v1r'&v8EpEWVOS l>.oiian
J\.,aao,JIIT/.,,-poat€t1TE
Lita Kpovfowa 11.vaKra·
"ZEv .,,-,1.Tep, &i Uli µ.n-' &8avaTOH1W
Et '1TOT€ 0"'711«
ii £'1TEIii lpyq,, T68e µ.o1KP~'f/VOV UJ\.8wp."
She sat in front of him and took hold of his knees with her left hand and,
taking hold of his chin with her right, she spoke in entreaty to lord Zeus,
son of Cronus: 'Father Zeus, if ever I have helped you among the
immortals, by word or deed, grant this wish for me.'
We may wish to rule out this example at once on the grounds that
ostensibly it may have little to tell us about human relations with
gods. On the other hand, it would be unwise simply to assume
that these words of Thetis could have borne no relation to any-
,I,,_ '\ "" ,.J'
,,v thing that ever happened in men's interactions with other men or
with gods, Therefore we should look at it a little more closely.
This request is explicitly described as supplication and yet Thetis
uses a da-quia-dedi formula of the sort which, as we saw in
Chapter 2, it seems reasonable to connect with fw10..Why does
not entirely powerless but in fact has a good claim upon his
attention? It may be that Homer has conflated prayer and
2
The inscriptions can be found in JG iv. f (1.), 121 ff.
3
Gould, 'Hiketeia', 77.
 Prayer and Supplication
supplication for literary purposes. Perhaps he felt it inappropri-
ate for Thetis to make this request too confidently.
It may, however, be equally significant that the verb J.,aaoµa.t ('J
entreat') is used in this passage. According to Aubriot, J.foaoµa,
represents a much less self-denying action than iK1:revw. 4 Her
theory is as follows. On the one hand, lKer1:ia.involves a total
self-abasement of the petitioner whereby the person being sup-
plicated is put under a sacral constraint to protect his suppliant. A
J.mj, on the other hand, is both less grovelling and lacks the sacral
force of iKETE1a..It is a form of request that begs a favour. Aubriot
also shows that it was not inappropriate for somebody making a
J.mf to attempt to propitiate the divinity with an offering, perhaps
in the shape of a poem, song, or sacrifice. 5 We might recollect that
Telemachus, when asking Nestor and Menelaus for the privileges
of f£11fo,began with the word J.1aaoµll.l.6 This, then, might be taken
to account for the 1:i1ror1:clause in Thetis' speech. If Maaoµ.a, is not
intrinsically supplicatory and one can bolster one's claims with an
actual gift, maybe an Et1rorEclause would do as well. None the less,
it remains peculiar that Thetis' .%.mfis linked with the supplicatory
gesture of touching the knees and chin. Mme Aubriot suggests
that this is a deliberate device of Homer to make Thetis appear
humble in deed but assertive in word. 7 The idea is presumably
that she can monopolize Zeus' attention with a suppliant gesture
but then change tack to a more assertive kind of demand.
Those who think this episode may have little to tell us about
human institutions still have to decide what to make of Od. 5.
444 ff. where Odysseus is on the verge of drowning and makes this
prayer to the river-god:
lyvw 6i 'Tl'poplmrraKai eiJ{aTo ov Ktmi 0vµ,&.,·
"K>.ii81&va{,0T1; ioa,· 'T1'0>.6,\}.1aT011
81.a'[Kdvw
ip,;6ywvl:K1ro11Tot0 II001:18dwvo;iv11m;.
al8oios µlv ,., fo,.1 Kal d8av,:hou:11
0£oiaw
dv8pwv &, ,.,., <K1/T'Ud),wp.o,M, W,"Kal eywviiv
aov TE poov ad T£ yovval11,.-dvwnoHa /J,0"}'71<112,".
dH' l:Maip£, nvaf IKrfTTJY81 'TOI£iJxoµ,ru c;lvai."
He recognized that it was flowing towards him and prayed in his heart;
'Hear me, lord, whoever you are. I beseech you, object of many prayers
4
Aubriot, eh. 5. 5
Ibid. 471. 6
Od. 3. 98ff., 4. 328ff.
7
Aubriot, 444 n. u; and pp. 452 ff., esp. 454,
Pmyer and Supplication 59
[,kral], as I flee from the sea and the reprimands of Poseidon. That man is
august, even to the immortal gods, who arrives as a suppliant wanderer,8
just as I now, at the end of many toils, arrive in suppliancy at your stream
and your knees. Come, have pity lord. I claim [Er1xof'tl1] to be a suppliant.'
This passage is not like the Thetis episode. Odysseus presents
himself as a suppliant but does not use an ei'.1ror1:formula. However,
Homer does describe what he does with the verb Evxoµm, &fa-ro. It
is clearly odd to find fEVk juxtaposed with iKETEtain the speech of
Thetis, but we now need to ask ourselves whether we should be
surprised to find 1:ux11associated with iKer1:la.After all, we saw in
Chapter 2 that rather a lot of cuxai'.
were based on notions of fEVw..
It has already been pointed out that the Greeks had several
different words for praying. One was Evxoµa., but there were also
dprioµat, J.taaoµai, and lKETEvw.Most people probably have a
feeling that 1:vxoµ.ruwas a blanket term to describe any kind of
prayer. I think this is, loosely speaking, correct, at least for the
archaic and classical periods. Nevertheless, some have tried to
argue that the verb n1xoµm has an underlying, specific meaning
that can be recovered. In the same way that .%.fouoµa,can be
argued to refer to a slightly deferential request and 1x1:nvw to a
totally self-abasing one, it is sometimes argued that 1:vxoµa.1
means something very firm like 'to boast'. We need to look at
this claim in more detail since, if true, it affects our view of
contexts where evx71and lKETEfoare found together.
There is much disagreement over the meaning of EiJxoµa.1in
Homeric Greek. Etymologically, the verb has been connected
with an Indo-European root •wegwh-. This is related to Skt. 6hate
('to (be able to) boast that one is') and Avestan aog ('to declare
solemnly'). It is also connected with Lat. voveo. More controver-
sially, some have postulated a link between this root and • wekw,
445 which is, of course, the root meaning 'to speak', underlying Gk.
£1ro,;and Lat. vox; but this is far from universally accepted. 9
8 11<voiif'a,/l1«i...,,
means 'I arrive' but it can also have overtones of 'to come as a
su~pliant'.
Corlu, 1;-18. The theory is that the root "H(e)u,l"h- can be analysed into two
0
constituent parts, H(e)u• and the suffix "g"'h. The idea would then be that one
could explain the root of ,,,-os and vox, namely • wek'"•, as being the second
Benvenil!,tian ablaut form of "H(e)u-, i.e. •Hu(e)-, followed by a different suffix.
namely kw. The problem is that we do not have any corroboration for this
hypothesis. It could only really stand if we could find other pairs of words which
seemed to share the same partial root but were distinguished by the alternation
between •,l"h and • k" in the suffix. It is difficult to do so.
60 Prayer and Supplication
It is a matter of common knowledge that, in Homer, Evxoµ.a,
sometimes seems as though it might better be translated as 'to
boast' rather than 'to pray'. More often than not, it involves
boasting of something of which one has just right to be proud
(ll. 6. 211) but it can also denote vainglory (ll. u. 388). Adkins
has argued influentially that prayer and boasting are the same
thing for the Homeric Greek. 10 This, of course, would only apply
to those prayers designated as Evxa{ by Greek authors. Even so, if
this were true, prayer would be a very bold gesture where the
hero is 'asserting his existence, his value, his claims' . 11
Adkins's argument, although not put in these terms, is of the
following type. We have a word, wxea8a1, which sometimes
appears to mean 'to boast' whereas at other times it seems to
mean 'to pray'. So he assumes that wxrnt)a1 originally meant 'to
boast' and was later extended to cover certain addresses to gods.
Thus, for a Greek, to pray, quite simply, is to boast. Typologi-
cally, this sort of diachronic extension is not unknown. In
English, when monks started to call each other 'brother', they
were taking a word which originally meant something else and
making it serve a more specialized purpose. The process occurs in
Greek too: 8paxµ.~ originally meant 'handful'-it was only later
that it came to describe a coin.
But it is by no means certain that things had to proceed along
those lines. It is equally possible that there was all along just one
lexeme {evxm8at}, whose underlying meaning we have not yet
precisely determined. Because we are not fully familiar with
ancient Greek semantic categories, we mistakenly translate it
both as 'to boast' and 'to pray' because, in English, that is what
seems most fitting in context. Thereby we may be needlessly
creating two seemingly different categories where there was in
fact just one concept in Greek. How can we know which explana-
tion is correct?
The evidence of Linear B is important here. It preserves the
word e-u-ke-to. It is clearly the same as Arcadian EVX£TOt and Attic
EVX£Ta1.The context in which it appears is that of a dispute
between a priestess and the local deme about the exact nature
of the lease governing a certain plot of land. The text is as follows
IO A. w.H. Adkins, "•iixop,a,,cvxw,\') and ,1,xosin Homer". CQ
20-31.
Prayer and Supplication 61
(PY: Ep 704. 5): 'e-ri-ta i-je-re-ja e-ke, e-u-ke-to-qe e-to-ni-jo e-
ke-e te-o, da-mo-de-mi pa-si ko-to-na-o ke-ke-me-na-o o-na-to
e-ke-e' ('Erita the priestess has, and e-u-ke-to that she has, an e-
to-ni-jo of the god, but the people says that she has a ko-to-na-o').
An e-to-ni-jo is, from the evidence of the other tablets, a particu-
larly desirable type of land tenure. It is what the rich tend to have.
A ko-to-na-o is less desirable. What is significant here is the
opposition between the verbs of saying. The priestess e-u-ke-to,
whereas the da-mo(s) (people) simply pa-si (= cf,aut,say). It makes
little sense to say that the priestess is 'praying' and it seems
equally unsatisfactory to say that she is 'boasting'. If we simply
put aside the somewhat constraining idea that the word has to
mean one thing or the other, we can look for a more plausible
underlying meaning that would suit all contexts. Since it is cap-
able of being used as a verb of saying, like pa-si, but is not the
same as pa-si, perhaps we could translate it, like its Avestan
counterpart, as 'to assert solemnly'.
Adkins's argument for the 'pray' sense of Evxoµ.at being a
development from a primary sense 'to boast' is clearly vitiated
by the fact that in such an early document it does not appear to
mean either 'boast' or 'pray'. 12 We are therefore in no way bound
to believe that Greek prayers of the wx17-type are fundamentally
self-assertive. There may, after all, be a single underlying concept
13
underpinning all Greek uses of 1:vxEa8a(.
Aubriot has suggested a different root meaning for eiixoµ.a,
from the one just put forward. 14 She challenges the following
conjectures: (a) that of Benveniste, who thought that the verb
originated in the sacred sphere and meant 'to pray' and that the
secular meaning 'to boast' was derived from that; (b) that of
Corlu, who thought, as we have already seen, that the word was
basically neutral, being linked with the root • wekw, 'to say' (cf.
Gk. ;71'oS, Lat. vox), whence it acquired in a parallel evolution
both its religious and secular overtones; (c) that of Adkins, who
11 This precludes the argument that a specialization of meaning had already
taken place by the Linear B period.
13 There Wllll, therefore, only one category and that was 'solemn speech'. The
word is to be translated 'boast' or 'pray' in Homer depending on context. In later
Greek, the solemn speech tends to be addressed to gods rather than defeated
NS 19 (1969), warriors on the battlefield and so Eiixn1'1a.,becomes specialized in its meaning of
14
n Ibid. JJ. 'to pray'. Aubriot, 198ff.
 Prayer and Supplication
thought that the verb originally meant 'to boast' and that it came
to mean 'to pray' because, for Homeric man, prayer was a form of
boasting; (d) the view of Muellner, that £vxoµ.ai is the vox propria
for tripartite prayers of the kind outlined by Ausfeld. 15 I shall not
reproduce here her clear and detailed exposition and refutation of
those points. Following J. L. Perpillou, 16 she believes that the
verb initially had a juridical context and meant 'to declare a just
claim'. This is not wholly dear to me, at least. It is true that the
Mycenaean evidence (PY: Ep 704. 5) quoted above is as easily
explicable on Perpillou's view as it is on mine. The priestess is
involved in a sort of legal dispute and, Perpillou would conclude,
it is only proper that she should use £vxoµ.at. Aubriot goes on to
say that rhetoric is involved here and that this is another argu-
ment for Evxoµai having had a judicial origin. 17 She supposes that
it originally denoted those prayers where the petitioner was con.-
cerned to make out a reasoned case. This interpretation has to be
rejected for the same reason that Aubriot herself rejected Muell-
ner's view of £vxoµai as the vox propria for tripartite ii 1ron
prayers ((d) above). If EiJxoµai is especially appropriate for the
reasoned presentation of justified claims, surely one would expect
to find it used with all Ei 1rorfi prayers since they are par excellence
prayers which rely on reasoned argument. In fact, not al1 £l 1ron
' ' 18 A n even more serious
prayers are d escr1'b ed as £vxa.,. . o b.Jectton
. ogy nor of the contexts in which it is used do we have any reason
is that the word is used to describe plenty of other prayers, where
there is no attempt to make a reasoned case. 19 Is this just an
extension of the originally more specialized juridical meaning?
If so, the specialized meaning suddenly seems less important in
synchronic terms. Even if it is true, was Homer, or his audience,
aware of it? Furthermore, outside the Homeric evidence itself, we
know precious little about rhetoric and legal vocabulary either in
the Mycenaean period or in Homer's day. It is thus somewhat
circular to use those vexed lines about the legal dispute depicted
1
" L. Muellner, The Meaning af Homeric ~vxoµa., through its Formulas
(Innsbrucken Beitrl!ge zur Sprachwissenschaft, 13; Innsbruck, 1976).
16
J. L. Perpillou, 'La Signification du verbe €uxop.a, dans l'epopee', in Mlil-
anges de linguistique et de philogie grecq1m offerts a Pierre Chantmine (Etudes et
17 Aubriot., 216ff.
Commentaires,. 79; Paris, 1972), 169--82.
18
£t ,rou prayers designated by <tpttoµm rather than EVX<>IM•
Od. 4. 76tff.
19
are TI. 10. 277ff.;
Simple, non-argumentative, prnyers described by wxo1uu include TI. z.
4llff., 6. 475ff .• 7. 202.ff., 23. 770; Od. 21. 200.
Prayer and Supplication 63
on the Shield of Achilles (Jl. 18. 499-500) in order to prove a
judicial origin for £vxoµai. 20 If the word meant, as I think it did,
'to say solemnly', then it would be entirely appropriate in a
judicial context. This does not mean that it is of judicial origin.
All this has a bearing on the interpretation of the passage from
which we started, Od. 5. 445 ff. 21 Adkins says that a suppliant,
although ostensibly declaring his lack of status, also knows per-
fectly well that the Greek moral code requires absolutely that he
be protected. He can therefore boast of it. It is true that suppli-
ants had strong rights. But does it make any sense to have Odys-
seus 'boasting' before the god at line 450? The English word is far
too strong and misleading. Equally, we cannot really say that
Odysseus is making a reasoned case using a verb drawn from
the sphere of juridical rhetoric. If, on the other hand, Evxoµ,m
simply means 'I say solemnly', then the use of the word itself
need not have created any expectations about the content of what
follows. So we need not really be surprised if a speech described
as a £VX1/actualJy turns out to be supplicatory in nature. This
allows us to make more sense of the fact that in Homer a nix11 can
involve f&fa (ll. r. 37 ff.), iK£n[a (Od. 13. 231), or both (ll. I. 503;
Od. 5. 445ff.). 22 The verb £vxoµaL was clearly much broader in
meaning than A[aaoµ.a, or lKEnvw. Neither in terms of its etymol-
to connect it with one narrowly defined type of activity.
Aubriot postulates a division of Greek prayer-types into evxal,
a.pa[, ALTa£,and lKETEtat.I suspect that the actual groupings were
~&la-prayers, dpaf, Amxf, and tKET£la,. It would be tempting to
believe that Evxoµ,m was the vox propria for a specific type of
prayer but the evidence does not bear this out. I think that
dixoµa1 must have been an altogether more neutral word which
could be used to describe any address to a god as weH as certain
types of address to other human beings. It is thus not so surpris-
ing to find Evxoµ,m at Od. 5. 450. From now on, when I speak of
20 21
Aubriot, .104ff. Ibid. 33.
21
Further examples of this mixture of Eiix~and supplication are Pl. Leg. 887e
where, describing prayers to the gods, Plato talks of 9,o,, ...}xoi. 1rpaa8mll,yoµivov,
,..,,_,l1tcnt1u,, and Ath. 6. 253d where Demetrius Poliorcetes is greeted by people
who IJ£oµwo, 1,'ail:roi, t,..invav, ,f,,1ai, i<a.l 1rpaa-q6xo,,.,.a.Ar. Thesm. 11 55 ff., µ&>.ua11,
.>.lkrov, b.vr6~(f ,I, / fh<1µ.o,/,l,p,,,,roAv,m:rvia,
ii<t:-/niloµ& lvfJo.lJ•
<,Ml,.,.,> vi.tv,a.,f,,i<<afJ'
''"I"""'
/ ,l i<ai 1tpoTf'!fJOV 1toT'/
x,iµiv, is a perfect example of what Gould
ijMl,wv,
calls 'figurative supplication'.
 Pmyer and Supplication Prayer and Supplication

'prayer', the reader must understand that I am using the word as
something of an umbrella. This is probably not wholly unjusti-
fied in view of the way the Greek themselves used Eiixoµ.m. It
summed up 'prayer' in a general way but calling an address to a
god a EVXT) did not preclude that same act from being described
more specifically as an d.pdor Arrrfor an act of lJCtTfta.
One of our aims in this study is to look at the overlap between
prayer and other cultural phenomena. We have seen that on the
one hand Greek prayer is sometimes like t&,a and on the other
It might therefore be helpful to have in one's mind an
like lJC£TE1.a,
image of a vertical line divided into three with lJC£Te,aat the
bottom, AtTT) in the middle, and !f1'1aat the top. The lower one
is on the line, the smaller the amount of credit one feels one has
with one's correspondent-human or divine. It is possible to
occupy intermediate positions. A person who formulates a prayer
using the vocabulary of supplication but omitting the formal
physical gestures is clearly more self abasing than a person offer-
ing a A1-r71but less so than one who clings to the statue of a
goddess in supplication. Whilst we can now understand how it
was possible to seek favours from a god with empty hands, we can
also see that supplication was an exceptional procedure and out-
side the norms of everyday Greek prayer.
Prayer to the gods that they might avert evil also seems to
belong in the same general area. In an uncertain world, it is
natural for men to turn to the gods to avert danger. The word
('averter') itself figures in two literary prayers. In Eur-
a.116-rpo11or;
ipides' Phoenissae, the chorus ask (586f.): ctJ(Jt,oi, yo,ou18£ Tu'w3'
JCal(mllI Kai tvµ.f3aalv nv' Ol3t11ov TltJCVOLr;
il.110Tpo11ot 3&-re(' 0 gods,
turn away these evils and grant some reconciliation to the chil-
dren of Oedipus'). In his Hercules Furens, the chorus prays
(82of.): wvae llauf.11,I il.mfrpo110,ya>o,6 µ.ot 1117µ.a-rw11
('0 lord Paean,
avert my pains'). In a more concrete sense, in a real paean to
Asclepius (IG ii 2 • 4473. 22), we have aTvyEpci, 3' a:rripvJCe vovaovs-
('Turn aside hateful diseases'). Apotropaic requests can, in the
literature at least, also refer to armies. In Euripides' Heracleidae
{770 ff.) we have a request that the invading army will be turned
away. It is in the nature of such emergencies that one does not
make an offering. The crisis is too pressing. No doubt it was
proper to make some kind of thank-offering after being released
from danger even if one's original prayer carried no explicit
promise of this--e.g. the Greek offerings made at Delphi after the
Persian Wars (ML :27).
It is also worth examining in this connection those prayers
where the god is asked to do something on the basis that he did
so once before. Given that there is no explicit inducement for the
god to act, do these prayers belong inside the network of xapi.? I
have in mind things like the prayer which is made by lphigeneia
at IT 1082 ff.
w1r6TV,:ij1rep11-'AJ.\,6os-KO:rli1rTvxli,;
6Hv,js, :awaas EK1TaTpoK-rovov
xep6s,
awaov /U Kal 111111
•• ' •
Lady, who in the glades of Aulis saved me from my father's dreadful
murderous hand, save me now.
There is also the famous prayer of Sappho to Aphrodite (fr. 1.
sff.):
&.Uli-rvl8':Ml, ai 110-raK.1-rlpwra
-rds:µ,a,at'13as&fo,aa 1T1/Ao1
EKAVES,mfrpos, 8t 8611-011
.\i1ro1aa
xpvauw 'qAIJes
&pl tnTaa8e6faiaa.
Come now, if ever hearing my voice from afar, you listened, and leaving
your father's house, came having yoked your golden chariot.
There is also the parodos of the OT (165 ff.) where Athene,
Artemis, and Phoebus are invoked in the following terms:
ei' 1rore Kai 11p0Tlpas,ha; V1TEp
l,pvvµlvas w6Au
~v6aar' fKT01r!av,f,Mya 1"//LaTos,
i.\8nE Kal viiv.
If ever in the past when ruin was rushing upon the city you turned aside
the flame of grief, come now.
The whole chorus so far has been an invocation of the major
poliad deities. It has about it the feel of a real public prayer
that might be made under such circumstances. There is no expli-
cit bargain made. If anything, the people are in no real position to
do very much. They are crying out to the gods in their despera-
tion. On the basis of things like the Hittite plague-prayers exam-
ined in the last chapter, one might expect people who are unable
66 Prayer and Supplication
to sacrifice to allude to former ones. Clearly this second species of
persuasion is also possible.
Diomede prays to Athene in similar terms at II . .5. u.5f.:
KAiifJ/p.ett aly16xow Lho, TtKo~. 'ATpt1TW"17,
E71r0Tt p.r,1Klli 1raTpl ef,Ua ef,povfovaa trap€UT7J<;
Hear me, Atrytone, daughter of Zeus who wears the aegis, if ever you
stood by my father with kindly intent ...
Here, of course, the argument is that the goddess helped Tydeus
so he should also help Tydeus' son. We saw in the last chapter
that it was not illegitimate to bring one's father or husband or
master into an Et110TEprayer. However, when Diomede makes a
very similar prayer at Il. 10. 284ff., he asks Athene to help him
even as she helped his father but promises to sacrifice a young
heifer if his prayer is answered. Here, then, we have an example
of a da-qui-dedisti prayer coupled with a vow, so, clearly, such
prayers were not always just empty-handed gestures. In fact,
there is a famous example of a da-quia-dedisti prayer accompany-
ing a sacrifice in the second prayer of Chryses in Iliad 1 (4.51ff.)
where Chryses prays to Apollo to call off the plague, hearing him
now even as he did when be started the plague.
It is thus clear that some da-quia-dedisti prayers are tanta-
mount to a request with no quid pro quo. But this does not
mean that they were the same thing as supplication. For one
thing, we have no indication that they exerted anything like the
same powerful compulsion that supplication did. Furthermore, it
is always quite possible that, if the prayer was answered, the god
would get an offering at a later stage. Since yet others of these
prayers could be accompanied by sacrifice, it seems as though the
formula does not have one meaning in and of itself.
So far we have been looking at supplication when the suppli-
cator is morally innocent with respect to the deity being suppli-
cated. However, the Greeks also knew that it was possible to
offend the gods and sin against them and so they needed to ask
them for forgiveness. 23 At Herodotus 6. 86y. 2, we read of the
reaction of Glaucus to the chastening oracle about the punish-
ment of perjurers: uv)"Yl'wµ.TJY1rapai-rtuo au-rqi UX£ivTwv p11DtvTw11
('He asked his forgiveness for what he had said'). Ismene asks the
21 I owe this catalogue to C. Ausfeld (see Au.sfeld, 541).
Prayer and Supplication
gods to forgive her (Soph. Ant. 65ff.) for giving in to Creon's
edict: lyw µ.tv oliv al-roiiaa TOVS inrb x8ovos / fv;ryvotav tuXHV, w,;
f:J,a{oµ,o.tT«0£, / TOCS' EVT(AEI {1E/3wa,1T£luoµ.a,(' I ask those beneath
the earth to forgive me on the grounds that I am being coerced
and I shall obey those in power'). The old servant in the Hippo-
lytus of Euripides apologizes for the young man's rashness and
addresses Artemis as follows (II7 ff.): XP~ St ulJ)'i'Vwµ71vlxnv. I Ei
7'1S' cl b</l
~/371,;
U1TA«yxvovlv-rovovef>epwv I µ.dTo.ta/Ja.{u,µ:q So,m TOOTOV
11:Mrn,('You must be forgiving. If somebody who because of his
youth is highly strung speaks vainly, pretend not to hear it'). We
shall consider in Chapter 8 the interest of such prayers where
men tell the gods how they ought to behave. lphigeneia (Eur. IT
1400) prays to Artemis to see her safe home and adds: KA01ruis
aoyyvw8' eµ.a.i, ('Forgive my theft'). The same kind of thing is
implicit in the words of Andromache about Neoptolemus (Eur.
Andr. 54 f.): £i 1TWS' Ttl 1rp6a8Eaef>d,\µ,a-r' e{a,-rovµo'OS I DEOV 110.pa.axo,-r'
£i, To ,\omov Euµ.&i;('if haply by begging off his previous faults he
might make the god well disposed for the future'), There is also a
reference to forgiveness in one of the fragments of Euripides (645
N 2): avyyvwµ.ova,
I ,
-rot (} £OVS
' l
£ vu, uOKEt,
\! , I oTo.v
" ns opK<p., 8ava-rov
,
EKi/,uyii.v8'11y ... ('Reckon that the gods are forgiving whenever
somebody wants to use an oath to escape death'). There are
several examples from Aristophanes, too. Strepsiades repents
before the old gods after his brush with newfangled abstract
deities (Ar. Nub. 1478 ff.); µ,11llo.µ.ws Ouµ.a.,veµ.01,I µ.118eµ.'£1TLTp«/ms,
a,\AaUV)"Yl'W/.L1JV EX£ I eµov 1rupa.vo1jaav-rosaSoAEax£9, ('Do not be
angry with me; do not destroy me; but forgive me who was mad
in my frivolity'). In the same author's Vespae (1002), Philocleon
comically asks the gods to forgive him for letting an accused man
go free: llKWVyap ut'fr' lSpa.ao. KOVmvµ.ov Tp01TOV {'I acted unwil-
lingly and out of character'). The situation is absurd of course--
these words should surely be on the lips of the accused, not of the
juror! These two passages show, however, that it is possible to
adduce an excuse in a prayer just as one might in a court-either
one was mad (111:ipuvo71auv-ro,) or acting out of character (Kov
Tovµoii Tpo1rov). The two come to much the same thing, of course.
There is an interestingly different prayer in Xenophon's Memor-
abilia (2. 2. 14), where we have the following admonition: av oliv,
w1rai, av aW<j>povf}fi, TOUS' µiv 8£01./S 1rapm'T1jayavyyvwµ.ovds am £lvat,
rrjs µ.1}Tpos('And so you, son, if you are prudent,
d 7'1 1raprJIJ.€A1JKO.S'
68 Prayer and Supplication Prayer and Supplication

will beg the gods to be forgiving, if in any respect you have Such a conception of 'sin' as offences against individual gods is
neglected your mother'). We are not dealing with a direct offence fairly easily understood as a characteristic of a polytheistic
against a god. Rather, the gods will be angry if people do not treat society. How can one have a simple and unified conception of
their parents properly. Finally, it is also possible to apologize for good and evil if there are different gods with different personal-
one's prayer itself. Simonides makes Danae say to Zeus (PMG ities, sometimes pulling in opposite directions?
543- .23ff.): ftl:Ta{Jovi\la lU TtS' t/Jav1:t71,
/ Z1:v1TQ.1'Ep,/« aeo, / OTTL 8J In this chapter, then, we have seen that there are various types
8apua>.lovl1ro,;fVXOfLCU I 11v&atp, ot,m,,I auyyvw8t µ.ot ('Let there of prayer where the petitioner seeks a boon from the god without
appear on your part, father Zeus, some change of heart and if any any immediate offer of recompense. However, even under these
part of my prayer is bold or unjust, forgive me'). cirumstances, the quid pro quo is not wholly absent. The AtT~ by
These prayers for forgiveness are made in contexts where there no means rules out a concomitant offering or recollection of l,m,
is no mention of sacrifice. Either this is an accident of the evi- made in the past. Those prayers, however, which were more
dence, perhaps conditioned by literary considerations, or it was overtly supplicatory in tone, whilst making no immediate offer,
not actuallly considered necessary to sacrifice when asking for were also very unusual. Clearly they were designed for use in a
forgiveness-perhaps because such prayers stood slightly outside crisis. It would make nonsense of a reciprocal system if there were
the normal network of xapis and were more like supplication. It is some means by which people could regularly expect to obtain
also interesting that, in nearly all of these passages except the last, something for nothing. In the next chapter, we shall look at
the individual is asking the gods for forgiveness of specific another area in which reciprocity is less in evidence, namely
offences against those gods. We do not have anything like the that of the curse.
Christian idea of man being naturally sinful and needing forgive-
ness for his general state of moral laxity. Only in the passage from
Xenophon (Mem. 2.. 2. 14) do we have something a little different:
one should ask the gods for forgiveness if one has neglected one's
mother. We are dealing with a very large question here of course,
but one can at least say that the references from tragedy and
comedy reflect a state of affairs that had obtained since the
time of Homer and Hesiod. 24 There is no clearly worked out
scheme of divine justice. Certain gods are responsible for certain
spheres of human life and will punish transgression only within
those areas. Zeus alone has a tendency to stray beyond beggars
and suppliants-who are sometimes said to be his main concern.
24
It is interesting, incidentally, that the word OlJYY<'.Yv,(,cKwand its family is
entirely absent from the Homeric epics. It is easy enough to see that there is little
room for such ideas in the Iliad but interesting that the Odyssey too chooses not to
speak of such things. I suspect that this is a purely literary thing. After all, men in
both epics are perfectly aware that one can transgre1111against gods. But both
poems would lose something if Meleager prayed to Artemis for forgiveness or
Odysseus' crew said they were sorry for eating the oxen of the Sun-god. That
forgiveness for sins against a god is at least a conceivable category is surely
confirmed by Phoenix's allegory of the Am2i at II. 9. 502 ff. It may be sui generis
as a piece of theological exposition but this does not invalidate it. Phoenix cer-
tainly tailors his account to fi1 the circumstances but it seems highly unlikely that
the individual details were wholly fictitious.

5 type of prayer, be it for good or ill. For example, at II. 9. 171 f.,
Curses and Justice
Was there a difference between prayer and curse in ancient
Greece? A modern Christian is apt to think that a prayer is a
good and pious thing proffered before God in church or on one's
knees by the bedside whereas a curse is some sort of leftover from
the dark days of medieval witchcraft. Such a view is, however,
simplistic. The Book of Common Prayer actually contains an
elaborate litany of curses against the ungodly in the ceremony
known as 'Commination, or Denouncing of God's Anger and
Judgements Against Sinners'. There is a place in orthodox Chris-
tianity for cursing just as there is for blessing. At the same time,
there is, of course, a class of curses recognized as belonging
within the sphere of black magic. Such things are still known
today. 1 In this chapter, we shall examine whether and how far the
Greeks recognized cursing as a category of action separate from
prayer. We shall also be looking at the difference between various
types of curse,
Perhaps the most obvious approach to the question of whether
there was any sort of difference between prayer and cursing is the
lexical one. If one defines a curse as a 'wish that evil should befall
another', then it is clear that Greeks frequently went in for cur-
sing. However, if we look at the words they used for such curses,
we find that the situation is far from straightforward. Wood-
house's English-Greek Dictionary gives, as a translation for curse,
a.pa and the corresponding verb is ap&.oµaior some compound
thereof. Yet, as soon as we come to study Homer, we find that
the old priest Chryses is an &p'l'Jr~p('one who makes d.pal', Il. 1.
11). This word seems to be being used almost as a synonym for
l€pEVi; ('priest'), the word Achilles uses to describe him to Thetis
at Jl, I. 370. Words in -rijp are often agential nouns derived from
verbs. dp'l'j-r71p is, however, unlikely simply to mean 'man who
1
R. Merrifield, The Archaeology of Ritual and .Magic (London, 1987}, 147ff.
Curses and Justice 71
curses'. In Homer, we find that the verb dpaop.atcan refer to any
Nestor bids the heralds of the Achaean camp to bring water and
order silence so that a prayer can be made to Zeus, to see if he will
have mercy on the Greeks. That prayer is designated by the verb
&p&.oµ.ai (ll. 1. 172). Contrariwise, when Althaea is cursing her son
Meleager, we hear (Il. 9. 567) that she 'l'l'o,U'd.xiova' ~paro ,caa,yvrj-
-row ef,ovoio('in her grief for her brother's slaying, made many
ripat'). Similarly, the verb filxoµ.ai can be used to denote wishes for
others' harm, for example when Chryses calls Apollo's plague
upon the Achaeans at Il. 1. 43 or, again, when the Achaeans and
Trojan soldiers alike make dire imprecations upon anyone who
should break the oath not to break the truce at ll. 3. 296ff. 2
Such a distribution raises the question of what these two verbs,
apaoµ.atand €ilxoµ.a,, actually mean. In the last chapter, in con-
nection with whether or not €vxoµ.a,might mean 'I boast', we saw
that its root meaning is something like 'I assert solemnly'. We
also saw that it is something of an umbrella word for prayer in
Greek literature of all periods. Now, however, we need to ask
whether ap&.oµa,is just a synonym of filxoµa, or whether there is
some subtle distinction between the two. This will require a
much more detailed investigation of the Homeric evidence than
the few examples quoted above. If a distinction is found to exist,
is it one which, after all, might favour translating dpaoµa, as 'I
curse'?
Perhaps the most detailed analysis of the meanings of these two
words is that of Corlu. 3 After an extensive examination of the
evidence, he comes to the conclusion that, in Homer, apaoµa, is
used more often than not to formulate wishes regarding other
people, whereas Evxop.aiis used to express wishes for oneself. 4 He
discusses the evidence for this both in Homer and in the fifth-
century dramatists. He thinks that Aristophanes (Thesm. 35of.)
gives a nice illustration. In the parodic presentation of the prayer
that accompanies the beginning of a session of the Athenian
ecclesia, the herald says that people should call down curses
against all malefactors (&.pu.<18€, 350) but with regard to the vir-
2
To complicate the issue further, Chryses' prayer is actually described u an
apl, at II. t. 35 and as a nix~ at line 43.
3
A. Corlu, Rechen:lws sur les mots relatifs a l'idie de la priett, d'Homere au.x
4
tragiques (Paris, 11)66). Corlu, 285 ff.
72 Curses and Justice
tuous women the injunction is €uxm8€ 7Tll<11US''ITOAAa 8aiivai ,aiya0&.
('pray [to the gods] to give you all many good things', 351). One
might also cite in support of Corlu Dem. 19. 130 where he says of
Aeschines, raiira <1UV1JUX€(f avros- 1<a1i<aTTJpiiroTfl 1Ta-;ptOt ('This is
what he prayed for and how he made &patagainst his fatherland').
However, I note that this Aristophanic usage is totally inverted in
a passage of Herodotus who, writing in the same century as
Aristophanes, says of Persian prayers (1. 132), iwVTij>µlv Ttp 86aVTt
t'8'171µavvcp
" ov 01 tyyive:Tn1 apaa 8ai aya
i,I " ,,. :1 "• 0"a, o' ot
.... ~' -;oun
... niiat ll' €p<171at
1<an-vx1:TO.I £0 y{v1:a0a11<0.l El!yap 617
Ttp {::laa1.Mi:. TOiat ll,'/TQat lllpaya,
1<atnVTOS' ylvna, ('The sacrificer is not allowed to pray [apao14at]
for blessings for himself alone; rather he prays [€vxof4ttt]that it
will be well with all Persians and with the King; for he counts
himself among them'). It may, of course, be unwise to use authors
who wrote long after Homer's day to explain Homeric usage.
None the less, we shall leave this objection to one side and con-
tinue with a summary of Corlu's findings.
There are indeed plenty of prayers introduced by e:vxoµo.1
which express a wish for the benefit of the petitioner. 5 However,
there are also disquieting exceptions. When Chryses starts the
plague, his words, aimed against the Achaeans, are described both
as ap& and tVX?J( 1l. I. 35, 43). When he calls off the plague (II. 1.
45off.), what he says is described simply as a €VX11and yet it, too,
is presumably aimed at others. Corlu thinks there is a good
explanation for this. He says that whenever we have a prayer
accompanying a cultic act, the word used to describe that prayer
is always of the family of ivxoµat and never &paoµ.at.6 The fact that
we are dealing with a sacrifice at ll. I. 45r requires the use of
d;xoµa1 and this overrides the use of a.paoµ,n1 that we would expect
on Corlu's own hypothesis that d.pao14a,is the natural verb of
choice in prayers for others. One would presumably need a simi-
lar explanation for II. 3. 295 ff. When the Achaeans and Trojans
pray that the brains of any potential truce-breaker may fall out on
the ground, the verb of praying used is €uxoVTo,However, since
this prayer is accompanied by libation, it may be that it can be
explained in the same way as Chryses' prayer. Unfortunately,
there are counter-examples. Prayers introduced by a.p&.014tt1 are
5 Od, 6. 323 ff. There is the recollection of previous divine assistance at II. 5. u4ff.,
Il. 10. 461. ff., 16. 514ff., .i3. 770; Od. 2. 262 ff., 5. 444 ff., 20. 98 ff.
6
Corlu, 253.
Curses and Justice 73
accompanied by libations at Il. 9. 172, 23. 194; Od. 3. 62, 64. Corlu
claims, somewhat unconvincingly, that there are grounds for
discounting these cases.7 Furthermore, there are examples of
the two verbs being used together to describe the same prayer. 8
Corlu says that it is significant that these prayers are always
introduced by &paoµ.a.,but summarized by dixoµa.1. He says that
it is apaoµa1 that really counts, and that the concluding formula
(e.g. «is-l4,«T' e:vxoµoos-,'so he spoke in prayer') is merely a for-
mulaic throwaway. It is certainly true that, if we ignore the final
1:uxoµm, these prayers do seem to correspond to Corlu's theory
about the basic meaning of &pdoµm.9 Once again, though, this
typology is not totally secure. At Od. 3. 54, Athene, disguised as a
human being and attending the sacrifice given by Nestor, prays to
Poseidon and the verb is wxn·o.At the end of the prayer, there are
libations and the verb of praying is ~pa.To (62, 64). Surely, on
Corlu's own hypothesis, it ought to be €vxaµ.a.,.Corlu claims that
the libations are not important because '[elles] ne constituent que
la conclusion de la priere annoncee en y 54 par dixiTo' ('they just
constitute the conclusion of the prayer introduced at 3. 54 by
tVXETo'.10 This seems a remarkably idiosyncratic rejection of
inconvenient evidence. Furthermore, it is an example of a prayer
being introduced by ivxoµa1 and summarized by ap&oµni. Now
Corlu, as we saw above, sought to minimize the importance of
€UXO(J,dlin prayers introduced by apaoµa, by saying that it is the
first verb that counts. He would therefore say that iiixof4ttt is
precisely the right verb to use here because of the sacrifice. But
does this mean that 71pa.To has to be classified as another formulaic
throwaway? The poet could easily have written ws-1.4,ar'€VXO/J,€V'f/
7 Corlu, 253. He says that we can discount the libations mentioned at Il. 9.
a
171 ff. because 'la priere est addressee en I 172 Zeus seul, alors que les libations
sont destinees a tous les dieux' ('the prayer at 9. 172 is addressed to Zeus alone
whereas the libations are meant for all the gods'). There are no indicatiom of this
in the text at line 177. He also thinks the libations at 23. 196 need not be taken
seriously because they are not included in the report of Achilles' actions by Iris at
line 209. A little further on in the chapter, we shall see that there are problems with
tr;ing to discount the libations at Od. 3. 63.
9
ll. i. 35, 43, 5. 114, 121, 6. 304, 311, IO, 277, 283, 295.
In addition to believing that it is used in prayers conceming other people, he
also thinks it is associated with requests for immediate divine aid and prayers
which remind the god of his previous aid. There is the appeal for others' harm at
JI. 1. JS ff., 5. lt4 ff. There is a request for divine inten'ention at II. 10. 277, 283 and
1 0. i77, 283. °
1
Corlu, 2,53,
74 Curses and Justice
if he had wished. He would thereby have created a prayer intro-
duced by and summarized by EVXO/Mn 11
The path is fraught with difficulty. We find two different verbs in
Homer. It would certainly seem odd for a language to possess a pair
of perfect synonyms for exactly the same thing. Most apparent
synonyms are due to one of two things. It might be that one of
the words is derived from a different linguistic substratum from the
other, e.g. English 'face' is drawn from Latinfacies whereas English
'visage' is a later borrowing from French. However, in the Greek
case there is no reason to believe that either 6.paoµ.ator ruxof-l'U is a
foreign word. Alternatively, the words started out with different
meanings but coalesced over time. In Modern English, theatrical
conjurors are often called 'magicians', despite the fact that the word
'magician' began life being used to describe people who supposedly
procured physical effects by occult means. I suspect that something
like this happened with ruxoµ.a1and apaaµ.a1.Already in Homer, the
overlap is so considerable that no plausible rationale can be put
forward for the observed distribution. I suspect that, at a very early
period, some distinction did exist but had been completely lost
sight of by Homer's day. This is why the prayer of Theano (Ji. 6.
304) can be introduced with the words wxaµ,£1!1/o'77pa,To--which
appears to mean nothing more than 'so praying she prayed'. Such
synonymous pleonasm is not uncommon in Homer. For example, if
there ever was a difference between a µavri!; and a (IE01rp61raf,
it is not
apparent from Homer's text. 12
\Vhatever the state of affairs in Homer, the verb &paaµ.aiis
usually believed to have evolved in meaning after Homer's time
so that by the fifth century it almost universally meant •I curse',
Corlu believes this, and says that whenever apaaµ.at is used in
fifth-century literature in the more neutral sense of 'I pray', it is a
throwback to Homeric usage. Therefore all we have to do is
explain how apaoµ,a1rather than ruxoµa.i came to have the specia-
lized meaning '.I curse'. 13 One might conjecture, for example,
11
As he did at JI. 1. 450,457, 15,371, Jn, 16. 231,253 and Sil, 527.
12
Synechdoche, the figtm: of speech whereby a part of a thing is used to denote
its whole, is also responsible for generating synonyms. alxµ~ is the tip of a spear,
66p11its shaft, and lyxas the whole spear. In practice, however, these differences are
fr~uently overlooked and the words are used interchangeably.
1
Corlu, 250. An etymological argument that appears attractive at first sight m
that lip& with an initial [ii] meaning 'prayer' acquired the negative connotation
because confused with ap&with an initial (ii] meaning 'misfortune'. This is refuted
in detail by Corlu, 285 ff.
Curses and Justice 75
that apaoµ.ai, tending as it does to refer to others, would be an
obvious candidate for the verb of cursing. 14
However, this view of apao~ai evolving to mean 'curse' has
recently been questioned by Aubriot. On the basis of an exam-
ination of all occurrences of apaoµ.a, in archaic and classical lit-
erature, she finds that there are many occurrences of apaoµ,a1not
meaning 'I curse'. 15 She believes it is unwise simply to attribute
these to the influence of Homer. 16 She prefers a synchronic view,
pointing out that whereas eiixoµ.a, can be used to describe rela-
tions between men and men, gods and gods, or men and gods,
apaoµ,a, is used exclusively for prayers made by men to gods. She
goes on to suggest that d.paoµ,a,is the tiox prapria to describe a
prayer where the petitioner (a) is in a sanctuary; or (b) is perform-
ing a cultic act such as sacrifice; or (c) wants to procure the
immediate intervention and help of the god; or (d) wishes to
unleash the power of the divinity when that power is conceived
of as an impersonal force. This last category would explain why
the word is suitable for curses.
I am uneasy about this for two reasons. First, Corlu has already
shown that there are many cultic actions whose accompanying
prayers are described as Euxal. Chryses' cultic prayer at II. I.
45off. is twice described by the verb Evxoµa1. As for d.paoµ,a,being
used when the petitioner wishes to secure immediate aid, we find
Odysseus in the foot-race calling to Athene to help him in a
prayer-act described as EVXETo(Il. 23. 769). Diomede, wounded
and in need of Apollo's help, makes a similar prayer at Il. 5. n4-
. 1s
21, an d yet t h 1s . d escn 'b e d b ot h as an apa ' ' 17
' ' an d as a ""XTJ·
Secondly, it looks as though the verb &.paaµ.a, can be used
absolutely to mean 'I curse' in the fifth century. At Eur. Ale.
714, in a bitter exchange, Admetus says to Pheres that he hopes
Pheres will live longer than Zeus. This is not meant as a kindly
blessing. Pheres replies d.plj,)'OVEVCTtv auOEVEKOIKOV TTa8wv;This can
scarcely mean, 'Do you pray to your parents when you have
14
1t is possible, as Penelope does at Od. 18. 202, and as several people do in
tragedy, to pray for one's own death. This, of course, is the result of desperation
and is hardly the same thing as wishing ruin upon oneself if perjured.
15 For a conspectus of ail uses of &~oµ,o.1in Greek, see Aubriot 53,ff.
10
Ibid. H7-
17 Mme Aubriot discusses the prayer of Diomede (p. 307) but concludes that it
is an «p&, even though Homer summarizes it by saying w, l<J,a:r'
u',x6µ,vo,.
 Curses and Justice
suffered no wrong?'; it must mean, 'Do you curse your parents
when you have suffered no wrong?'. A similar absolute use is
found at Soph. OT I29I f. Now, it is not disputed that apaoµat
often seems to mean nothing more than 'I pray' in fifth-century
sources. For example, we find it with an infinitival complement
at Soph. Aj. 508ff., 'q aE 770,\,\a.ll'.tS9rnis apa1"at {wV'Ta 7rp0S Boµ.ovs
µ.oAeiv('She often prays to the gods that you will come home
alive'). Again, at Aesch. Cho. 145f., Electra distinguishes between
a 1<aA71 apaand a Ka1<71 apa(i.e. a prayer and a curse). But there are
places where no such qualification is required and <lpasimply
means 'curse', e.g. Soph. OT 295. Furthermore, the adjective
<lpafos, not found in Homer, seems universally associated with
cursing in later texts. It means either 'accursed' or 'bringing a
curse'. 18 In view of the fact that the verb, noun, and adjective can
be used without any qualification in the negative, cursing, sense,
I am very much inclined to conclude that there was indeed an
evolution in the meaning of the verb after Homer.
If such an evolution took place, it is reasonable to assume that
it reflected some sort of change in attitude. Whereas for Homeric
Greeks, to curse was probably just to pray for other people's
harm, using either evxoµ,a1or apaoµ,at.,for later Greeks the activity
was distinct enough for ap&.oµa, to develop a more specialized
meaning. However, what we really need to ask is whether this
represents anything more than a lexical nicety. It may mean no
more than that it seemed a good idea to use different words for
good and bad prayers. Were there any deeper differences on the
cultic level?
In Homer's Iliad, when Theano and the women of Troy pray
to Athene for the death of Diomede, they offer her a gorgeous
robe (ll. 6. 304ff.). When Chryses calls up Apollo's plague, he
refers to his previous sacrifices (It. 1. 37ff.). The curse on any
who might break the truce is made in a sacrificial context (Il. 3.
275 ff.). 19 There are, however, also some allusions to curses with-
18 LSJ say that at Soph. Phil. 1182 it means 'prayed to'. This is by no means
certain. Jebb takes it to mean 'who hears men's cunes'.
19
For oaths ending in curses, cf. Plut. Quat'st. Rom. 275d: 11/i.sop,cos•l. 1<11:rftpnv
nAro,-q."7Shnop1<{as ('Every oath ends with a curse on perjury'). For an example,
see Aeschines (3. 110). However, the oath-curse and its sacrifice may be a different
kind of activity from the simple curse on its own. See Burkert, 250-4, and E.
Ziebarth, 'Eid', RE v/l. 1076-&3, and id., 'Der Fluch im griechischen Recht',
Hermes, 30 (1895), 57ff.
Curses and Justice 77
out sacrifice in Homer, e.g. Althaea cursing her son Meleager at
II. 9. 566f. We have to consider whether it makes sense to have a
picture of a world in which some people can curse without offer-
ing anything at all whereas others need to make or allude to some
kind of offering.
Curses without any explicit mention of sacrifice also appear in
later sources. Each year, during the sacred ploughing on the
Rarian plain, the Bouzygean curses were uttered. 20 These
involved imprecations against any who denied to their fellow
men the basic necessities of life (fire, food, water, showing the
way to the lost, etc.). What is noticeable is that there is no
mention of sacrifice. Whether it follows that there actually was
no sacrifice is a different matter. It is hard to imagine that the
sacred ploughing was not accompanied by some sort of ritual
activity; but we cannot be certain that there was a sacrifice nor,
if there was, that it was specifically intended as a payment to the
gods for enforcing the curses.
Perhaps the most spectacular public curses that we have is an
21
inscription from Teos, dated to 470 BC (ML 30). It is in two
pieces. Part A invokes dire penalties against people concocting
rp&,pµa1<a ('poisons' or 'potions') and people who prevent the
import of corn, or re-export it once it has been imported. The
first half of part B is very corrupt. Later on, though, there are
imprecations against any office-holders (1"ip,oxfoV7'e,;)
who do not
pronounce these curses at the Anthesteria and the Herakleia and
the Dia. There is also a curse against anyone who attempts to
efface the inscription. After the description of each offence, we
have the same formula of imprecation: a1r&t\,\va8a,Kai a1l-rbvKai
yb,o,; 1"oK(VO ('Let him be destroyed, himself and his family').
Again, we are dealing with curses which take place within a cultic
context, namely the festivals of the Anthesteria, Herakleia, and
Dia. Again, however, we cannot tell whether the sacrifices which
will doubtless have been offered on those occasions were meant to
reinforce the curses.
When Alcibiades allegedly profaned the mysteries, the priests
20
See Paroemiogmphi Gmeci (ed. Leutsch-Schneidewin), i. 388; Diphilus apud
Ath. 6. 238f (fr. 62 PCG); Plut. Mor. 144b (Pmec. conj. ~); Hesychius, s.v.
Bov{vr11r; Etymologium Magnum s.v, Bov,Vjlla, p. 206, lines 47ff.
21
See also Y.: Lambrinudakis and M. Worrle, 'Ein hellenisrisches Reforrnge-
setz ilber das offentliche Urkundenwesen von Paros', Chiron 13 (1983), 285.
 Curses and Justice
and priestesses stood facing west and cursed the offenders an
shook their purple robes, according to the ancient custom. 22 On
priestess refused, saying that she was a priestess of prayers an
not of curses. 23 Once more, there is no mention of any kind
sacrificial ceremony. 24 It is unfortunate that we cannot draw
firm conclusions from the silence of our scanty sources regardi
whether or not these curses were accompanied by specificall
dedicated sacrifices intended to ensure their efficacy.
In tragedy, we find Aegisthus making an animal sacrifice a
praying that he and Clytemnestra should fare well and that
enemies should fare ill (Eur. El. 805ff.). In Aristophanes' Thes
mophoriazusae, we find the women holding an assembly (Thesm
295ff.). It looks as though it is meant to be based on what reall
happened at the assembly (and our male playwright can presum
ably be trusted to have known what the procedure actually was)
The preliminary prayers bring down blessings upon the wome
and curses upon all those who seek to subvert the women's poli
(lines 33.zff., but especially 349-51). We know from the orato
that such curses against civic mischief-makers were indeed part
the ritual that preceded a meeting of the Athenian assembly. 2
What we do not have is any mention of a sacrifice. Might this be
for dramatic reasons? Athenian comedy, like tragedy, did not
portray bloodshed, even make-believe, on stage. We know that
it was customary to have sacrifices before meetings of the assem-
bly. 26 However, these are said to be of a purificatory kind. So
simply do not know how far it would be licit to assume tha
blessing-cum-curse prayers of the kind Aristophanes mentions.
were accompanied by sacrifices.
However, we have seen in the preceding chapters that Greek
prayer was intimately bound up with the giving of gifts to the
22
[Lysias], 6, SL
23
Plut. Ale. :.u. 4. Christiane Sourvinou-lnwood, 'The Priestess in the Text',
Gf:1R 35 (1988), 29ff., has with good reason called into question the historicitv of,
this account. She thinks that it does not make sense for a priestess to speak in this
way since blessing and cursing were in equal measure part of the job of a priest or.
priestess. It is at least clear that Plutarch thought that there was a strong difference
between (?!-,.a{and l,.pa{.
24
R. Vallois, "APAI'', BCH 38 {1914}, 267, says that curses were sometimes,
associated with sacrifices, and quotes Pl. Leg. 741c. I do not see how this passage;
can help to settle the question.
25
Dern. l3, <n; Din. i. 16; Isoc. 4. 157; d. Plut. Arid. m. 6.
26
Aeschin. 1. 23, :z. 158.
Curses and Justice 79
gods. It either accompanied it, looked back to it, or looked for-
ward to it. If a prayer, even if not accompanied at the time it is
spoken by a sacrifice or offering, none the less depends on a
reserve of xap,s created by previous sacrifices and offerings,
then it is possible that the Athenian assembly also felt it was
drawing on its collective stocks of xapis with the gods. 27 This is
particularly apparent if one remembers the women in the Thes-
mophoriazusae (349-51) who prayed in the same breath for good
things for themselves and bad things for the enemies of the state.
Demosthenes, in the De Corona (18. 141), calls upon al] the gods
and goddesses who care for the city of Athens and prays that if he
is telling the truth, they might give him £trrvxlav Kat uwrqptav
whereas if he is lying, they must deprive him of all that is good. 28
Such a Janus-faced sanction makes it very clear that praying and
cursing are, in the civic context, just two sides of the same coin.
They do not appear to be fundamentally different kinds of reli-
gious activity.
So far, we have been looking at curses which depend, explicitly
or implicitly, on x&.piswith the Olympian gods. There is, how-
ever, an interesting class of curses where one of the guarantors of
the curse is the Earth. Although the Earth is perfectly able to be
seen as a god in Greek thought, her role in curses is rather
special. 29 At the great oath-curse-sacrifice in Iliad 3. 276 ff., Aga-
memnon speaks as follows:
Z£v 71'0.TEp,
7l;-'18,n,iulltwv, KV/lt(JT£µ.tr1<rr£,
'Ht>.u,s9'3s 1Tavr'l,fmpifs Ko.i 7ravr' l1raK06e1s,
KW 1TOTo.µ.o/ or
Kai yaia, Ko.i V1T£V£p8£ Kaµ.&vro.s
&116pdmov;.-lvva8ov, o .-{,K' l1rfopKov l.µ.orurfl••.
27
There were clearly some cases where a sacrifice will not have been feasible
e.g. at the point of death, and we know from several sources that the curses of th;
dying were probably seen as peculiarly potent and dramatic (e.g. Soph. Aj. 835£.;
OC. 1375 ff.). L. Watson, Arae: The Curse Poetry of Antiquity (Leeds, 1991), 5--'i,
has a particularly good discussion of all this. His n, 12;1. refers to a collection of
such instances by W. Speyer, 'Fluch', RAC vii (1969), u94-5. He instructively
compares Verg. A.e,i. 4. 621, 'haec precor, hanc vocem extremam cum sanguine
fundo' ('This is my prayer. I pour out this last speech with my blood'),
18
Other examples in the orators include: Dem. 54. 41, [Dern.] 59. 10. See also
SIG 3 12t9. t9ff., a 3rd~cent. BC inscription from Gambreion in Mysia wishing
blessings upon those who obey a particular law and curses upon those who do not.
2
• See Kleine Pauly, ii. 658.
80 Curses and Justice
Father Zeus, who rule from Ida, most glorious and most great, and Sun,
who see and hear a11,and rivers and Earth, and you two who beneath the
earth punish the dead if a man has sworn a false oath ... 30
We saw above how it was at the time of the sacred ploughing that
the Bouzygian curses were pronounced. The connection between
agriculture and law and order was very close in ancient Greece. 31
If one pronounces curses against malefactors during a ceremony
which symbolically calls to mind the unity of the nascent polis and
its dependence on agriculture, it is bound to occur to the partici-
pants that the behaviour of individual members of the community
is equally important to its overall prosperity. The survival of the
community is ritually shown to depend on the earth. 32
The curses we have looked at so far were intended to uphold the
just order of the cosmos. We shall now tum our attention to another,
somewhat paradoxical function of curses, namely the averting of
misfortune. Theophrastus tells us that it was customary to utter
curses when sowing cumin in order to make the crop particularly
abundant. 33 Plutarch knows a similar story about cumin. 34 Pliny
records that basil and cumin are meant to do well if you curse while
sowing and pray that it will not come up. 35 Theophrastus tells us
that one is meant to face west when cutting mandrake. 36 When the
30
We are not just dealing with Earth her-$elf. Nicholas Richardson thinks that
Hades and Persephone must be the powers referred to here by Agamemnon WI
punishing deceased perjurors beneath the earth. They also, in association with the
Erinyes, hear the curses of parents at Il. 9. 453 ff. and 56Sff. Clearly these under-
world, earth-powers are also connected with justice. See Richardson, 272.
31
Commandments about basic moi-ality have come down under the name of
Triptolemus. It appears that, from early times, there were thought to be three laws
of Triptolemu;;--;,onis ,-,µa,, 9£o~ i<a.p=irl.yill .. l', C,f,a.
µ,~ awEl1fJa,
('honour parents,
glorify the gods with the fruits of the earth, do not harm animals, schol. ad Dern.
f 53). Triptolemus, of course, was the son of Celeus, king of Eleusis, and he wllllcured
!n his youth of a serious illness by Demeter. He instituted the Eleusinian festival in
Eleusis and was said to have introduced law to the Athenians. His name may well
mean 'thrice plougher' and there is clearly an association between agriculture and law
and order, See Porph. Abst. 4. 22; Richardson, 196,301; J.E. Harrison, Prolegomena to
the St11dy of Greek Religim, {Cambridge, r<)22), r42-5, esp. 145.
32
See also Solon, fr. 36. 3 ff. {West); Xen. Ou. S, u: [Arist.J Oec:.!. 2 (t343"28);
as a joke Men. Georg. 35ff. and Xen. Cyr. 8. J. 38.
33 Hist. pl. 7. 3. J, 9. 8. 8. 14 Mor. 700£ == Qunest, cmru 7. 2. 2.
35
NH ,9, uo.
36
Hist. pl. 9. 8. B. One remembers that this is the orientation adopted by the
priest$ and priestesses who cursed Alcibiades. According to schol. Soph. OC 477 and
Orph. Lith. 210, priests faced east when performing purifications, so this could be a
symbolic reversal of the idea. It is difficult to know whether this connection is
relevant here. Theophrastus does not prescribe prayer but he does suggest saying
as many things as possible about sex and compares this to the uttering of fJ>.,,,aqyqp.Io.
appropriate when sowing cumin.
Curses and Justice 81
second piece is cut, one is meant to dance around the plant and say as
many things as possible about sex (1r,;ptat/,po8u,lwv).
What are we to make of all this evidence? 37 One supposes that
the feeling was that cursing when sowing cumin was a kind of
reverse logic. What one really hopes is that the crop will be
prolific. Therefore it might be possible, by pre-emptive action,
to anticipate and forestall the operation of the physical law that
says that the probability of a thing turning out well is inversely
proportional to one's desire for it to do so. There is a large body
of comparative evidence from many different cultures for people
believing that curses can have beneficial effects. 38 It is worth
noticing, though, that Theophrastus presents all this information
as an oddity. Cursing was not the normal way to secure agricultural
success. What made cumin so special? Why do we not have instruc-
tions to curse the staple crops like corn? I doubt we can ever get to
the bottom of this. Frazer conjectured that the curses were sup-
posed to strengthen the bitter taste of these medicinal herbs and
thus increase their therapeutic potency. 39 This guess seems as good
as any other. The curses directed at the mandrake are different.
There is no wish to make the plant grow. Rather, they are intended
to protect the cutter from some misfortune which will otherwise
follow automatically when the mandrake is cut. This plant has an
immemorial history of superstition relating to it. 40
There is another respect in which anxiety seems to surface in
the context of cutting plants. Theophrastus pours scorn on the
idea that when cutting the 'panacea of Asclepius' one ought to
put in the ground in its place an offering made of all kinds of fruit
and a cake. 41 He has no more patience either for the idea that,
when cutting gladwyn iris, one ought to put in its place to pay for
37
Such plant lore hu a history stretching back long before Theophrastus. It
may even he possible to see the phenomenon as dating back to the period of the
HD,m,ru; Hymn to Demeter; the goddess says (line 229), ol'&.yap ;....,.froµov,.fy,.
i),\.,,-6,..,,o('For I know a chann far stronger than the woodcutter'). There
<f,Jp,cpo>'
is an explicit link between being a woodcutter and having occult knowledge of the
special properties of plants. See Richardson, 230.
38
Apparently, Estonian fishermen believe that their haul will be good if they
are cursed before they set out. They therefore play practical jokes on one another
in order to elicit a verbal CU.-$C. See E. Crawley, Oath, Curse and Blessing (London,
1934-7), 29-33. Interestingly enough, the much-derided J. G. Frazer, in his Golden
Bough (Macmillan, London, repr. 1990), i. 279ff., has collected a lot of compara-
39
tive evidence for this. Golden Bough, i. 281.
~ There is a bibliography on this in Frazer, Golden Bough, xi. 316 n. 8.
41
Hist. pl. 9. 8. 7.
82 Curses and Justice
it (µ.tull&v) some cakes of meal and spring-sown wheat, and that one·
should cut it with a two-edged sword, first making a circle around
it three times, and that the piece first cut up must be held in the air
while the rest is being cut up. The deposition of little cakes as a
fuu8o,; is suggestive. It is as though one must make amends for'
what one has taken away. The intention is not, of course, to eat the
cakes in case of crop failure, but rather that the cakes should
function as some kind of substitute for the fruit of the soil that
one has taken away until one gets round to sowing again. 42
We began the chapter by looking at public curses designed to.
punish the unjust. We shaU end it with an examination of curses:
made secretly to incapacitate those who had not necessarily done'.
any wrong at all. Such curses are known as defixiones. 43 They are,
to paraphrase the remarks of an expert student, Christopher
Faraone, texts which, in the classical period, are usually inscribed
on small sheets of lead, are next folded up, pierced with a bronze
or iron nail, and then either buried with the corpse of one of the
untimely dead (awpoi) or placed in chthonic sanctuaries. 44 In later
42
Such a feeling may underlie the curses involved in a curious rite which took
place at Lind us. Our information is very exiguous; see Apollodormi: (Bibi. 2. 5. u,
:.md cent. BC); Conon (FGH. z6 F 1, XI, 1st cent. BC-rst cent. AD}; Phifostratus
(Imag. 2. 24, 3rd cent. AD); Lactantius (Din Inst. 1. 21, 31....,, 4th cent. Ao): Callim •.
(Aet. frs. 22-3 Pf.). See also J.-L. Durand, Sacrifice et labour en Grece ancienm
(Paris, g186), 149ff. On anxiety about killing animals, see Burkert, HN; A. Heu-·
beck, S. West, and J.B. Hainsworth (eds.), A Commen.tary 011 Homer's Odyssey, i:
Books 1-8 (Oxford, 1988), 188f. on ,;,,.ofJniw, and M. L. West on Hes. Th. 54r.
43
Deftxio is, of course, a Latin word for the Greek practice known as 1<<lr<W•<11r.
For convenience I shall use the Latin word. There are three corpora currently in ,
use. The first to appear was that of R. Wunsch, Dejixfonum Tabellae Atticae, in IG
iii, pt. J (Berlin, 1897). It will be abbreviated hereafter to DTA. Shortly after thfa.
appeared A. Audollent's Defixianum Tabellae {Paris, 1903), abbreviated to DT.
Finally there is an interim publication by D. R. Jordan, who is currently working
on a full corpus of defixiones. He has published a list called 'A Survey of Greek ·
Defixiona Not Included in the Special Corpora', GRBS 26 (1985), 15r-g7, abbre-
viated to 'SGD'.
44
Faraone (p. 4) points out that some defi:xiones seem to be laid out as though
they were letters. Some actually state explicitly that they are letters to the under-
world deities (DTA 102, 103). Faraone does not think that this is the origin of the ;
dejixio. The untimely dead v,ieu3alµ,wvis not always just a postman, as Faraone
realizes (p. 4}. Sometimes it is the ~E1<lmlllJ'WI' himself who is asked to do the
curser's dirty work (DT 234, 235, 237, 238). Faraone thus contradicts his later
remarks on p. 9 where he says that the deposition of deji:dona in graves is not born
from a desire to make the victim cold like the corpse itself, but from a rational
perception that graves are letter-boxes to Hades. This seems unlikely. The <'f.wpo1
are surely deliberately chosen because their souls are not at rest and they can be
assumed to have the power 10 wander abroad and do harm to men. For the phrase
,,.,..ioa.,µov
a.<»(>£,see BCH (1883), 299.
Curses and Justice 83
periods, they are more often placed in underground bodies of
water (e.g. wells, baths, fountains). Their purpose is, according to
Jordan, 'to influence, by supernatural means, the actions or the
45
welfare of persons or animals against their will' . They are, at
least in the classical period, designed to incapacitate the victim
rather than to kill him. 46 The earliest examples come from Sicily,
Qlbia, and Attica and date from the fifth century BC. By the
second century AD they are found all over the Graeco-Roman
47
world.
Faraone draws up a rough classification of the sorts of formulae
that can occur on defixiones. One can have (1) a direct binding
formula, icara86i rav 8.::,va ('I tie down N'); (2) a prayer formula,
Kanx.:: rav 8eiva ('restrain N'); (3) a wish formula, b 8.::ivache,\17,;
ei71
('May N fail'); or (4) a similia similibus formula, e.g. '.As lead is
cold and lifeless, so may N become cold and lifeless'. The only
defixiones dated by their editors to the fifth century are merely
lists of names (DTA 26; DT 45, 80): the first two were found in
Attica; DT 80 comes from Styra in Euboea). The simple listing of
names gradually gives way to the use of other, more developed,
formulae. Faraone thinks that there may be reason to believe that
the prayer formula was used in the fifth century BC, but this is
based on limited evidence from Sicily. 48 There are secure Attic
attestations from the fourth century (DT 49, 68, etc. ). So it does
not take long for the thing to evolve from simply scratching
45
'SGDt, p. 151~
4
'' Faraone, r. Later texts are more extreme: DT 187 (4th cent. AD) has 3',aa.-,,
l.iKr.Hnlo-aT~. KU'TllfJT[nViaTE, (11)'V[£m]aaTE. 0Ala«T£Jt
tV1TOOtaaT€,
KtlTa&rjaaTE~ A-rro,r7/
...
van, auv1<Maa.nEux•p•ov,-,Iv ~v•wxov""-' o,\,:w,,-oil, ,mr[ou,;]('Bind, tie down, fetter,
strike with a javelin, overturn, finish off, destroy, kill, crush Eucherius the char-
ioteer and all the horses'). Wishes like combumtur ('may he be bumed up', DT 270,
ind cent. AD) and l,.,rolloourro('may they perish', DT 92, 3rd cent, BC) testify to the
real hatred these people felt for each other.
47
It is not always easy to get a clear idea of the date of these tablets. Audollent
{DT, p. 556) gives a breakdown by date. Some dispute his dating, and in any case
there are quite a few of uncertain date. From Audollent's table, I count that he has
the following numbers of dejix.ionesfor the various centuries: 5th cent. BC, 2; 4th
cent. Bc. 12: 3rd cent. Be, 23: 2nd cent. Be, 21; 1st cent. BC, 7; date uncertain, prob.
Be, 28; 1st cent. AO, 65; .md cent. AD, 37; 3rd cent. AD, 38; 4th cent. AO, 48; date
uncertain, prob. AO, 11; date wholly unclear, 3. We can see straight away that there
are verv few tablets in Audollent from the classical period. There are enough from
the 4th. and 3rd cents. ec to allow for discussion, but the real bulk is in the fiTlltfew
cents. AD. In the corpus of Wunsch, most of the tablets are from the 3rd cent. BC.
No . .i6 may be from the 5th cent. BC. Wunsch includes none dating from this era.
48
Jordan's corpus contains material of varying date. Faraone, 6.
 Curses and Justice
names onto lead to adding formu]ae. It is aJso in a fourth-century
Attic inscription that we find an early example of a direct address
to a god. DT so opens with an invocation of 'Epp:ij Kchoxe
('Hermes the restrainer'). In DT 68, another fourth-century Attic
example, we get an early instance of an alternative way of invol-
ving the god. Instead of using the vocative, we have ,cam8w 1T[p Jos
-rov 'Epµ.71v-rov Ktt-rox[ov]('I tie him down to Hermes the restrai'"
ner'). We are not, however, dealing with a complete change in
practice. Not everybody was using the formula ,ca-ra8w.DT 46 is a
fourth-century Attic example which simply lists names in the:
nominative. The listing of names alone disappears in the first
century AD.
The fact that defixiones evolved from simple lists to formulaic
utterances has led scholars to wonder whether there was an even
more primitive stage, where perhaps one did not write the names
on lead but merely recited the names while performing some kind
of ritual distortion on a piece of lead. There certainly is evidence
from a later period for tablets being pierced without being
inscribed. A cache of about forty blank tablets, rolled up and
pierced with nails, was found in Aquitania, probably on the site
of a village called Rauranum. 49 This is a rather out-of-the-way
spot. Audollent dates them as 'incertum AD'. They could very
well be Roman. Perhaps this provincial outpost revived an •
ancient practice long after it had evolved into something else in
Greece. The idea of word and act being originally separate may
be corroborated by recent work on the history of amulets. It looks
as though the inscribed amulets for use against illness that have
survived from the ancient world were a comparatively late devel-
opment and that, in the earliest days, the words were simply
spoken over the uninscribed artefact. 50 The progression to writ-
ing might have been motivated by the belief that this somehow
made the process more definite and therefore more emphatic,
more likely to be effective.
It is not, after all, obvious why defixiones were written down.
Most Greek prayers were purely vocal affairs and, if they are
written down at all, it is in order to preserve them. With the
49
DT 109,
50
R. Kotansky, 'Incantations and Prayers on Inscribed Greek Amulets',
Faraone, rnS.
Curses and Justice
defixio, though, the writing down is somehow essential to the
nature of the whole act. It has been suggested that defixiones
were originally letters to the deities of the underworld. This is
certainly a very plausible idea. Lead was a writing material in the
ancient world and some defixiones do actually describe themselves
as letters (DTA 102 and JOJ). There is, of course, no reason why
these two explanations need to be mutually exclusive. Even if
they were historicaJly the result of a fusion between two origin-
0
ally different practices, one can imagine that some individuaJs
might have thought that what they were actually doing was
writing letters to the gods. Furthermore, there is a very interest-
ing parallel with the institution of ostracism. That institution
allowed the Athenian state periodically to expel those citizens
who were felt to have become so powerful that they were a danger
to the democracy. The procedure was that the name of the person
whom each citizen wished to ostracize should be written on a
piece of broken earthenware pottery and handed in for counting.
The person with the most votes against him would have to go
into exile. One can see immediately that this procedure in some
respects looks very similar to defixio; one writes down a man's
name and he suffers misfortune. However, we ought not to
obscure the huge differences. Ostracism was public and sanc-
tioned by the state and not designed to involve gods or produce
physical or mental disability in the victim.
It is, however, quite striking how the language of curses in the
defixiones tends to avoid direct addresses to gods. The same is also
true of curses in tragedy, aJthough in Homer direct addresses are
somewhat commoner. 51 The defixiones certainly do sometimes
use imperatives, but there are many other, commoner, formulae. 52
51
Direct curses in Homer: 1/. 1. 37ff., 3. .298ff. (god's name in vocative plus
optative of the wish); Il. 3. poff., 6. 305 ff. (god's name in vocative plus impera-
tive}, Indirect curses in Homer: II. 7. 99 (optatives alone);// . .2l, 4r (optative with
gods in dative); Od. 17. .251, 494, 597 (3rd pers. optative plu:1 god's name in
n11minative). Curses in tragedy: Aesch. Sept. 690£. (3rd pers. imperative with
Phoebus in dative); Soph. OT 246 (Ka.·mlxoµ,i, but no gods mentioned); OT 269
(~oxo,m, with gods mentioned); OT 644 (iust optatives); OC 4.21 (3rd pers. opta-
tive): OC 868 (Helios and optative); OC 1375 (ist pers. verb); OC 1383 (Epp•);Phil.
1019 (,l.l.o,o); Eur. Ale. 713 (optative); Med. 1389 (Erinys and optative); Hipp. 683 f.
(7.eus and optative-very rare mention of Zeus but Phaedra is related); Hel. 1405
(8,o( and optative); Phoen. 151 ff. (Artemis and optative); Or. 130 (8Eoi and opta-
in tive). Exceptional direct address using an imperative at Eur. HiPf· il87ff. (invoca•
tion of Poseidon). > DTA, pp. 48-9.
 86 Curses and justice
Third person optatives are extremely common. Most interesting,
of course, is the remarkable 1<amow formula. The sadistic defigens
gives vent to his spite and presumably gets some satisfaction from
the fact that he himself is taking positive action. 53 The word is
presumably thought to be effective as soon as it is uttered. Some-
body who says, •I am walking along the street' is simply reporting
something. The man who says, 'I curse you', however, is, at least
to his way of thinking, performing an action and reporting it at
the same time. The deity is expected to comply without a fuss.
Why should this be?
I think we can begin to see the answer if we bear in mind a
particularly striking characteristic of Greek defixiones, namely .
that they are pre-emptive strikes. 54 Faraone recognizes that
some defixiones come about in response to a perceived injustice,
but he sees these as belonging to a distinctly different group from
the majority. They are certainly very different in spirit and in the
way they are formulated, as we shall see. This fact comes as
something of a surprise to those of us who are familiar with the
Aquae SuUs defixiones which curse people who have stolen one's
clothes at the ba.ths. The sort of people who will nobble a neigh-
bour for no jus.t cause are scarcely going to be interested in x&.p,,,;.
Such people, lacking any socially acceptable pretext for harming
their neighbours, presumably felt a frisson of power if they used a
formula which made it seem as though they themselves had
unleashed some sort of supernatural destructive power. As we
saw above, not all literary curses were conceived of as automati-
caJly effective. The gods oversaw their use. The defixiones, on the
other hand, with their emphasis on the power of the word, are
something of a contrast.
Audollent gives a breakdown of curses by type (DT, pp. 471 ff.).
53
I use the masculine pronoun advisedly. A glance at Audollent's indices will
show that men write more dejixi<»1esthan women. This could, of course, be an
accident of survival. It is significant, though, that women are particularly promi-
nent in the Cnidus inscriptions (DT 1-13). Since these come into Venmel'a
category of prayers for justice (see H. Versnel, 'Beyond Cursing: The Appeal to
Ju~tice in Judicial Prayers', in Faraone, 6o-rn6), one might think that they are
evidence that women could not get remedies at law as easily aa men could. Other
explanatiollll are possible, though. Not all such inscriptions are written by women.
'SGD' 6o is by a man. Again, it is conceivable that the vicissitudes of time have "
distorted the evidence.
54
W. H. D. Rouse nearly a century ago drew attention to this aspect of Greek
defixim,es in his Greek Votive Offerings (Cambridge, 190z), 338.
Curses and justice
His categories are (a) judicial-against one's enemies in the
courtroom; (b) against thieves, calumniators, and scolds; (c) ama-
tory curses; (d') sporting curses against chariot-racers etc.; and (e)
curses of uncertain nature. Judicial curses are an interesting cate-
gory. Although they were once thought to be spiteful swipes by
the unsuccessful party in a lawsuit, it is now held that they were
written without exception at some point during the trial. 55 This
would certainly make sense of tablets like DTA 66:
KaTaow EMpaTov·
Ka/ OUOI aJ"61KOI K-
ai T,;,\,;aivo(v)-r[b]v115,wTo(v)Kat r/iv i/mx~v KaT-
a8w 18,(w)To(v), YAWTTavKa[I] ailTbv p.ET'E-
ilapiho(v) o{t1)V1rpb.-r7wa1 Kai 01.101 &.va-
(o)v61Kos/J,fiT'Eilapa-ro(u) Kai -ro(u)s-El,-
apaTo(v) Kai 71111 ,f,vxiJvKal yAwT-
Tav.
I tie down Euaratus. And all his associates in this suit and Telesinus son
of Idiotes, and I tie down the soul of ldiotes, his tongue and himself.
And with Euaratus, whoever works with him and whoever is on his side
with Euaratus, and the sons of Euaratus and their soul and tongue. 56
The purpose of binding their tongues is presumably so that they
cannot give evidence in court. DTA 65 expresses the wish that
various witnesses and jurors acppove; yevoivro ('may they lose their
wits'). In another article, Faraone has shown that sudden loss of
the ability to speak in court was sometimes put down to magical
interference by one's opponents. 57 In Aristophanes' Vespae, we
are presented with a mock .trial in which one dog accuses another
of stealing cheese. The defendant dog takes the stand and sud-
denly becomes dumb. This is all the more odd because the dog in
55
The history of the debate is set out by Faraone in his article 'Aeschylus' ilµ.i,os
b/aµ.ws (Eum. 300) and Attic Judicial Curse Tablets', :JHS ro5 (1985), t5off. In his
note 9, he says that Ziebarth held the opinion that judicial curses were all enacted
by the 'Neue Fluchtafeln', losing party. Wiinsch refuted this ('Neue Fluchtafeln',
RhM 55 (1900), 62-85). Faraone's notes 18-19 (art. cit.) are II very good survey of
the extant judicial curses, assigning dates and provenances. He notes that there are
twenty-five judicial inscriptions, found in Sicily and dating to the 5th cent. BC,
which came to light after Audollent had finished his corpus.
56
The text is full of corruption and poor grammar. I have given a translation
not of the tablet !IS it stands but of the tablet as emended by Wiinsch (DTA 66).
57
'An Accusation of Magic in Classical Athens (Ar. Wasps 946-4,ll}', TAPA I 19
(1989), 149-60.
88 Curses and Justice
question is usually very vociferous. Bdelycleon thinks he knows
the answer: the dog is ll1T01TA17Kros- ..• ras-yva.8ovs-('stricken in the
jaws', Vesp. 947), just as had happened to Thucydides, son of
Milesias. According to Cicero (Brutus 217), a similar thing hap-
pened in Rome to the elder Curio. He totaJly forgot what he was
talking about. 511
What is extraordinary is that those defixiones which do come
about in response to a crime, as ex-post-facto rather than pre-
emptive strikes, are almost all much later and of a totally different
religious character. They seek to explain to the deity in a reasoned
manner what the intended victim's crime was and why he ought
to be punished. They date, however, from the second or first
century BC and were found at Cnidus in Asia Minor. They have
recently been discussed at length by Versnel. 59 In the course of
his discussion, he also draws our attention to some extraordinary
Attic evidence from the fourth and third centuries BC. DTA rn2
(4th/3rd cent.) refers to ,11v /µ.<~> 001Ko<ii>uav ('the woman who
wrongs me'). DTA 98 (3rd cent.) reads ipD.17 I'iJ,{3o1[8uµ.01. &S1Kov-
' ' ' E' \' ' l.'
µ.a,os- yap V'ITO vptnrrofl~µov Kt:U...,a,.,.,.,wv.os- Karaow
_,1, • ~. avrovs-
' ' ('D ear
Earth, help me. For it is because I am wronged by Euryptolemus
and Xenophon that I am tying them down'). These are comple-
tely unlike the nasty pre-emptive strikes which characterize the
majority of defixione$. One could scarcely imagine a clearer exam-
ple of an appeal to justice as a way of justifying one's own
resorting to curses. We should not, therefore, get the idea that
the appeal to justice is a purely Asiatic phenomenon, although
58
Not all judicial inscriptions contain these fonnulae designed to bind tongues
and make people 1,.tf,pov£i; {'witless'). DT 62 is a 4th-cent. Attic tablet. It merely
mentions three names and the phl'3$e ,m/ ,-[o(ii)i; oJ.,,,S{.,o(.,)s('md those on his
side'). The men's names are Timoxenos of Athens, Hippillll of Athens, and
:46Evtuor. lt is odd that Am(enit)us' (?) name is in the accusative
:4µ;[17v,,-Jov
whereas the adjective describing him is in the nominative singular or accusative
plural. The confusion thus created over who is cursing whom iii: not the primary
issue. The problem is, how do we know that this is not an ex-post-facto strike? The
an!iwer is that we do not. Faraone would presumably say that these curses were
written during the trial, but do not go into the same amount of de1ail as the others.
The situation would be similar to descriptions of sacrifices in Homer. Just because
some elements are omitted in narrative does not mean that they did not take place.
Simlla:rly, Faraone would have to argue that because a lot of curses do mention the
binding of the tongue, then those that do not have any explicit mention of this
ma; still actually imply it. The evidence does not permit any certain resolution.
;; In Faraone, eh. 3.
Cur$e$ and Ju$tice
quantitatively it is far better represented in the epigraphic record
of that area than it is on the mainland. 60
On the whole, then, classical Greek defixiones involve scant
consideration of the rights and wrongs of the case in question.
With only a couple of exceptions, the observation of Rouse and
Faraone that most Greek defixiones are pre-emptive strikes hold
good. There is an intriguing double standard here. People in
Greek epic and drama curse because they think they have been
wronged and are justified in seeking retribution. In fact, Homer
and the dramatists do not refer to any kind of defixio, doubtless
because it is not very noble. 61 Civic curses are totally different, as
well. They seek to punish crimes which everybody agrees are bad
and which ought not to go undetected or unpunished. Further-
60
As Versnel notes (in Faraone, 93), all this could be used as evidence for the
idea that social structures affect theology. The idea would be that the Asiatic
Greeks talk to their gods in this more submissive way and seek to persuade
them to see that justice is done because this is the way they are accustomed to
dealing with their kings. Peninsular Greeks do not often talk in this way. Corro-
boration for Versnel's idea may be gained from a recent article by J. H. M.
Strubbe ('Cursed Be He That Moves My Bones', in Faraone, eh. 2). He shows
how the Greeks o{ Asia Minor tended to use curses (not of the defixio type) to
protect their graves far more than their mainland counterparts. He thinks this is
because of a different attitude to the afterlife. To the Asiatic Greeks, the grave was
a kind of house for the dead. They supposedly got this idea from their Anatolian
neighbours. This eschatologica) point is not the main thing. The significant detail
about these inscriptions is that they treat the gods with great care. They go to
some length to show that tomb robbers are sinners who should be punished. The
spirit is thus very different from that of, say, the Dirne Teiae which we examined
above (p. 77). If the mainland Greeks had had funerary curses to a greater extent,
one imagines that they would have been far more like the imprecations from Teos.
The automatic ayo; for sacrilege reinforces this idea.
61
It is most striking that Pindar does record something that, whilst not tech~
nically a defixia, is none the less an underhand swipe at an opponent, namely the
prayer of Pelops at Of. I. 71 ff., where he asks Poseidon to bind the chariot of
Oinomaus. D. E. Gerber, in Pindar's 0/y,npian One, A Commentary (Toronto,
19Nz), u4ff., points out the fonnulaic parallels between this prayer and the
existing deji::,;ionesagainst charioteers. It is entirely plausible that spoken curses
against charioteers were current in Pindar"s day, but I am not sure whether there
can have been in Pindar's day any sporting deji:icioneslike the ones in Audollent.
All the dejixiones of this kind that we possess are severnl centuries later in date.
The earliest defi:,:ionesof any kind, as we have seen, are not very fonnulaic at all.
Thev are little more than lists of names, with perh11ps a verb of binding or
dedi~ating to the infernal powers. It is, however, conceivable that people in
Pindar's day might have uttered sporting curses over uninscribed pieces of lead
which they then ritually distorted in order to produce a similar effect on the victim
by sympathetic magic 11ndit is the spoken part of such a prayer on which Pindar
models his own.
90 Curses and Justice
more, in defixiones only chthonic deities are invoked, whereas in.
drama they are not. 62 The Erinyes, Hades, Persephone, and
63
Hermes Chthonios are the deities most frequently invoked. ··
Now we saw that oath-curses also regularly involved an appeal
to u~derworld powers; this appeared to be because of a complex:
association of the Earth with justice. I suspect that, in the de~-
iones, these deities are not being called upon as guarantors of
justice. Where, after all is the justice in asking them to incapaci-.
tate somebody who has so far done you no tangible harm? Rather1 •
these powers were invoked because they were dark and uncanny. :
The mention of dark and uncanny powers leads us to ask what,
if anything, the study of Greek defixiones has to tell us about the
Greek view of magic. It is very clear from the voluminous litera-
ture on magic and witchcraft that we cannot draw up hard and ·•
fast distinctions between religion and magic. Part of the problem
is that the religion-magic debate has been so strongly coloured
for us in the West by the views of those clerics and anthropolo-
gists who hold that magic ought to have certain uniquely identi-
fying characteristics wherever we find it. None the less, I think.
we are justified in looking to see if there were any native Greek
categories more or less corresponding to our own. We cannot
define 'magic' in a vacuum-we can only talk of 'Greek magic'
or 'Roman magic'. I suppose that part of the problem is one of
nomenclature-instead of inventing a new word for a set of
practices in a foreign society, we often use the same word that
we use in our own. Evans-Pritchard's Witchcraft, Oracles and
Magic Among the Azande (Oxford, 1937) shows how different
these things can be in different cultures. The Azande in question
live in southern Sudan. Their witches do not wear pointed hats
or fly on broomsticks but they are still called witches by Western
authors, who prefer to use this shorthand form of reference to
stand for the whole complex spectrum of native words.
62 On the complex question of how and how far Olympian and chthonic deities
differed, see Burkert, 199ff., and S. Scullion, 'Olympian and Chthonic', Cl. Anti.
13 ( 1994), 75-119. In drama, one either has a vague mention ortkoi (e.g. Soph. OT
zog; Eur. Or. 130) or a specificaUy appropriate Olympian deity (Eur. Hipp. 61!3f.;
Pho,m. Iif ff.).
63 DT, pp. 461 ff. DT 7 a 12-13 read: ..•. , '" 4,.;, nµ,i•I • , • • aap,.\,-(?).
AudoUent thinks the writer first wrote £1<a,osand then corrected it to .::l«ls:.The
tablet is ,·ery fragmentary. If genuine, this mention of Zeus would be unique.
However, it would be in the genitive and so cannot represent an invocation.
Curses and Justice 91
In English, 'magic' has been used to mean many things. For
example, a widely held view is that one should distinguish magic
from religion on the grounds that the former is coercive whereas
the latter is supplicatory. One difficulty with such a view is
knowing precisely what counts as coercion. 64 A more serious fault
is that it is blindly universalist. It assumes that categories and
distinctions which exist in one culture are relevant in others. In
fact, we ought to concern ourselves only with what the Greeks
thought about their religion. What Christians, Jews, or Muslims
think is a totally separate issue. At its most basic, it seems to me
that 'magic' is usually used to denote forms of activity relating to
the supernatural which are somehow unacceptable. This unac-
ceptability may only be relative, however. A modern English city
curate would probably not use incantations or talismans to pro-
tect himself from illness or danger. He might call it magical-
believing either that such things were futile or, even worse, that
they involved recourse to occult (and therefore probably satanic)
powers. His beleaguered flock, however, lacking his faith or sta-
mina, might well turn to so-called 'alternative' remedies of this
kind if they are sorely enough pressed. So what is 'magical' is not
a fixed and immutable thing; rather, it depends on who draws up
the definitions. 65
However, the fact that the categories may not be entirely con-
gruent in different cultures does not mean that the Greeks did
64
I do not want to deny any link at all between coercion and magic but this is a
difficult subject to discuss if all we use is the evidence of the archaic and classical
periods. One has to go forward w the Hellenistic period and further to the epoch
of the magical papyri. It has quite rightly been pointed out that not all prayers in
l~e magi~a) p~pyri are _coerci~e., PGM V. 4!5 ff. _rea~s ti~ro. •Mvrjf"'1•
µ1,.1<'.ap, ~£A~-
cr,,/,(>OM'f""' µq'lDT£, ay µop,f,ij ,J,.p&s Tf ,f,dvq(I <A<lp<W
, £'1T<Tf1Aovavilpw1tq, oa,q,
('Hither, blessed one, son of Memory that works its complete will, appear propi-
tiously in your form and propitiously give instructions to a pious man'). So far
from coercion, it seems to betray a deep, respectful yearning on the part of the
magician for union with the god. But the magical papyri are not uniform. At PGM
Jv, 398 ff. we have ap,d{w a, ,ea,-/,,..,;;,po/J•poii 08, ,\opucpv/,ta
uuw f3a,f,p,VEµ.ovv
f"'y6...\011
uoµw •P ,J,o.{J,,m,.,
,1:1,,ur/np1<1paJu/Jov ('I conjure you by the great and terrible iaeo
baphrenemoun othi larikriphia etheai phirkalithon uomen er phaboeai')I This
seems to be a very different way of going about things. See Nock i. 190ff.
&, For magic as bad science, see G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reasan and Experience
(Cambridge, 1979), eh. I. For magic as bad religion, see Eur. Hipp. 1038; Bacch.
:.134;Pl. Leg. 909b, 932.eff.; Reip. 3c;,ih, See in general F. Graf, La Magie dans
l'antiq14ite greca-romaine (Paris, 1994), and id., 'Prayer in Magic and Religious
Ritual', in Faraone, 195.
92 Curses and Justice
not have a category of unacceptable religious practices. We have.
already seen that the high literary genres hardly ever depict
people resorting to defixio. In tragedy, when people curse, they •
always think they have justice on their side. This is why Pheres is
so horrified by Alcestis' curse and asks lip9-yovt:iia,11o~oo, cKOtKov
1ta8w11;('Do you curse your parents when you have suffered no
injustice?', Eur. Ale. 714). It is surely significant that, however
terrible their curses, they do not resort to dejixio. I concede that
there are good dramatic reasons why Theseus does not use defixio.
to curse Hippolytus or why Jason does not use it against Medea.
These people see their grievances as matters of cosmic impor-
tance and it is only fitting that we should see them on stage
casting verbal execrations in each other's faces rather than skulk-
ing off to graves to bury bits of lead. However, the fact remains
that even references to defixio are conspicuously scarce in the
high literature. I cannot but conclude that this is because defixio •
was thought somehow to be a low trick. 66
All of these texts, of course, come from a small elite. The less
powerful and less well-educated may have had less pronounced
feelings on the matter. 67 However, Harpocration (s.v. KaTaot:ofo-
8at) records that Dinarchus referred to his client as having been
68
'bound' by ,/,apµ.a1<0. It may be that Dinarchus was attempting
66
The only obvious exception, which in fact proves the role, is the vµ,vo~lifoµ,,o,;
of the Erinyes in Aeschylus' Eumenides. As a binding spell, it is closely related to
rkfi:do. The Erinyes, however, are consistently characterized before their conver-
sion as monstrous and dangerous. To show them using a technique related to
defixio must surely have been intended to make them seem even more terrible to
the audience.
7
• On the use of defi:rioner by the lower classes, see J. Gager, Curse Tablets and
Binding Spells from the Ancient World (Princeton, 1992), eh. 4. On their uses in
more exalted circles, see Audollent, DT 60. On that tablet, we find Demosthenes
and Lycurgus named. These are usually taken to be the famous 4th-cent. orators.
One assumes that the person commissioning the tablet moved in the same sort of
circles--although this cannot be absolutely proven. See also Gager (op. cit.), tt9,
145ff. See also J. Ober, Mass and Elite in Dentocratic Athens {Princeton, 1989), 149.
I disagree completely with Cager's view about defixiones and magic but he collects
some useful evidence in the main body of the book. The defigmte1 do not name
themselves or state their oceupation but one asumes that since the victims range
from politicians (DT 6o) through choral directors (DTA 34) and actors (DTA 4:5)
to people working in shops and taverns (DTA 87, rn9), then the people doing the
cursing came from the same background. One supposes that some curses will have
crossed class boundaries, that the occasional aristocrat might have put a curse on a
sh~keeper, but on the whole it seems that all classes were using defixiones.
,,..,..,a.,atu6w·;,,,.,.,roii .,,,,f,,,pµ.o.Kwuh, ,,.,; li~a;,,o.,, ,f,,,pp.o.Kot~•
.:1~iva.pxos
b- T'!I
Ka-ro.llv8,ov ~l<1ayyEillq. ('to be tied down = to be the victim of a charm and bound
by charms. Dinarchus in his indictment of Pytheus.)
Curses and Justice 93
to impose an elite religious agenda upon the masses in seeking to
elicit their disapproval of this practice, but it is more likely that
he was appealing to a common fear of magical attack. 69 Other
references to the menaces of magic in the judicial sphere have
been collected by Faraone. 70 It goes without saying that this is
seen as a bad thing if you are the victim of it.
Furthermore, a recurring theme of this study has been the
importance of xapisin Greek religion. Perhaps those practices
where xapiswas ignored in favour of selfish, antisocial ends would
have been placed by most Greeks in a category similar to what
most Christians loosely mean when they use the word 'magic'. 71
It is significant that, except in those late Anatolian prayers for
justice examined by Versnel, the writers of curses do not seem to
feel the need to provide an argumentum, or any sort of justifica-
tion for their action. More important still, these people almost
never express any awareness of xapis.They do not say 'If you
curse N, I will give you a reward'. 72 They say things like 'Inca-
pacitate N', 'Incapacitate N or else!' or, in a different vein, 'I
bind N'. In the light of everything we have said about xapt,up to
this point, we can appreciate just how dramatically its absence
from defixiones set them apart from ordinary religion, both
public and private. Yet such underhand strikes at rivals in the
arena, the market-place, the courtroom, and the bedroom were
extremely common. There was clearly something of a mismatch
between what people did in public sacrifices and what they did
in private.
To conclude, it will be seen that I have tried to outline the
69
It is no use objecting, as some have done, that the Greeks could not distin-
guish between good and bad ,f,apµ.o.Kg,Demosthenes (25. 80) mentions ,f,lipµ,a.Ka
and h,.,,Ms ('spells') in the same breath, suggesting that he, at least, recognized a
category of magical ,/,{,.pµ.o.Ka. Furthermore, the Dirae Teiae (ML 30) recognize
them as a terrible threat to the state.
7
° Fan1one, 'Accusation of Magic', 14g-6o.
71
Fritz Graf discusses this 10 his stimulating essay, 'Prayer in Magic and
Religious Ritual', in Faraone, 195-6. See now his extensive La Magie dans l'anti-
quite greco-ronwine (Paris, r994).
n The only exceptions known to me are DTA 99 and 109. The former describes
itself as a liwpov ('gift') to the chthonic powers. The latter promises a sacrifice if
the curse is fulfilled. Rouse, Greek Votive Offerings, 338-9, gives a few examples of
defi:xiones where the victim is treated as an offering to the infernal deities. Whilst
they are interesting examples, they are by no means numerous. It would be unwise
to assume that all other defixiones were actually offering the victim to the infernal
powers as though they were a sacrifice.
94 Curses and Justice Curses and Justice 95
native Greek view of magic. It is antisocial and defined in oppo- matter. What is abundantly clear, though, is that the absence of
sition to religious activities that were legitimated and approved of any kind of attempt to offer the gods either payment for their
by the polis at large. 73 Defixiones are totally opposed to the civic services or justification for the request sets defixio very much
curses of the Greek city. Civic curses are designed to punish apart from the publicly accepted norms of polis religion.
wrongdoers. They may not necessarily have been accompanied
by gifts to the gods, but that is not because the gods were being
coerced but because they were universally understood not to need
payment for overseeing justice in the community. Defixiones, on
the other hand, are documents of the purest egoism. Only rarely
are they the last resort of the helpless person who cannot obtain
justice by any other means. Furthermore, a person resorting to
defixio viewed his curse as ineluctable, in principle, even if in
reality many people must have found that their enemies remained
infuriatingly healthy. The dejixiones had to be seen as ineluctable
because the gods were hardly likely to enforce the selfish whim of
74 Th'
someone wit. h no Just
. .
gnevance. 1s may prompt us to won d er
why it was that people making defixiones offered no payment to
the gods for their services. Was it that they were too selfish? This
is unlikely to be the full explanation. If gift-giving was thought to
be effective in other spheres of activity, it remains surprising that
the users of dejixiones did not include some litde gift to dispose
the infernal powers more favourably to their request. At a later
period, it certainly is the case that professional magicians thought
it better to threaten and coerce the gods rather than ply them
with gifts but there is no reason to impute such a mentality to the
average Greek peasant dropping his defixio into a well. We are not
really in a position to do anything more than speculate about this
73
The antisocial aspect of magic is particularly evident from the later magical
papyri. They envisage the magician as a lone operator. Nice people at religious
festivals did not usually strangle a small menagerie of birds, eat a dead chick, and
make sure that all this was done alone (li:>.,\o,&- µ.71&,,avv[i=w}--'let nobody else
be present', P(;M xu. 38). These kinds of examples could be multiplied many
times over from the magical papyri.
74
The curse once programmed will do its job blindly. It is striking to what
lengths the defigens will go to make sure that he specifies his intended victim as
precisely as possible; see Watson, Ame, 204-5. More revealing still is the fact that
the defigem often uses formulae to protect himself from accidentally becoming the
victim of his own curse (cf. Audollent, DT. index VI F, p. 493). The curser
sometimes gives his or her own name (DT 1-3) but more often we just have 11
verb in the first person and the name of the victim. Maybe some people were
afraid to write their own name on a curse because it opened up the possibility that
the thing would get misdir~ted and rebound on the perpetrator.

6 wished to influence and invoke that name.
Magic and Names
In th.e last chapter, we saw that defixiones had little to do with
xap1r. We also said that activities which deny xap1r might have a
claim to be called 'magical'. One of the pieces of received wisdom
about ancient religion is that one needed to know the name of a
god in order to get him to do what one wanted. Does this repre-
sent a kind of coercion inimical to the spirit of ](O.p1,;? This
chapter 1 will be devoted to an examination of how important
the Greeks thought it was to know the name of a god and what
they thought one gained thereby.
Eduard Fraenkel states, 2
In the early stages of religious thought a great expenditure of pious
foresight and sometimes actual cunning is considered necessary in orde.r
to prevent a daemon or a god-generally thought of as reluctant-from
using some malicious device so as not to comply with the wishes of the
mortal who prays to him and to evade the magic or almost magic com-
pulsion of his worship and his prayer. To know the name of a daemon is
to acquire power over him ('Ei wie gut dass niemand weiss, class ich
Rumpelstih:chen heiss'); the exhaustive enumeration, or if that is impos-
sible the summarizing, of all his names is therefore necessary for the
prayer to take effect.
R. M. Ogilvie says, 3
Gods, like dogs, will answer only to their names .... The invocation of a
god by name has always been a central feature of prayer and magic. If
you know the name of a god, you can make him listen. In the Old
Testament, the name of Jehovah was for long a secret name, not to be
named or written, because it was too powerful In the New Testament
the superstition is eliminated but believers 'who call upon the name of
the Lord' will be saved. In Roman and Greek [my italics] religion, the
1 A revised and expanded version of my article in CQ 44 (1994), 17ff. I am
grateful to Oxford University Press for permission to reproduce it here.
2
In his commentary on Aeschylus' Agamemnon (Oxford, 1950), on line r6o.
3 Tiu Romans and their Gods (London, 1969), 24ff.
Magic and Names 97
first task was to discover the name of the god whom the worshipper
Carl Ausfeld seems in agreement with this;
satis superque demonstratum mihi videtur esse summa cura atque dili-
gentia permulta saecula in invocandis deis nomina tractata esse a Graecis.
attamen minime miraberis, quod in precibus ilia diligentia servata est, si
cognoveris, quanta fuerit vis nominis et in omnibus precationibus anti-
quissimorum populorum et in rebus magicis.
I think I have shown more than adequately that for many centuries the
Greeks in invoking the gods treated names with the utmost care and
diligence. Yet you will not be at all surprised that that diligence was
observed in prayers if you realize how great was the power of the name
both in all the prayers of the most ancient peoples and in matters magical.
Ausfeld goes on to quote several authorities on Indian and Egyp-
tian religion with regard to the power of the name.
Fraenkel, Ogilvie, and Ausfeld seem to be conflating things
that do not always belong together. It is a matter of common
experience that if one shouts the wrong name to somebody whose
attention one is trying to attract from behind in a busy street,
they wi11 not respond. This is not because they are deliberately
trying to ignore you, but because they do not even know that they
are being summoned. It must surely be the same with gods. You
cannot utter a prayer without naming the god to whom it is
addressed, 5 Knowledge of the name is an essential prerequisite
to any form of communication. There need not necessarily be
anything magical about it. The invocation could be as simple as J,
Zeii or w 8£01.I do not understand why it is thought that one had
to 'discover' the name of the god. This may be true of Roman
religion, 6 but it need not be true of Greece. Fraenkel points out
4
Ausfeld, 51Sf.
5 A seeming exception is ll. to. 462, where Odysseus invokes Athene simply u
0«i. This case is probably a literary feature. The poet has introduced the prayer by
saying that Odysseus was praying to Athene. It may well be that, from the
audience's point of view, that does the job of the invocation. Alternatively, it
could be argued that the omission of the name is a result of the close relationship
that Odysseus has with Athene. There is no other 8£a to whom he is likely to pray.
6
According to Augustine, De ciuitate Dei 4. 22, Varro drew up a list of the
minor gods and their different functions. Clearly this does show a legalistic
interest in demarcation. I know of nothing similar in the Greek evidence. A
passage in Pliny is panicularly informative about the power of words. NH 28. 3.
11 ff. tells us how the use of fixed formulae was seen as essential and we learn that
in some ceremonies the prayer was dictated to the presiding magistrate from a
script and that a piper played so that nothing but the prayer would be heard,
 Magic and Names
that the passage in Aeschylus is moving far beyond archaic super-
stition to speculate about the fundamental nature of Zeus. But he
still claims that Greek gods are commonly thought of as recalci-
trant and have to be compelled. What are we then to make of the
role of xapLs in Greek religion? Most of our evidence leads us to
the conclusion that worshippers thought they were involved in a
reciprocal relationship, not one where the god had to be bound. 7
Furthermore, if people thought they had tied the god down, what
did they make of a phenomenon which one assumes must have
been very common, namely unanswered prayer? Very few of the
explanations of failed prayer are couched in terms of errors in
nomenclature. There is one case, though, Xen. Anab. 7. 8. 1-6,
where Xenophon is having bad luck in his financial affairs. This
turns out to be because he has hitherto sacrificed only to Zeus
Basileus and has neglected Zeus Meilichios. He meets with suc-
cess once he has put this right. But he needs a seer to point out his
mistake. 8 This feature is very interesting; it is, superficially at
least, rather like ignoring somebody for mispronouncing one's
surname. This is, however, an exceptional passage. It is important
to remember that the difference between Zeus Basileus and Zeus
Meilichios is not just one of naming. There were differences in
iconography and sacrifice as well. For the most part, it must be
safe to suppose that many people will have known to whom they
wanted to pray or sacrifice and that they went ahead without
having to 'discover' the name at all. 9
The idea that knowledge of a name confers power is partly
derived from misunderstandings about Jewish beliefs concerning
the name of God. It is well known that it was not and still is not
7
On the notion of binding the god, see K. Meuli, Gefesselt{! Gotter= K. Meuii
and R. Merkelbach (eds.), Gesammelt{! Schriften (Stuttgart, 1975), ii. 1077ff. I am
grateful 10 Sir Hugh Lloyd-Jones for making me return to this article with
renewed attentiveness. Meuli's material is, I think, atypical. Burkert, 92, implies
as much, when he says, ' ... there are fettered images of gods, especially Artemis,
Dionysus and Ares'. Neither he nor Meuli says that this is the sort of thing one
might do to just any god at any time in any place. There is a recent treatment of
the subject in C. A. Faraone, Talismans and Trojan Horses (Oxford, 1992), eh. 5.
He argues that such rituals are intended to control inimical gods, ghosts, and
demons. Binding gods is not II normal way for Greeks to behave.
8
The seer does not explicitly say that Xenophon sacrificed to A when he should
have sacrificed to B, What he actually says is that Xenophon should be sacrificing to
Zeus Meilichios if he wants money, The reader has to remember for himself that up
until this point in the narrative, Xenophon hu been sacrificing to Zeus Basileus.
9
Od. z. z6zff. and ;. 445ff. are prayers uttered by people who do not know
which god is involved. They will be discussed later.
Magic and Names 99
permitted to utter the Divine Name, Yahweh, also known as the
Tetragrammaton (YHWH). Surely, though, this prohibition is
not designed to prevent men from using the Divine Name to gain
power over God. The God of the Old Testament is plainly far
beyond any human power to coerce. We know that names were
very significant in Judaism at this period. They were held to be
somehow real, almost as concrete as the things to which they
referred. 10 But, as we have seen, it makes no sense to think of
the Jews keeping God's name secret for fear that magicians or
enemies would try to use it against him. They surely refrained
from speaking his name from a feeling of holy awe. 11 It has even
been claimed that it was not until the destruction of the Temple
in 586 BC that the Jews became worried about the profanation of
the Divine Name 12 and substituted Adonai for YHWH. The
Bible makes it clear that it is out of reverence that one should
refrain from uttering the Divine Name (Exod. 20: 7 and Lev. 24:
16). It was only people like cabbalists who interested themselves
seriously in the occult power of the name of God, using it for
example to breathe life into the clay figure known as the Golem. 13
\Ve find a similar thing in the magical papyri, where magicians
claim to know the secret names of the god. 14 This does not seem
to be a central feature of classical Greek religion and will be
discussed further later. The Egyptians, though, clearly did think
that one acquired power over a god if one knew his name. 15 This
w See G. A. Buttrick (ed.), Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible (Nashville,
1989), s.v. 'Names'.
11
See Buttrick, art. cit, .soz, for a sensitive and nuanced discussion of the Old
Testament evidence.
12
For the evidence of this, in the Lachish Letters, see Encyclopaedia :Judaica,
vii (Jerusalem, 1971}, s,v. 'God, Names of'.
13
For the use of the name of God in Jewish theurgy, see M. D. Swartz,
Mystical Pra:,•er in Anri{!m Judaiflll (Tilbingen, 1992), 18. Also important is A.
C. Thiselton, 'The Supposed Power of Words in the Biblical Writings', JThS, NS
25/2 (1974), 282:-99. The literature on the Golem is vast: see G. Scholem, On the
Kabbalah and its Symbolism (New York, 1965), 158-204, and the article in En,:y.
clar◄aedia Judai,:a, vii, s.v.
4
Although we have seen that for the Jews themselves the Divine Name was
not originally magical, it is dear that ancient pagans thought it wa.q, The words
'Adonai', 'Sabaoth', and 'IAO' frequently occur in magical texts.
15
See P. L. Renouf, Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion a$ Illustrated
h_vthe Religio,i of Ancient Egypt (London, 1880). On pp. 192.f., we learn that in
many places Osiris bases his invocation simply on his knowledge of the names of
the gods; p. 227 gives us II hymn where the god is told 'your name shall be my
protection'. For the power of the name in Vedic religion and Islam, see the
references in Ausfeld, 519. See also J, Gonda, Notes on Names and the Na,,.,, of
God in Ancient India (Amsterdam, 1970), 57 ff.
100 Magic and Names
sort of anthropological material has been misapplied to the case
of the Greeks.
There are some grounds for attributing a literal belief in the
power of names to the Romans, although we may want to call it
legalistic rather than magical. Servius tells us that the identity of
the deity who looked after the city of Rome was a secret known ··
only to the pontifices. tft This was so that no enemy could use the
Roman weapon of evocatio and charm the deity over to their side.
Clearly this is an example of the name having power. Similarly,
we know that the pontifices had a list of indigitamenta, prescrib- .
ing which gods were to be invoked for which occasions. 17 But this
second piece of evidence may be of limited application. One
imagines the indigitamenta had little to do with everyday prayers
and sacrifices or the attitude of ordinary people to the gods.
There is more textual evidence for this legalistic feeling in
Roman literary texts.
(i) Macrobius 3. 9. 10: 'Dis pater Veiovis manes sive qua alio
nomine fas est nominare' ('Dis father Veiovis Manes, or any other
name it is right to call you by').
(ii) Servius, ad Aen. 2. 351: 'in Capitolio fuit clipeus consecra-
tus, cui inscriptum erat "genio urbis Romae, sive mas, sive fem-
ina" et pontifices ita precabantur: "Iuppiter optime maxime sive
quo alio nomine te appellari volueris." nam et ipse [Verg. Aen. 4.
576] ait : "sequimur te, sancte deorum, quisquis es"' ('On the
Capitol there was a consecrated shield on which was written "to
the Genius of the city of Rome, whether male or female" and the
pontifices prayed in the following way: "Jupiter Best and Great-
est, or any other name you would prefer to be called by". For
Virgil said, "We follow you, holy one of the gods, whoever you
are"').
(iii) Apuleius, Met. It. 2: 'regina cael.i, sive tu Ceres alma ...
seu tu caelestis Venus ... seu Phoebi soror ... seu noctumis
ululatibus horrenda Proserpina' 18 ('Heavenly queen, whether
16
On Arn. 2. 351, Cf. Macrobius, Sat. 3. 9. 4. One thinks also of the secrecy
surrounding the tomb of Oedipus in the Oedipus ColoneUJ,
17
See Kleine Pauly, ii. 1395 ff.
18
That this is a prayer to Isis has been disputed by J. Gwyn Griffiths in his
Apuleiusof Madauros: The/sis Book, EPRO 39 {Leiden, 197s), ad. loc., and in Class.
Phil. 63 (1968), 144ff. It may just be a prnyer to the Moon-goddess. This makes no
difference to our argument. If it were a prayer to Isis, one might suspect the influence
Magic and Names IOI
you are kindly Ceres ... or heavenly Venus ... or the sister of
Phoebus ... or Proserpina of the terrible nocturnal shrieks').
(iv) Hor. Carm. 3. 21, we have the Messala Ode from which
Norden has extracted so much: 'quocumque lectum nomine Mas-
sicum servas' 19 ('Under whatever name you preserve the choice
Massie vintage').
(v) Catull. 34. 21 f.: 'sis quocumque tibi placet / sancta nomine
(sc. Diana)' ('Be holy by whatever name you please').
(vi) Hor. Cann. saec. 15f.: 'sive tu Lucina probas vocari / seu
genitalis' ('Whether you approve of being called Lucina or god-
dess of childbirth').
This Roman material is frequently presented alongside some
superficially similar Greek passages in order to suggest that the
two cultures felt the same way about the gods.
(i) Men. Rhet. 445. 26: 1rolms 11£1rpourryopfots1rpo11rp(J£yfoµ,a,;
oi
µ,a,UEAvKEtOIIAfyovaw, ol OEJ,fAtoll,ol l,eifaKpaio11,a,Uo, OE~KTIOV.
Aa1<E8aiµ,&vw1 8e ~fLVKAafov,~817vaio, 1ra-rpij,ov('With what sort of
name shall [ address you? For some call you Lycean, others
Delian, others Ascraean and others Actian. But the Spartans call
you Amyclaean; the Athenians "God of our ancestors"').
(ii) Men. Rhet. 438. l l f.: J, .Eµ,,1181£ ~1TOAAOV -rlva ae XP~ 1rpo-
f1E11TEiv,1r&npov TjAtov... iJvouv ... ~ 0171-uovpyov;('0 Sminthian
Apollo, what should I call you? Sun . . . or mind . . . or
demiurge?').
{iii) Aesch. Ag. I6off.: ZEiis, OfJTIS 1TOT.la-rlv, El -ro8'au-/ -rij,r/,tAov
K£KA17µlvep, / -rovr&v,v 1rpoaEwi1rw('Zeus, whoever he is, if this is
how he likes to be addressed, thus I address him').
(iv) Eur. Tro. 884ff.: t1Jy,js ox11µ,a1<d1rly-qs lxwv lopav, I ouns
> r le , •~ I I zEVS,
• EIT• > avayK17
> , ,I. I
1TOT " ITV, ovaro1raa-ros
J
EtoEva,, 'l'VfJEOS EtTEVOUS'
- •
a£ ('O chariot of the earth, with your throne
f3po-rwv,/ 1rpmrq11frf.µ,17v
of the well-known type of the Isis-aretalogy in the enumeration of the attributes of
the goddess. As it is, though, it may simply be a highly wrought variation of the
theme given in the other Latin examples. Griffiths also refers to Apu1. De deo
Socmtis 15: 'cum ergo incertum est, quae cuique eorum sortitio evenerit, utrum
Lar sit an Larva, nomine Manem deum nuncupant; scilicet ei honoris gratis dei
vocabulum additum est' ('Since, therefore, it is uncertain what function is allotted
to each one of them, whether it be a Lar or a Larva [a tutelary household deity or
an evil spirit], they call the god by the name "Manes"; to be sure, that name of the
god is given in addition in order to honour him').
19
Norden, 143 ff.
I02 Magic and Names
on the earth too, whoever you are, hard to guess at, to know, Zeus,
whether you are necessity of nature or mind of men, I have
prayed to you').
(v) Eur. fr. 912. 2 Ni: Z,di<;,fr' Ai871s ovoµa,0µ£11os a-ripyf:tS
('~'nether you like to be called Zeus or Hades').
8"a·I I'ij o'fo-r(v, ovoµ,ao'01To-r,pov
(vi) Eur. Bacch. 275 f.: J71µ-,f-r71p
ffov>.n KaAfl ('The goddess Demeter. She is Earth; but call her
whichever name you wish').
(vii) Pl. Phlb. 12: Kai IIVII '"711 01T'f]
µ,ev 'Atf,po8£71111, £Kf:tll'!I cp(Aov,
ravrn 11poaayopf:vw ('And now, as for Aphrodite, as she pleases,
thus I address her').
(viii) PL Cra. 4ooe: £JI-rais f.Vxaisvoµ,os£CT'Ttl'
~µiv et'Jxf:CJ8a,, olrtll€!,
Tf: Kat 01ro8£11 xaipovmv 011oµa{oµ.f:vo1,ravra Kat ~µas a1hoos KaAf:tV
('In our prayers it is customary for us to pray that we may call
them by the names and places of origin that they themselves
rejoice in').
Let us look at these Latin and Greek texts in a little more detail
to see if we can determine their underlying concerns. First, the
Roman evidence. In passage (i), there is an anxiety over whether
one really knows the names of the power one wants to address.
Could it be that he has another, more correct, name? In passage
(ii), in the case of the 'genius urbis Romae', the anxiety is over its
gender and general identity. The information about Jupiter, how-
ever, is more like what we saw in passage (i). The worry is that
Jupiter might have some other name which, if not used, will
render communication impossible. The third example given by
Servius is like his first. One does not know the name of the god so
one takes the prudent course and says 'quisquis es'. In the exam-
ple from Apuleius (iii), the speaker is in doubt as to the very
nature of the 'regina caeli'. This is a rather sophisticated prayer, a
piece of theological speculation rather than an authentic prayer
such as might have been uttered by a real person. It is more like
the Greek examples from Aeschylus and Euripides and may well
be attributable to Greek influence. The Horatian example (iv) is
an apostrophe to some vintage wine. In speculating on the pos-
sible effects of the wine, the poet uses a formula derived from
prayers, like Servius' 'quisquis es'. It is prudent to use such a
formula if you do not know the name of the god in question. The
Catullan example, regarding Diana (v), invites her to be hallowed
Magic and Names I03
under whatever name she chooses. Does this betray anxiety or is
it indirectly complimenting the goddess on all the names she
possesses? We cannot tell. The final example (vi), from Horace
again, shows concern over whether the epithet is correct. Is Juno
to be called Lucina or Juno genitalis?
I think we can see from these Latin texts that the Romans did
indeed worry about accuracy in their prayers. The question is
whether the same is true of the Greeks. Example (i), from
Menander Rhetor, is like the Horatian text (Lat. vi). Menander
expresses concern over whether the correct local epithet of Apollo
has been chosen. It is a rather affected, literary sort of doubt,
probably influenced by Callim. Hymn 2. 69ff. Texts (ii), (iii), and
(iv), however, seem to me to be very different from the Latin
examples. They embody philosophical conjectures about the
essential nature of the powers in question. Menander Rhetor's
second prayer (ii) is purest speculation. Furthermore, in the
Aeschylean example (iii), I do not think that oar,s 110-r' larlv is
really Greek for 'sive quo alio nomine fas est nominare'. Surely it
is a speculation about what manner of being Zeus actually is. In
passage (iv), Menelaus is so flabbergasted by Hecuba's prayer
that he says ( Tro. 889), rt o'lanv; f:VXOSWS'£Ka,v,aas 8Ewv ('What
is this? How novel your prayer is!'). This is, I think, a highbrow
prayer, more redolent of philosophical concerns than actual prac-
tice. We know that Euripides' dramas were heavily influenced by
the intellectual trends of the day (e.g. the Sophists) but it is less
easy to explain Aeschylus, Ag. 16off. as a simple example of such
influence. We might prefer to conclude that Aeschylus' chorus is
indulging in some independent speculation of its own. Passage
(v) is doing no more than voicing an old uncertainty about
whether Zeus Chthonios and Hades are the same person or
not. 20 This, again, though is a somewhat highbrow thing. Hades
was almost entirely without cult, as we are so often told. Zeus
Chthonios was widely worshipped. So any real worshipper would
surely address the underworld deity as Zeus Chthonios. This
example, therefore, is likely to be another example of intellectual
speculation. The passage from Euripides (vi) is clearly sophisti-
cal. To equate Demeter and Earth is quite an advanced notion.
This is not a prayer, anyway, and I do not see why we should see
111See M. L. West (ed.), Hesiod: Works and Days (Oxford, 1978), on line 46s for
parallel passages illustrating this. ambivalence.
 ro4 Magic and Names
it as relying for its meaning on supposedly well-known prayer
formulae-especially since it is my contention that such formulae
were far less widespread in Greece than in Italy. The passage from
the Philebus (vii), is spoken by someone who is unsure whether to
call Aphrodite by that name or whether she should more properly
be called 71aoV7f. This, again, is a philosophical worry.
It is only in the final example, from the Cratylus (viii), that we
get something more like the Latin formulae. It does make it look
rather as though prayers usually express uncertainty not only
21
about the whereabouts of the god (ow&Ou,) but also about their
identity (oinvts). But if this were really v&µos ('custom'), then
why are the rest of the prayers in Greek literature not like this?
Why do we have nothing in Homer and nothing in the inscrip-
tions? Is it just an accident of the literary and epigraphic sources,
meaning that we should take this small number of passages as the
rule and the majority of the others as the exception? It is quite
likely that Plato, in order to serve the argument, is elevating to
the status of a norm something which only occasionally happened
in Greek prayers. The immediate context of extract (vii) from Pl.
Phlb. 12bc is relevant here. Before the remark about addressing
Aphrodite in the way that is tf,01.011 to her, Socrates says: Td 6' lµov
6£.0',•.. a.Elwpds TllTWVfJdiJVav&µaTa OVK£(11"( K«T'r!.v0pumov,d,\,\d
w£pa Tov µ.eyfo-rov ,p&{Jov.1ea, viiv T~V µtv 'At/,po6fr71v,KTA. ('I have a
fear with regard to the names of gods which is not like that of
other men but it goes beyond the greatest fear. And now, as for
Aphrodite,' etc.). There is a clear statement of an anxiety about
getting the name right. The whole context is about whether we
can know anything for certain about the gods. This is philosophy,
not religion. Socrates is describing his own philosophical scru-
ples. We should not assume that the concerns of characters in
21
This might refer to present whereabouts but it could equally be a reference
to the practice of mentioning the god's place of birth in one's invocation. One can,
for example, invoke Athene as Tp,royo,~ta ('born at Lake Triton', Ar. Lys. 347). It
is difficult to know which sense is intended here. Both IllllYbe meant. It is also just
possible that a genealogical invocation in the form 'daughter of N' is being
referred to, if one believes that this is the true force of the word mllla-( 'where
from') in the common phrase rl, n6ffo, £<, &v&pfuv;('who are you and where are you
from?'). For further bibliography, see Stephanie West's comment on Od. 1. 170, in
A. Heu beck, S. West, and J. B. Hainsworth, A Commentt1ry 011 Hmner's Odyssey, i:
Books 1-8 (Oxford, r988).
Magic and Names 105
philosophical dialogues necessarily reflect the everyday preoccu-
pations of the population at large.
We ought to pause at this stage to observe that the Greek
formulae. testify to two separate but related kinds of concern.
Some express uncertainty about the name and/or nature of the
power in question whereas others seem to express uncertainty
about the present location of the god. Sometimes both these
elements are found together. The received wisdom states that,
just as worshippers were worried about offending the god or
failing to attract his attention by using the wrong name, so they
were equally anxious to make sure that the prayer reached its
correct destination. I, however, am sceptical of the idea that these
expressions containing £LT£ ••• Ei"TE ('whether X or whether Y')
are simply a precaution, a means to make sure the prayer reaches
the god at any of his known addresses. The fact that this formula
was a feature of prayer language has been established by Norden
beyond dispute. 22 Although such formulae may occasionally (e.g.
Ji. 16. 514f.) be genuine attempts to ensure that one gets the
correct address, in other cases one feels that more information
is being given than is strictly necessary. Elements of mythical and
geographical embellishment are involved (e.g. JI. 1. 35ff., 451ff.;
Aesch. Eum. 292ff.; Eur. Bacch. 556ff.; Ar. Nub. 27off.; Theoc.
Id. 1. 123 ff.). There seems also in some cases to be an emphasis
on what the god likes or, more strikingly, rejoices to be called. The
Greek evidence gives us 4,0.o-v(iii and vii), aTipyus (v), and
xalpovqw (viii). The Latin examples are interestingly different.
The words volueris (ii), placet (v), and probas (vi) suggest that the
god merely approves of a particular form of address rather than
deriving pleasure from it. In the Greek, the thought is presum-
ably, 'There are so many places where your power is felt ... '.
Indeed, in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the poet twice asks
himself (19, 207) what aspects of the god he ought to concentrate
on in order to praise hirn---wws -r'ap q'uµ..v,iaw1TO.l'TWS £vvµvov £0VTO.;
('How shall I praise you when you are already thoroughly cele-
brated in many hymns?'). 23
22
Norden, 143 ff.
23
There is something superficially similar at the beginning of the fragmentary
Hymn. Hr,m. 1, to Dionysus. The poet relates several versions of the god's birth,
only to reject them and give his own. Unlike the Hymn lo Apollo, though, the
primary object of this catalogue doe:s not seem to have been praise. Rival versions
are rehearsed like this in order to impress upon us that the poet's own veuion is
even more prestigious than these traditional and well-known ones.
106 Magic and Names
So it may well be that what has previously been thought of as a.
formula betraying anxiety is, in fact, far from it. It may well have
its origins in the hymnic tradition, in the desire to delight the god
by enumerating as many details as possible about his life and
works. The same is true of e.g. Il. 3. 276ff., 16. 233 ff., 19. 258 ff,
All these passages seem to be the product of conscious doxo~
logical endeavour rather than theological uncertainty. It is similar,
to 'Paternoster qui es in caelis' ('Our Father, which art in heaven'}
and 'Qui sedes ad dexteram Patris' ('Who sittest at the right hand
of the Father') in the Christian liturgy. The information is given
because it glorifies God and his Son, not because there is any
24 ,
serious need to get the correct postal address. . were a Spartan, one would just know which of the many possible
So we should conclude that, far from being pinned down by
such formulae, the deity is actually being buttered up. That is theC
true purpose of reciting all his attributes. This would fit in with
the observations of Rudiger Schmitt,2 5 who found that the rela~
tive clause describing the greatness of the deity belongs to the
oldest stratum of the Inda-European tradition. 26 It is present in
Vedic and Iranian sources. I would argue that the ,;i'n: .•. ,;t,rc;:.
formula has the same kind of function as these relative clauses. It
allows the individual to construct a more artistic and effective
prayer with more fulsome description of the god. It is particu-
larly satisfying that this urge can be traced right back to the Vedfo
hymns of praise.
It would be wrong, however, to claim that philosophical and
hymnic influence is a full and sufficient explanation for all the
Greek evidence. It is unlikely that, in a polytheistic system,
nobody ever worried about divine names until the philosophers
told them to. Furthermore, although I have suggested above that.
this formula may derive from the hymnic tradition of giving
fulsome descriptions of a god's power and influence, this does
not preclude the possibility that some people might have used it,
14
On the linguistic cross--over between hymns and prayers, see H. Meyer;
Hymnische Stilelemente in der friihgrieehiuhen Dichtung (Diss. Wurzburg, 1933);
P. Wulfing, 'Hymnos und Gebet', Stud. Class. 20 (1981); F: Adami, 'De poetis
scaenicis graecis hymnorum sacrorum imitatoribus,' Jhrb.f kins$. Phil., Suppl. 2.6
UJ-62,
R Schmitt, Dichtung und Dichterspmche in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesba...:
den, 1967), eh. 5, 'Sakraldichtung'.
2~ A few Homeric e:r.::amples:Jl, 1. 37ff., 451 ff., 3. 277ff. This is an e:r.::tremely
common feature of Greek prayer l1111guage.
Magic and Names 107
to help get round uncertainty about a particular god's where-
abouts. One still suspects, however, that such questions cannot
have been of persistent and central concern or they would have
leaked over into the epigraphic record-where I have so far found
no examples of these formulae.
One is not claiming, then, that nobody ever wondered whether
to call Apollo A71A10s- or l:1.uv8evs,or that nobody ever worried
about which god to invoke on a given occasion, but one wants to
avoid saying that this was a typical worry for all Greek wor-
shippers. Menander Rhetor does imply that some of the differ-
ences in nomenclature were due to geographical factors. If one
epithets of Apollo was appropriate on any given occasion. We
should remember, of course, that there would have been more
than one epithet to choose from even in Sparta-itµ.vda.ios may
have been a well-known one but it was not the only one. One finds
a similar thing in Callim. Hymn 2.. 69 ff. The poet wonders what
epithet to give the god: W71'0AAOV, 1ToAAo, I
11E Bo11opoµ.tovKa.Alovc1£
1TOAAOt OEKA.li.p,ov,1rdv-rr, 0£ -ro, oilvoµ.a.1Tot1Av· lyt1 KapvEioV'
/ 11.l)Tllp
Jµot 1ra-rpw,ov ov-rw ('O Apollo, many call you Boedromian, many
Clarian, everywhere your name is great. But I call you Carneian;
for that is ancestral custom'). 27 This shows, incidentally, how
important Td 1ra-rptj>ovis in deciding these matters. 28 At Callim.
Hymn 3. 7, Artemis asks her father for 1r0Avwvvµt71v('many
names') so that Phoebus cannot vie with her. Many names confer
glory. 29
One might at this point begin to wonder how all this relates to
the question of the 'Unknown God', discussed by Norden. Is it
an example of a widespread Greek worry about divine names?
Does it militate for the idea that names are intrinsically powerful?
Norden proposed that the 'Unknown God' referred to by Paul in
27
Callimachus is in a similar quandary at Hymn 1. 4ff. This, though, is rather
like Hymn. Hom. I. 1-7, in that the poet is enumerating different legends about
the god primarily in order to suggest that they are false,
28
For funher reference to the importance of T.l '/T<upfu.<>v
('ancestral custom'), cf.
1: AD on ll. i. 37t. The scholiasts tell us that the invoeation of the Zeus-Athene-
A polio triad has led some scholars to assume that the poet was an Athenian since it
was customary to invoke this triad in Athens. PL Euthd. 302bd shows how it is
your religious affiliations in the phratry that determine under what epithets you
worship your gods.
2
'' A full bibliography on this point can be found in Richardson, 152.
108 Magic and Names
his sermon on the Areopagus (Acts 17: 23) was not an indigenous
Greek idea. It is certainly true that what references we have t
altars of 'Unknown Gods' are from sources which themselv
date from the Christian era, even if they purport to describe '
earlier state of affairs. 30 I will not rehearse here the arguments
Norden. Recently, however, there have been important new con
tributions to the debate by P. W. van den Horst and Albe.
Henrichs. 31 On reconsideration of the literary and archaeologi
evidence, Van den Horst and Henrichs make a good case for
existence of altars to unknown gods in pagan antiquity. These'
discussions are important, but do not, l think, fundamentally.
alter the point argued so far. It is not denied that some Gree ·
occasionally felt they were ignorant of the identity of a god, so
much so that they seem to have dedicated altars to 'the unknown.,
god'. Such deliberately vague formulae were clearly intended to
make communication possible when the name of a god wasc
unknown. However, such cases seem to have been comparatively
rare. We have already seen that there are countless literary and
epigraphic prayers where the identity of the god is perfectly well
known and no vague formulae are required. Knowing the name
of the god one wished to invoke was a purely practical thing, the
minimum prerequisite for effective communication in prayer. I.
do not think these formulae were designed to avert divine anger.
at being wrongly addressed.
There is another interesting group of formulae that need to be '
considered here. At II. 3. 298, the Achaeans and Trojans make an
oath and pray as follows: Zu.i KtHiton, µky10T1:, Kai d8d.vaTot Biol
a,\.\ot ('Zeus All-powerful and Greatest, and the rest of the
immortal gods'). This formula recurs several times in Homer. 32
In all cases but one, it is of the shape 'Zeus and the other gods'.
At Od. 21. 364-f., the suitors tell Eumaeus that he will be struck
down 1:i Kl:V i'lno.Uwv / ,jµ'iv IA1]K'90L Kai dOdva:rot Bull a,\i\ot ('if
Apollo is gracious to us, and the other immortal gods are as
30
Paus. 1. 1. 4, 5. 14. 8; Philosrrams, Vii. Apoll. 6. 3. s;Tertullian, Ad nut. 2. 9;
[Lucian], Philopatris 9, Zew tmg. 6.; Oiog. Laert. 1. io. no.
31
P. W. van den Horst, 'The Unknown God', in R. van den Broek, T. Baarda,
and J. Mansfeld (eds.), K,wwledge of God in the Graeco-Roman World (Leiden,
1991), 19ff.; A. Henrichs, 'Anonymity and Polarity; Unknown Gods and Nameless
Altars at the Areopagus', /CS 19 (1994), 27ff.
32 Il. 3. 298, 6. 475, 8. 52;6;Od. 3. 346, u. 371, 14. 53, 111. 1u, lf. 365.
Magic and Names r09
33
,veil'). It is not exactly a prayer but it is very like one. A related
set of formulae is one which is only hinted at in Homer but which
appears in proper prayers in the classical period. At II. 9. 357, we
are told that Achilles will leave at dawn, tpd .::Ii,pl[as Kat 1rao,
0w'iat ('having sacrificed to Zeus and all the gods'). The question
is, do these two sets of formulae, Beoia,\,\01 ('the other gods') and
miui Oioiot ('all the gods') represent an anxiety not to miss any-
body out, as Versnel says, 34 or do they mean something else?
We shall have to look a little more closely at the rest of the
evidence. Aeschines (1. 116) says that he hopes that hlwill be able
to proceed with his speech as he had planned. He strengthens this
wish with a prayer, evxoµa.1 -ro'i,8iois m'ioi Kai 1rdam, ('I pray to all
the gods and goddesses'). Demosthenes introduces a solemn
prayer at 18.141 to ask for success in his case if he has acted
honestly and the opposite if he has not:
,ca,\w'I:!'lvaVTIOVilpewv11.vBper~811110.iot TOVS:(fo:,urnavras: KO.< 1ra110.;,foot n;v
xwpav lxovm T~V~TTlK71v, Kilt TOIi~'ITOAAW TOI' l]{ifJ,ov, 65 1Ta,pcjJ&s:
lan rfi
'ITOAE:t,
,ea! l1r£-tixop.a,1
m:i111TOI/Tots , , •
I invoke before you, 0 men of Athens, all the gods and goddesses who
possess the land of Attica and Pythian Apollo, who is an ancestral god of
the city, and in addition to all this I pray ...
There is also some epigraphic evidence for these formulae. An
inscription dated to the end of the first century AD {JG ii2. 4--486)is
'AuKA.711r£tpKO.L'Yy11:t{I,Kai Toi; aMoi. Oeois mio1 Kai 1raoat!, ('to
Asclepius and Hygieia and all the other gods and goddesses').
This is a late example of both formulae together. Versnel says that
this formula was in common use from the fifth century BC
onwards. 35 He adduces the Roman parallel 'di deaeque omnes'
or 'ceteri di deaeque'. 36 SEG xxxiii. 675 (from Cos, dating to 188-
BC) gives a long catalogue of gods to be prayed to and ends
r68-/4'i
with 1'[ai Oeok 1r]iio1,cal 1raoa[1s.There is a parallel for this at Dio
Chrysostom 39. 8, where a long list of particular gods is followed
by this general catch-all. There is also a rather shady piece of
lVlycenaean evidence. On Knossos tablet KN: Fp 1+31, we find
n There is a similar hint at such a fonnula at Aesch. Sept. 450 referring to
Artemis and the other gods. 34 Versnel, 13.
15
Versnel, lJ n. 48.
3
" Versnel, 13 n. 49. Degrassi, JLLRP i. 1.7 is an early example from the 3rd
cent. BC, 'Apoline Minervia lve Librtari Victorie Dis Deabus'.
I IO Magic and Names
a reference to pa-si-te-o-i. There are fourteen other occurrenc
of this word. 37 It is interesting that it is all one word, as thou
'all-gods' were one category. There are also some examples oft
kind of prayer in comedy. \Vhen Cloud-cuckoo-land is be
inaugurated, in Aristophanes' Aves (866), there are prayers
'O,\vp.:ITfotsKat 'O,\vp:n,yat mi11t Kat 'll'llO"(llS' ('to all the bir
op111a111
both Olympian and Olympienne'). In Menander's Kolax (fr.
OCT), there is a prayer made, according to Atheneaus 659d, by
p:aynpos (a sort of butcher-cum-cook who helped at sacrifices)
the festival" of Aphrodite Pandemos. He says, 8Eo2s'O,\vp:'ITt
Evxwµ,E8a/ '0,\11µ,1Tlaa,, 7Tam waaat,; ('Let us pray to all the go
Olympian and Olympienne').
What are we to make of all this? Are we really to see it as
attempt to avoid the punishment of Oeneus (Jl. 9. 53-4,ff.),w
omitted to pray to Artemis? Surely not. Are we really to belie
that, every time one wanted to sacrifice and pray to one god, o
had to sacrifice and pray to all the gods? There are hundreds
surviving Greek prayers which do not contain this formul
Surely, if the anxiety were so pressing, they would all confo
to the same pattern. These formulae are too limited for them
be intended to act as an insurance policy against causing offenc
The Romans may have behaved like this, but I do not think th
Greeks did. We have already seen that Roman evidence can b
misleading, even when superficially similar to the Greek.
So what is the function of these formulae? It is likely that th
were thought especially solemn and powerful. One calls on t
aid of all the gods when that is what one really needs. 38 This
certainly appropriate for Aeschines and Demosthenes. They wa
all the gods to lend their support to what they are saying. It is als
appropriate for SEG xxxiii. 675 (Cos, 188-166 BC), which pre·
37
See M. Gernrd-Rnusseau, Les Mentions religieuses dam /es tt1blettes mw:e•
niennes (Rome, 1968), 17off., and Burkert, 170. • ·
3
~ I had come to the conclusion that such invocations were exceptional before 1.
had read F. Jacobi, lla.ent e~o, (Diss. Halle, 1930), who comes to much the sam<i
conclusion. He says that such formulae were only used, at least up to the end of
the 5th cent., 'summo periculo toti rei publicae instante' or 'periculo superatn
victoriaque parta' ('when the greatest danger was looming over the whole l!t:ate' nt
'when the danger was overcome and victory had been gained', p. Li.) and
publice et privatim deorum universitatem imploratam esse dici potest nisi in rebus
adversis' ('it can be said that both in public and in private the gods were not
collectively invoked except in crises', p. 17).
Magic and Names 1 II
scribes the prayers to be used by the whole city to celebrate the
installation of the Cappadocian royal couple. In Homer, it is
interesting that the formula nearly always involves Zeus. It is as
though the worshipper wanted to invoke all the gods, starting
with Zeus and working downwards. He wants them all to be
involved. There are plenty of prayers in the Iliad addressed to
just one god who is not Zeus and yet we do not find this formula.
So it cannot be designed to avoid giving offence. The example
from Aristophanes is of a similar nature. It is a civic prayer. On
the occasion of the foundation of a city, one wants all the gods to
be present. In Menander, although the festival is specifically that
of Aphrodite, it may well be that this formula was still appro-
priate because the prayer was in the context of a public festival. It
is more difficult to explain the dedication to Asclepius, Hygieia,
and the other gods. But whatever the motive was, it is unlikely to
have been anxiety about nomenclature.
So we can safely conclude that the formulae a,\,\o, 8Eot and 8Eoiat
1Tao1 Ka, naoa1s are not evidence for Greek anxiety about upset-
ting gods by omitting to name them or getting their names
wrong.
The idea that names are powerful is really a phenomenon of
post-classical syncretism. It appears in late defixiones39 and in the
40
magical papyri. Interestingly enough, it has been argued
recently by Fritz Graf that when these magicians declare that
they know the god's name, they are not seeking to compel him
but to display the extent of their pious learning. 41 Sometimes it is
indeed intended to delight the god (PGM 1v. 1610 ff. and Ausfeld,
519ff.). Furthermore, P. C. Miller has shown how, in Gnostic
thought, seemingly incomprehensible syllables, which might
seem to us like some kind of abracadabra, are actually attempts
to capture the ineffable in human language. 42 None the less, it
looks very much as though the magicians all too often strayed
l'I I .
t 1s very common to find the formula J[op,d{w a~('[ conjure you') followed
by catalogues of exotic, foreign names or Ephesia Grommata. The Sethianorum
Tabellae (DT 140-87) provide ample attestation of this. See also, for a fuller list, L.
~esano, 'Defu:io', in E. Ruggiero (ed.), Di:/lionario epigmjica di antichita ronume,
11/1., fa.sc. 49-50 (Rome, 1901H)} 1 1575ff.
:~ See A. Dieterich, Eine Mithmsliturgie (Darmstadt, 1966), uoff.
Faraone, 192.
42
In A. H. Armstrong (ed.), Classical Mediterranean Spirituality (London,
u,86}, eh. 20.
II2 Magic and Names
from the path of righteousness. PGM IV. 410ff. instructs th
practitioner to use just such syllables in the context of a I
spell. If one reads lines 400 ff. it is clear that this is no hi
minded Gnostic. He wants his beloved to be 'broken in'
joined to him 'head to head, lip to lip, and belly to belly'.
line 398 we have &pKt(w (fE Kara TOV ef,a{:JEpoii µeya.:\ov UlEW (3aef,
vEµovv o(JiAap11<pupta £0£a, ef,1p1<tpaAd)ov
voµEv Ep<f,a{3wrn1('I conj
you by the great and fearful iaeo baphrenemoun othi larikrip
etbeai phirkiralithon uomen er phaboeai!'). Whether the fo
is ef>a{3Epov('fearful') for man or god or both, it is clearly thoug
to be a thing of power and not just proof of devoted study.
even clearer example, this time from a defixio, is DT 271: -ro cly,
ovoµa 8 ov My1c-rm. . . &voµauw avro Kat o1 BalµovES£f£')'Ep8wa
t1<8aµ(301 ym1µwo, ('The sacred name which is n
Kai 1rEpl<f,0{101
spoken ... I shall name it and let the spirits be stirred in wand
and fear'), At PGM Vil. 596ff. we have a flagrant example oft
hijacking of a once religious vocabulary to make an amatory spel
The words 'law, ~clwva,, l:aflaw8, llayov(YTJ,Mapµ,opov8, 'IaEw, an
M,xa1JA ('Iao, Adonai, Sabaoth, Pagoure, Marmorouth, Iae
Michael') are all to be inscribed as a charm. The magician
to say that o M1xa11AdpuEvo871>.vs lef>v('Michael is a hermaphro
dite', 609) and then claim that it is not he who has said this b
the woman whom he is trying to ensnare. The god should there
fore send her to the magician, burning (with lust, one supposes)!
It is clearly to the later world of Graeco-Egyptian magic that tb
idea of the Name of Power properly belongs. Confusion arises
we try to read it back into everyday religion. 43
It may appear, though, that a qualification has to be made i
order to take account of t!ppr,rn ov&µ,ara,those names which f
one reason or another were not to be spoken. Do we not have he
an example of names being thought uncanny, which cannot
dismissed as the result of decadence and syncretism? Pausanias
(8. 37. 9), in describing a sanctuary of Despoina four stades from
41
I am not, of coune, suggesting that Greek religion had any kind of canoni.;.
cally defined orthodoxy. It is surely beyond dispute, however, that there is a world
of difference between the public prayers and sacrifices in the traditional religious,
calendar of II Greek polu and the lone activities of the practitioner of magic. This
issue is well discussed by Fritz Graf, in Faraone, r88ff., esp. 196f. There is an
important sociological element to the distinction between religion and magic, Iii
we saw when we looked at defixionn.
Magic and Names II3
Acacesium in Arcadia, says that just as Kore is an ;.,.,[K>.r,uts
('nickname') of Persephone, so Despoina is just another l1r11<A71a,s-
of the same goddess, whose true name he is too afraid to reveal to
the uninitiated. Euripides refers to Persephone as app'J'Jro<; 1<op71
('the unspeakable girl', Bel, 1307). Herodotus twice declines
openly to refer to a god whom we know beyond doubt must be
Osiris (Hdt. 2. 86. 2, 170. 1). This seems odd in the light of his
statement at 2. 3. 2, -ra µJv vvv 8€7.aTWPd:1rrryr,µ,a.rwv
ofa rj,covov,ov,c
1:iµJ1rpo8vµ,osll11rfo19a,, lfw rj Tll ovvoµ,arn aVTWl'µ,ovvov, voµ,l(wv
foov 1rEplavnuv l1rtu-raa8ai ('As for the sorts of
'ITllVTOS dvlJptfJ'ITOVS
things I have heard told about the gods, I am not eager to relate
them, with the sole exception of their names, since I reckon that
all men have equal understanding of the gods'). This is not the
place for a detailed discussion of the possible meaning of those
words. 44 Suffice it to say that, throughout Book 2, Herodotus
gives rich and detailed descriptions of all manner of Egyptian
religious observances going far beyond mere names. However,
when it comes to Osiris, he can sometimes be strangely reticent.
(It is noticeable, though, that he sometimes does write the name
of Osiris openly, e.g. 2. 42, 144, 156, but in these examples he is
giving details of the myth rather than of actual cultic practice.)
Why will he not give us the name? His scruples remind us of the
fear of Pausanias with regard to broadcasting the true name of
Demeter. It seems probable that Herodotus was unwilling to give
details of the cult because it reminded him of the secrecy sur-
rounding the mystery cults in Greece. 45 He must have thought
that to reveal details about the cult of Osiris was to lay bare the
quintessential nature of the Greek mystery rites, because they
were in fact fundamentally identical for all peoples; or else that he
would be committing an offence which in the eyes of the Egyp-
tians would be every bit as serious as violating the secrecy of the
mysteries was to a Greek. If, then, such dvoµ,arn are t!p(YTJ-ra
because of their connection with revered mystery religions, this
may persuade us away from the conclusion that the name is a
thing of power in itself. It is because of the dignity of the mys-
teries as a whole (rather than just of the name itself) that one is
""' On this question, see W. W. How and J. Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus
/O)iford, 1912), 157ff., and especially the re[ to C. Sourdille, Heradote et la rellgiDlf
d'Eppte (Paris, 1910), 2-26.
4
On the secrecy surrounding the Eleusinian mysteries, see Richardson, 304ff.
Il4 Magic and Names
unwilling to bandy about sacred words in public. It is in this way,
too, that we should view Pausanias' reluctance to divulge the true
name of Despoina. One might, if one were really determined to
see names as intrinsically numinous, suggest that the dignity
derives specifically from the power which resides in the names,
but this would be going further than the evidence allows. There
are ritual actions as well as ritual words, so we cannot explain the
whole phenomenon of the secrecy in terms of the awe surround-
ing the spoken word alone.
In a similar vein, we can see that the use of euphemisms is
hound up with all this. Persephone is sometimes called Kore.
According to Plato (Cra. 404cd) 1 this is because the name Tl,:paE-
tp&l!TJ('Persephone') reminds people of the word 4,ovo,; (phonos-
'murder'). They therefore replace it either with Kopf/ ('Kore') or
<l>ipltpa:rra('Pherephatta'). Now we remember that Pausanias said
that Kore was an lwt1<A1Jai<; for Persephone. But this does not
mean that people do not know and sometimes use her real
name. Pausanias himself remarks that Homer (ll. 9. 457, 569;
Od. 10. 491) and Pamphos used the names in their poetry. In
fact, the name Persephone is quite widespread in Greek poetry.
This would not have been the case if it were seen as radiating
some kind of dreadful, awesome power. People's choice of which
name to use will have depended very much on context and dis-
position. If they felt grandiloquent, they might say Persephone.
If they were feeling awed, they might use Kore instead. The same
kind of thing applies to the name Hades. If people felt that the
name was too dreadful to speak, they might use the euphemism
TI>.mfrwv('Pluto, the wealthy one') instead. But, once again, both
names were known and in use. It is therefore unlikely that 'Per-
sephone' and 'Hades' were names felt to possess terrible power in
themselves. Their numinousness depended on speakers and cir-
cumstances. If that could be switched on and off in this way, then
the power of the names themselves cannot have been felt all that
strongly. I do not therefore believe that the o.pp71Ta &voµ.ara con-
stitute an exception to my argument.
To conclude, then, we need to make two qualifications to the
traditional view about divine names. The first is that although the
Greeks, and the Romans to a far greater degree, were worried
about accuracy in invocation, there is absolutely no reason to
believe that this has any magical overtones in the case of the
Magic and Names Ilj
Greeks. Diggle hints at this in his commentary on Euripides'
Phaethon (1. 13), where he says that aiywvT' ov&14aramean 'names
whose meaning is not obvious' rather than 'names that are
hushed'. It would be odd if the speaker really meant that the
name 'Apollo' was a secret. Secondly, we should not get the idea
that such aporetic invocations were the normal way of praying.
The majority of the evidence is far more straightforward. People
seem to have known to whom they wanted to pray. There are two
well-known examples of not knowing to whom to pray-OJ. 2.
262 and 5. 445. Here, though, the people concerned are genuinely
ignorant. It is therefore the pious and sensible thing to commit
oneself to nothing more than indefinites. It must be stressed that
these are rare and special cases-the exceptions that prove the
rule. 46
So we have seen that, in Greek religion, knowledge of the name
of a god was not thought to give one some kind of magical control
over that god. Nor did the Greeks, for the most part, share the
Roman neurosis that sometimes led them to use legalistic catch-
all formulae for fear of the prayer being rejected on a technicality.
In fact, the enumeration of a god's names often had more to do
with a desire to glorify that god by a rehearsal of his names and
attributes. This fits in with what we saw of hymns, namely that
they are a sort of xap,,;,intended to delight the god. In the next
chapter, we shall look at prayer to the dead. Is it magical and
eerie? How important is reciprocity in that sphere?
46
In the ordinary narrative of the poem, speakers can also leave us in some
doubt as to which god was responsible for a particular event (Od. 3. t66, 173). This
is counterbalanced by certainty in other cases (Od. 3. I 19, 160). We might
reasonably suppose that the prayer referred to by Nestor in Od. 3. 173 was of
a similar type to Od. 2. 26o and 5. 445, i.e. e_xpressed unc~rtainty about ~hich
god to address. Such uncertainty over names 1s not a conspicuous feature m the
evidence as a whole.

7 continue to exert a strong localized force near the grave. The
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
So far we have been discussing prayers addressed to gods. In this ..
chapter, we shall look at the vast subject of the cult of deceased,
human beings and the prayers that were made to them. 1 It is
important at the outset to look at the question of how far there is.
any significant difference between the cult of the ordinary dead'
and the cult of heroes. In principle, any dead person could receive.
offerings and be expected to confer benefits in return. 2 There are
two main differences between heroes and the ordinary dead. The
first is that heroes are, so to speak, public property. Anybody can
appeal to them. The ordinary dead, however, are purely within
the care of their own descendants. It is not anybody else's busi-
ness to visit their graves. 3 As Rohde concludes, 'The cult paid by
the family to the spirits of their ancestors is hardly distinguished,
except by the greater limitation of the circle of worshippers, from
the worship of underworld deities and heroes. 4 The second dif-
ference is that heroes are thought of as a more constant presence.
1 fragment of Aristophanes' Tagenistae (PCG 504. 12 ff.) we find:
For a starting-point in the immense bibliography, see Burkert, 424 ff.
1
On all this, see most recently R. Seaford, Reciprocity and Ritual (Oxford,
1994), 109 ff. See also R. Garland, The Greek Way of Death (London, 1985), chs. 6--
7: Rohde, 171 and 202-3 nn. 118-23. A problem which cannot be discussed here is
why Homer describes the dead as bereft of any power of mind or body and unable
to escape from Hades. This does not square with what we know of contemporary
hero-cults; see e.g. A. Snodgiass, 'Les Origines du culte des heros dans la Grece
antique', in G. Gnoli and J.-P.Vernant (eds.), Lo Jliforl, les 1'Wrls dam les soeietes
anciennes (Cambridge, I982), rn7ff. Rohde, 67, has noted that the whole account
of Odysseus' visit to Hades is full of inconsistencies. C. Sourvinou-lnwood,
'Reading' Greek Death (Oxford, 1995), 76ff., has discussed this at greater length.
l lsaeus (6. 51) invites the jury to consider whether the son of the woman whose
impious conduct he has just outlined ought to be allowed to inherit Philoctcmon's
property and In-I.,.1,µ."'IP.""""
Uva,x~&µ.fVov ><a.1
lva.;,,omrra.
('to go to the family graves
and offer libations and sacrifices'). The verb wa.;,l/:nv(pronounced 'enagisdein')
denotes a very particular form of sacrifice. See J. Casabona, Rechen:hes mr le
vocabulaire des sacrifices en Grece ancienne (Aix-en-Provence, r966), :104-7; Burkert,
194, aoof., 201,271; Rudhardt, 129, 2o6f., 25of .. 256,258; R. C. T. Parker, Miasma
4
(Oxford, 1983), 328 ff. Rohde, r69.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead II7
Whether or not they are in Hades for some of the rime, they
ordinary dead are, I think, only seen as active at particular times.
We know from many classical sources that offerings were taken to
the grave of a dead person on the third and ninth days after the
funeral. On the thirtieth day, a communal meal marked the end of
the period of mourning. Thereafter, the commemoration became
a yearly business. Individual cities could nominate specific days
as days of the dead (nekysia) or days given over to ancestors
(genesia).5
It is an unfortunate limitation of our sources that we know very
little of what this cult of the normal family dead was like. Our
literary sources, as we shall see, do not present straightforward
evidence. In Aeschylus' Ptmae there is a very grand dramatic
tableau where the ghost of Darius is raised and asked for advice
in the Persians' hour of need. In the Choephoroe, the ghost of
Agamemnon is invoked to help Orestes and Electra to punish the
,.vicked Clytemnestra. These may have some relationship to
ordinary practice but, on the surface, what they describe is very
much out of the ordinary. What one would dearly like to know is
what sort of prayers were made when making offerings to the
ghost of some grumpy old deceased relative on a wet Tuesday
afternoon in February. About this sort of prayer, we have scant
evidence. What does emerge from several sources is that they
were expected to send up good things to the upper world. In a
mhoia, TOI<;
Kai fJvop.<i:1' e-,,ayl,,p.,,.,::,111
(},;oiut, Kai xoasi'" X"Df""'OI
W(l'TH,p
ahovµ,1£8'ailro11r8wp' av,;wa, rayaBa.
We sacrifice to them with offerings, just as we do to the gods. We also
make libations and ask them to send good things our way.
5
Isaeus talks a great deal about this ordinary family cult, 2. 37, 46, 6. 65, 9. 7.
See S. Georgoudi, 'Commemoration et celebration des morn dans les cites grec-
ques: Les rites annuels', Bilbiotheque de /'Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Section des
Sciences Religieusu, 91 (Lou vain and Paris, 1988), 73 ff. Also, Burkert, 425 nn.
38, 39; Rohde, 168f. Although Rohde asserts that the cult of the ordinary dead
probably took place on days other than those specified in the local calendar, he
does not provide any evidence for this. See also D. C. Kurtz and J. Boardman,
Greek Burial Customs (London, 1971).
JI8 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
This is something picked up by Electra in Aeschylus' Choephoroe
(91 ff.), when she asks the chorus:
~ roln'O ,f,6.o,anroJ1ros-, Ws-v6i-w, {:lporoir;,
6
fo8J,.'&vr11loiiva1
roi"o, 1rlµ1rovaivr6.fu;
Or shall I say what people usua1ly say, that he should send up in return
good things to those who bring this?
Despite the fact that this is an unusual and spectacular scene in a
tragedy, the reference to what people usually say gives one to:
believe that there was a universally recognized formula 'to send
up good things', based on variants of &ya8a &111bat.According to
Ta&ya9a was a formula regularly used in the cult of
Photius, d.11i'.e1
the dead.7 Although Pbotius was writing in the ninth century AD,
he cites as his source the Kwµ.auTat of the comedian Phrynichus,
who wrote in the second half of the fifth century BC. We do
8
indeed have a fragment of him preserving these words. We'
saw in Chapter t how 'to ask for good things' was, in ancient
Greece, almost synonymous with 'to pray'. What Nilsson called
'impetratio boni' is a fundamental goal of Greek prayer. That
reciprocal relations with the dead are thus possible is a fact of,
crucial importance. It recurs elsewhere in the literary evidence. II:
The most detailed references we have to the cult of the dead
come, as I have said, from Homer and tragedy. The greatest/
problem with this is that it is difficult to know (a) how f~ the
cult of heroes has been conflated with the cult of the ordinary
dead and (b) how far any of these rather unusual scenes, involving
necromancy as they do, reflect either the cult of the ordinary dead
or real-life necromancy. The chorus of Euripides' Alcestis (995 ff.)
sing about the fate of Admetus' wife:
µ11Biy,;KpWYws <!,8tµ.kwvXWf.W,voµ.,tfo6w,
rilµ./30; aas &Mxov, O,;oia,S'liµotws
nµ.«crew, oJ{3os lµ1r6pwv.
Kil<TIS coxµ,av K€Atil!OO·Y
6 la8Xis Elmaley's emendation. The MS reads ,err'. This is obviously nonsen-
sical. Bamberge!' suggested i'o'. Whilst that is possible, fo6X is more likely to
represent the formula of a real prayer since it is a close synonym of l.tya8,t There
are plenty of other examples of ayaOa used in such a formula, see Aesch. Pers. 222;
Cratinus, fr. 172 PCG; Ar. Ran. 1461; Therm. 3 io; Eccl. 781.
7 Phot. Lexicoo a 1993. 8
Fr. 16 PCG.
9 Aesch. Cho. 180; Pind. Of. 8. 79f.; Pyth. 5, rn2f.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead It9
iK{3<l[vwvr68' lpEi'
"aura 1TOT~ 11pou6a11' avOpos;,
viiv 8' for, µo.Kaip<l/Jq{µwv·
xaip~ ,1, .,,.6rv1:
EUll£ 8ol11s.roial v,v 1rpooipoiiat
,/Yiif.W,1."
Let not the tomb of your wife be considered just as a mound over the
dead, but rather let it be honoured like the gods, and let wayfarers pay
reverence to it. And when somebody steps aside from the main highway,
he will say, 'This woman once died for her husband and now she is a
blessed spirit. Hail, Queen, give us good things.' Thus will she be
addressed.
Alcestis has become a f-LO.Kaipa 811.lµ.wv,
translated above as 'blessed
spirit'. The fact that any wayfarer might pray to her as he passed
by suggests that we are not dealing with one of the ordinary dead.
She is, therefore, more like a heroine; an object of worship for
anybody, not just her immediate kin. 10 None the less, we see
again the thought that the dead are able to send up blessings
from beneath the earth. Perhaps these good things are deliber-
ately non-specific. On the other hand, the dead in general do
seem to have had a special association with fertility. Rohde points
out that this is doubtless because, being envisaged as living
beneath the earth, they are believed to have control over the fruits
of the earth. In this respect, they are conceived of as having
powers similar to those of chthonic deities such as Pluto,
Demeter, and Persephone. 11 Their purview was also thought to
extend to human fertility, since the blessings of the dead were also
sought on the occasion of a marriage, to ensure that it would be
fruitfui. 12 In return for their services, they would receive offer-
ings, of course. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that the very
fact of being remembered was in itself a boon.
In Aeschylus' Supplices (26o ff.), we learn about the life and
deeds of a great healer-cum-seer called Apis. He apparently
10
On xoa1pEin addresses to the dead, see Sourvinou-lnwood, 'Reading' Greek
Death, 18off.
11
We have already mentioned Ar. Tagenistae, fr. 504 PCG, Aesch. Pns. :222, and
Ar. Ran. 146z. For chthonic deities sending up gifts from below, see Paus. 1. 3I. 4;
Plut. Symp. 9. r4. 4 (= Mor. 745a); Soph. OT 269; Hippoc. Acut. 4. 9:2 (also called
'On Dreams'; conveniently available in vol. iv of the Loeb Hippocrates); see
Rohde, 171 and 103 n. 120.
11
Aesch. Cho. 486ff.; Phot. and Suda, s.v. -rp,-r""'1TopEs; Rohde, 171 and 203 nn.
121-3.
120 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
cleansed the land of all kinds of monsters and supplied mankind
with all manner of healing substances; so, we hear (270), p,vrfµ,r1v
1toT'avT{µia0ov f/Vpr;T'lv .\irnis ('for his reward, he was remembered
in entreaties'). 13 A physician received a pta0cfa (reward or fee) for
his services when alive. When one is dead, the prayers of the
living perform the same function. Whilst Apis was a somewhat•
unusual figure, it is none the less certainly possible that what,
applied to him also applied to the ordinary dead.
Remembrance was clearly precious. We know from Isaeus just,
how important it was for the family dead to be properly comme- ··
morated. We might also remember Dionysus' criticism of
Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae (46): lv £vxai'!; ,.,•ovoapoil µv£ta:v.
lxE1('He never remembers me in his prayers'). It is particularly
interesting that the word .\,-rais is used to describe this type of
prayer. According to Aubriot, this is the vox propriafor a type of
request where the petitioner humbles himself but accords "''P11 to
the person being petitioned, 14 It is a less coercive procedure than
lK,r;n(a, where the person being supplicated has little or no choice
about whether to comply. It is also not inappropriate for Ami.{ to
be accompanied by offerings.
Whilst the ordinary dead were for the most part expected to
send up good things, heroes were somewhat more problematic
characters. They needed to be propitiated in case they were
angry. This is an interesting difference between the two cate-
gories. Offerings to heroes are often described as µ.£LAt1CT1]p11.t or·
p,,r;i>.typaTa ('soothing offerings'). These were obviously appropri-
ate in the case of people who had been murdered and thus had
just cause to be angry, e.g. Agamemnon .15 However, some sources
suggest that this malevolence of heroes was more widespread.
Their graves ought to be passed by in silence. 16 Although this
13
rro.-' &v.-lµu:r/Jov
was Tumebus's conjecture, where the manuscript M has
.,.,,..,.<1..,.wuaUov---a
meaningless jumble. On memory and religion, see M. Simon-
don, La Mimoire et l'ouhli dans lo poine gm:que jusqu'i, la fin du V neele at,. J.-C.
{Paris, 19b); P: Bourgeaud \ed.), La Memoire des religions (Geneva, 1988).
14
Aubriot, 439ff. 1. Aesch. Cho. 15.
16 There are parallels for heroes who must not he disturbed-Narcissus:
Willi
apparently called the ./jpws.E,rq.\os {'the quiet hero', Straho 404), Photius in his
£f11a1·8,' o ""' oi .,/J
definition of heroes, says (s.v. 1<P£trrOVE;),1!01<060,li, 1<a1<w.-11<0,
~pcpa,rapwl!TE;a,w1rwa,v ('They seem to he doers of evil. Therefore those who pass
by their shrines keep quiet'). Rohde, referring to this (201 n. no) says that the
word is being used here in the late sense (cf. following note) and meanll the dead
generally.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead 121
question of the presumed disposition of heroes is a very interest-
ing one, it does not bear directly on prayer and cannot be fol-
lowed up any further here. 17
As has already been pointed out, our ignorance about prayer in
the normal cult of the ordinary dead stands in stark contrast to
some extraordinarily detailed passages in literature. The best
known of these must surely be Odysseus' visit to the underworld
in Book u of Homer's Odyssey. It is not, however, to be taken as
being in all respects a reliable reflection of the cult of the dead in
the real world. For one thing, most people will not have expected
to have to travel to the gates of hell in order to speak with the
ghost of a dead person, They preferred the ghost to be near at
hand. That Odysseus undertakes this perilous journey must be,
for the most part, a literary device. The main purpose of his visit
is to seek information about his future from the soul of the
departed seer, Teiresias (Od. IO. 492); but the trip to Hades also
gives Homer the opportunity to portray Odysseus' meeting with
other people who are important to him, e.g. his mother. The hero
who goes down to Hades and emerges alive grows enormously in
our estimation. There are, none the less, certain features of this
episode which recur elsewhere and may reflect actual practice.
First, Odysseus makes libations to the dead using three different
fluids: a mixture of honey and milk, then wine, then water, with a
sprinkling of barley in addition ( Od. 11. 26-8). Then there is the
fact that he makes a vow to the dead, as a collective group, that if
he gets safely back to Ithaca, he will sacrifice a heifer, a burnt
offering of good things, and, especially for Teiresias alone, a
black sheep (Od. I I. 29-33). He also makes a special prayer to
Hades and Persephone (Od. 11. 46f.), sacrificing a black ewe and
ram to them (not mentioned in Book I I but figuring in Circe's
instructions at Od. rn. 527ff.).
The scene appears to be a mixture of various different ele-
ments. First, there is necromancy: Odysseus wants privileged
information about the future from Teiresias. This is clearly out
of the ordinary. This is followed by something which one imagi-
nes to resemble more closely the normal cult of the dead, in that
17
Rohde, 202 n. JT9. Ar. Heroes (fr. 322 PCG) is a grotesque catalogue of the
illnesses that heroes can inflict on the unjust. See also Hdt, s. 47; Hippoc. Morb.
sacr. 4; Paus. 6. 6. 7-11; Bahrius 63 (it is only in this last source, from the 1st cent.
AD, that heroes are said to he universally bad).
122 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead Prayer and the Cult of the Dead I2J

Odysseus promises to make sacrifices if he returns safely to XIJ&vo.o'wyuytav l111JCEKAoµlvo,;;

Ithaca. However, even this is a little odd, since Odysseus makes'.
this vow to all the dead en masse, whereas in the real world one
would expect such a prayer to be addressed to an individual dead.
relative or hero.
This is what we find in the scene in Aeschylus' Persae wher
Queen Atossa summons up the ghost of her dead husband, Dar-'
ius. As in the Odyssey, the object is necromancy, but only one
ghost is being addressed. Atossa tells the chorus that she is goi
to Darius' tomb with the following accoutrements: milk, hone
wine, water, olive oil, and flowers. Some of this is familiar fro
Horner. She instructs the chorus to help her (619f.): xoa.icn .• ,
('Sing hymns over the libations'). Interest.;,
vµvovs £TTE:VfJf//LE:i.-rE
ingly, they do not proceed with a direct invocation of the shade"
of Darius. They say (625ff.):
~p.Efa(f vp.vo,, alrqao~fJa
,J,81µ.tvwv110µ:1rou,
ditJ,pova;; Etviu Ka-rtiyolas.
&.\.\6.,xl:Mv,01 oalp.on:. ui'>'O(,
I'iJn Kai 'Epµ.iJ,paa,AEii-r'lvtpwv,
11tµrpa-r'(VtplJEV,f,vx~vES,J,w,;·
El yap TI KllKWV0,l{OS olo,; 11.\fov,
p.ovo'ii Q;Vfhrrirwv 1tlpa;; El11'01.
With hymns we shall ask the escorters of the dead to be kindly beneath:
the earth. Now, pure spirits of the underworld, Earth and Hermes, an
the king of those beneath, send the soul up from below into the light. For
if he has greater knowledge of how to cure our ills, he is the only mortal;
who could tell us their limit.
It is particularly striking that, as in Homer, the guardian deities.
of the underworld are addressed before ever a word is spoken to
Darius. Circe advised Odysseus (Od. 10. 534), ETTEtilao6at (Jr;ofatl',
-r' :Affin Kai £TTawfillEpoEipovElT/('Pray to the gods, to
/ i'ef,8lµ.'!:)
mighty Hades and dread Persephone'). This is what he went on
to do (11. 46f.).
There are parallels for this elsewhere. In the fragmentary
remains of Aeschylus' Psychagogoi (fr. 273a Radt) we read the:
following: 18
18
Edilio princepi in Kiilner Papyri, iii (Cologne, 1980): see also H. l.loyd-Jones,
'Notes on P. Kain III 125 (Aeschylus, Psychagogoi?)', ZPE .p (1981), 21 ff.
xfJ&v1ov(J''Epµ:q<v> I 11'01),110/J,
,pfhµ.bwv,
[mlrovxfJ<o>v1011.:Jta!'1!~•11<6>.\wv I
{IJ} foµ.ov&v£ivo.1
1Toro,µ.ovGTOIJ,«TC/>V,
Calling upon primeval Earth and Hermes of the underworld, the escort
ofthe dead, ask Zeus of the underworld to send up a swarm of those who
rove by night from the mouths of the river.
Furthermore, when Electra is summoning Agamemnon in the
Choephoroe (124aff.), she makes her first address to Hermes
Chthonios. He is presumably a useful intermediary, in his role
as conductor of souls. The prayer to Agamemnon himself only
starts at line 130. It might be objected to all this that the details
mean nothing. They could just be a quirky idee fixe of Aeschylus.
However, the fact that different intermediary powers are invoked
in the Odyssey, Persae and Choephoroe, militates against the idea
of direct copying from Homer and a single schema in Aeschylus'
mind. There is, moreover, an example in Euripides (fr. 912 N") of
a prayer addressed to Zeus Chthonios (or Hades). The dead are
being invoked for the knowledge they can impart and Zeus
Chthonios is the intermediary:
170i 'Tcj, 1Tll"7'WI'~Slovn xo,)11
n ,J,lpw,ZEv, ,;fr' }U871s
11'€.\av&v
dvoµ.a,6µ.evo,a'Tlpyn-,;· ITV8./ µm
IJvafuv ii11'Vpov1TO.jlKO.p1T£la,
oifat1TA,jp71 1TpoxvlJ,;iaa11.
uv ytip b -,,; 8£oi, -roi, oilpavl8a.1,
aKij7r"rpov'TO.110,/LE'TllXE1plCn.::
x9ovlwv (! lt1Bv µ.rc;'TtX,f:<S
apxij<;.
1rlµ.,f,ov8'l, ,J,w,,/,uxli, ivlpwv
-ro,,
/3011>.oµ.ivo,s
afJAovs11'poµ.a9rc;iv
1t68EVlPAo.C1To11,
'Tl, p{'o. KaKwv,
-r,va 6Ef µaK6.pw11IKIJvaaµ,lvovs
Sc Evp<c<I'µ.oxfJwvO.Vl11tav).ap,
To you, the ruler of all I bring a libation and an offering of meal, honey,
and oil, whether you like to be called Zeus or Hades. Accept this offer-
ing, no burnt one, of all kinds of fruit, which is poured out in profusion.
For you both wield the sceptre of Zeus among the gods and share with
Hades the rule over those below. Send into the light the souls of those
below for those who want to know where their trials sprang from, what is
the root of their ills, and to which of the blessed ones they ought to
sacrifice to find relief from their toils.
 124 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
Either this is just a literary artefact copied with some change$.
from Homer by Aeschylus and Euripides or else it is a genuine
feature of such prayers. 19 Even if it is genuine, however, we have
to recognize that begging the permission of the underworl
deities to allow the spirits to leave Hades may be somethin
that only applied to necromancy.
Necromancy, although an exotic business, was not limited tot
world of tragedy. There are a lot of references in Greek literatu
to places where one could actually go in order to make contac
with the spirits of the dead. 20 Plutarch refers to an oracle of th
dead at Heracleia Pontica where the Spartan general Pausania
went to make contact with the spirit of a girl he had unjusd
killed. We hear that he lll.aaµ,ois1eu, xoais &v£1<ai1£iTo
r~v if,vx~v rij
1e6p71s('called up the soul of the girl with propitiatory prayers and
libations'). Propitiatory prayer would clearly have been the most
appropriate kind on such an occasion. Aristophanes has a comic
reference to the practice in his Aves (1553 ff.):
1rpo,; Si rois Eic1a1roa1v M-
/LVT/'TISl=' ll.Ao1Wosou
t/,vxaywy£i Ew1<pl.rr,s.
lv8a 1<allIElaavSpo; 'lj).8£
S£6iuvo,;t/,vxi'/vlS£iv,fj
wpo{J>.,1re,
twvr' EK'E<VOV
mf,l,.y,' &-
.!xwv K6.fL1jAOV
µvov nv: ifsAa,µo"s: 'Ttcµ<f.w,
Wf17r£pob6vaa£ll; &wfiAOE,
ol1117.M1'
1<,!.r' culrcy1<arn19ev
wpbs:'TOAai-rµa rij; icaµ.71>.ov
Xmper/,wv ~ VVKnpls.11
19
This may have implications for our Malysis of Homer's pictuni of the
underworld in Odysrey 11. On the one hand, he depicts the dead as senseless,
powerless beings, confined to a shadowy existence in Hades. On the other, he.
speak., of the dead receiving sacrifices from Odysseus when he returns to Ithaca c.
(Od. to. 521 ff., ll. 29ff.). There would be little point in this if they were thought
of as unable to escape from Hades. Perhaps the prayer to Hades and Persephone~
associated as it is in our jth-cent. sources with begging permission for souls to;
emerge to the upper world, is a hint that Homer really did know that the souls of
the dead could leave Hades.
lO
Rohde, eh. 5 n. 23, eh. 9 nn. 105 ff. Cf. Soph. fr. 748 Radt; Plut. Mor. 1ogc;
Paus. 9. 30. 6; Hdt. 5. 92'), 2.
ll These lines are most likely a parody of Aeschylus'
Dunbar (ed.), Aridaphanes: Birds (Oxford, 1995), 711.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead 125
Next to the Shadowfeet there is an unwashed lake where Socrates calls
up souls. Thither came Peisander wanting to see the spirit which had left
him behind alive. He had with him a young camel as a sacrificial offering.
He cut its throat and withdrew, like Odysseus did. Then there came up
to him from below, towards the sea of camel's blood, Chaerophon the
bat.
We have no way of knowing how common such oracular con-
sultation of the dead was in antiquity. From the evidence we have
just considered, though, it was clearly not limited to strange
intellectuals like Socrates. Plato has much scorn to pour on any-
body who engaged in summoning up the dead in any manner
whatsoever (Leg. 909b), although, of course, he would not for one
minute have agreed that Socrates was among their number:
nratf,povawrt'.,; Si TWV&vBpJnrwv ,{n,-x,aywywa,µlv 1r0Mo,,, 'TWVtwVTwv, 'TOVS
(}f u;Bvt'.WTllS,pl.mcovr,;;i/Jvxaywyt:111ical 01:ol/;l!'IT£(1X,V00p.E'VOLwelBeiv, w;
Bvatm; 'Tfi KCLIul-x,ais Kai lwq,8ai:;)'O'l)TEOOV'rfif, l8,wras: Tfi ical J>.as ol1<l11s
1<a/1r0Ans-XP'l)/J,Q.TWIIx6.p1vlmxnpwaw Kll'T'lit<pas- lfaipeiv.
In their contempt for men they chann the spirits of many of the living
and, with their claims that they can summon up the spirits of the dead
and their promises to persuade the gods, they practise sorcery with
sacrifices and prayers and spells, and endeavour utterly to destroy indi-
viduals and whole households and cities for the sake of money.
He has similar things to say about wandering magicians in the
Republic as well (364b). Such criticisms cover not just oracles of
the dead but presumably any other kind of spirit-raising. 22 In this
respect, as in many others, Plato stands apart from most ordinary
Greeks of his day. Not all of them need necessarily have seen
anything wrong with such practices. Plato was not, however,
entirely alone in this distaste. In Euripides' Alcestis, when Adme-
tus expresses concern that what he has before him might not be
his wife but some sort of phantasm, Heracles retorts rather
crossly (1128): 01'if,vxaywy(,v T6vo'E71'0£~11W
!Jvov ('The friend you
have in me is not some conjuror of spirits'). Dale was surely right
to detect here a note of distaste in Heracles' reply. 23 It suggests
· 2
" It is not just the fact thJlt these people are itinerllllt lllld accept payment for
their services that repels Plato. In llil earlier part of the sentence just quoted from
the Laws, he inveighs against those who think the gods are 1Ta.pa1Tf/-rol ('able to be
bought off'), He h.lld already mentioned this same theme at 888c and 905d.
ZJ A. M. Dale (ed.), Euripides: Alcesti.s(Oxford, 1954), ad. loc.
 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
that such practices were not high1y thought of in Athens in
certain lettered circles. All this illustrates very well how accep-
table religious behaviour is defined by the discourse of a parti-
cular class.
If we return to tragedy, the scene which is perhaps closest to
the normal cult of the dead is that in Aeschylus' Choephoroe
where Electra and Orestes are praying to their dead father. This
episode points up very nicely the difficulty in distinguishing
between hero-cult and the cult of the ordinary dead. Agamemnon
was recognized by the whole world as a great hero. To his chil-
dren, however, he was one of the ordinary family dead. The
invocation of Agamemnon and the prayers made to him fill the ·
whole of the first half of the play. It is an extraordinarily diffuse
procedure. This is partly because there are separate invocations
by Orestes and Electra. At the very opening of the play, Orestes is
by his father's tomb, praying to Hermes Chthonios to help him.
He dedicates a lock of hair and bids his father hear him (4f.).
Then he sees Electra bringing libations to the dead man ( 1 5 f.).
These turn out to be from Clyternnestra (44ff.), but Electra
appropriates them to her own ends (149). She first makes a prayer
to Hermes Chthonios (124aff.) and tells her father that he will be
avenged (143). This much happens during the first iambic epi-
sode. The first stasimon of the play is the great 'kommos', a lyric
dirge involving actors and chorus, during which the ghost of
Agamemnon and the chthonic powers are repeatedly addressed.
Orestes wonders by what word or deed he might reach his father
in Hades (315ff.). 24 He is told to hear his children (332). Zeus,
presumably Zeus Chthonios, is asked to send up the soul (382).
Earth and the other chthonic powers are invoked (399). When the
first stasimon gives way to the second episode, we continue with
the invocation and prayer. Agamemnon is invoked by both chil-
dren (479f., 481 f., 483 ff., 486ff.). We also have a request to Earth
(489) and Persephone (490). Although Persephone is asked to give
tvµ,opt/,ovKp&.Tos('beautiful might'), one assumes that this invoca-
tion of Persephone is related to those we saw in the other sources.
24
This awareness of the difficulty of contacting the dead is a traditional ele~
ment of the lament. There is also an anxiety not to provoke the anger of the dead
man by lamenting him in the wrong way. In this respect, the dead may be rather
more concerned about ritual correctness thm were the gods. For full documenta-
tion of all this see, A. F. Garvie (ed.), Aeschylui: Ch(){!;phori
(Oxford, 1986), 130.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead 127
Only with her co-operation, and that of other chthonic deities,
will Agamemnon be able to return to the world of the living.
Agamemnon is offered libations and prayers in the way they
might be offered to a god. We saw above that there did exist a
belief that reciprocal relations with the dead were possible. In the
case of Agamemnon, we have the combination of offering and
prayer. However, not all scenes of prayer to the dead contain the
same details. In particular, we have some situations where a
character asks a dead person for help and does not offer sacrifice
or libation. In Euripides' Helen (969), Menelaus invokes Hades to
help him: Kai af croµ,µ,axovKa.Aw('I call you too as my ally'). This
looks very much like black humour, since Menelaus goes on to say
that Hades is indebted to him for all the corpses he put his way
during the Trojan War. So this scene is not really a straightfor-
ward address to the dead for help.
There is another invocation not involving sacrifice in Hercules
Furens 490 ff. Megara invokes her absent husband as follows:
J; ,piATaT:"' TLS" ,/,tJ&no,Elaa1<0i)£TaL
llv-qTaJV -rrap'14,811,uol Ttt8:'Hpl1.1<AEL,,.\eyw·
8vya1<E< ad, 1<al-rt1<v:
-rraT71p J>J.vµ.a,8' Jytf,,
1j -rrplv,-W.Kapla81aa' l1<.\11l&µ.,,v f3poToi,;-.
&P1J~OII, ,1,.e:-
Kat aKia i/,6.vq8lµ.o,.
&J,.,,-yap U8wv K«V ovap ytvoto av· 495
l<!lKOt yap Etatv 01 TEKl'a l<TEll'OVOI aa.
' ,. • "' , $ ;
::VIydearet1t, if any voice of mortals is heard in Hades, I say this to you,
Heracles. Your father and your children are dying, and I am perishing
too, I who because of you was previously counted blessed among mor-
tals. Help-come-appear to me, even as a shadow. It would be enough if
you came as a dream. For those who are killing your children are bad
men.
This is a deliberate taunt against a dead person (Megara, at least,
supposes at this point that Heracles is dead). By saying that the
men who want to kill his children are KaKo{ ('bad'), she implies
that Heracles is even worse if he does not appear and deal with
them. Such taunts appear elsewhere. In Aeschylus' Choephoroe
49 I ff., Orestes and Electra taunt Agamemnon by bidding him
remember the bath, the net, and the fetters used to bring him to
his doom. In Sophocles' Electra 1069, we hear of the ax&pevTa
011d877 ('wretched reproaches') which reach the dead in Hades. In
 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead Prayer and the Cult of the Dead 129
Euripides' Orestes 1238, it is again Agamemnon who is taunte to the dead than in prayers to the gods. Isocrates wonders if the
with the words OUl(OVV ilvdO'I]'TflO(KAVWV pvan'T€1<va; ('Will you n dead have any perception of what is happening on earth (14. 61). 27
save the children when you hear these reproaches?'). Finally, The final thing to notice about these invocations is that there is
Eur. Electra 682, we have '171<ouaas,wSdv' E{ E/J-ii•µ1]-rpb,;7ta8 ' no obvious difference between the language used to address her-
('Have you heard, you who suffered dreadful things at the ha oes or the dead and that used when praying to gods, This is
of my mother?'). 25 The thought is presumably that the dead perhaps not altogether surprising, since the two things are very
separated from us by a considerable gulf and need to be spurr similar operations. The only real difference I have been able to
into action by taunts if they are going to cross that gulf once mor, detect is that the word JMUis never used in prayers to gods that
and come to our aid. accompany sacrifices whereas it is used in the prayer to the dead
When Megara prays to Heracles in Hercules Furem, we find Achilles that accompanies the sacrifice of Polyxena (Eur. Hee.
tricolon of imperatives (494): o.p1J[ov,EA(U·Kat a1<1arpa,111]8{ 536). This matter \\sill be explored more fully in the next chapter.
('Help-come--appear to me, even as a shadow'). The tricol Table 1 (below) demonstrates the similarity in language of
will be discussed more fully in the next chapter. Bond has not prayers to gods and prayers to the dead.
that tricola occur in other tragic scenes involving communicati
with the dead. 26 The chorus say to Darius (Aesch. Pers. 658 TABLE I
t81-i1<ov· lMJ' Ew'a1<povKopuµ{Jovox8ov ('Come--arrive-come
the summit of the hill'). The prayer to Agamemnon in the Ch Word Prayer to dead Prayer to gods
ef,lAoi,;
phoroe (456) goes ftty')'(VOU, 7Tli.'T€p, ... O.KOIJOOV ES1,ao,;µ,o.\w .
(UCOV(10II Aesch. Cho. 459 Od. 6. 325
/ lvv BJ y('l'ov wpos lx8povs ('Father, be on the side of yo olt,u Eur. Hee. 53.S Ar. Pax 977
friends-hear us and come into the light-be with us again [),,8J Eur. El. 680 /[. 23. 770
our enemies'). In the Orestes ( 1230 ff.), we find a similar pray ' .
tKOU Aesch. Pers. 658 Eur. Rhes. 229
to Agamemnon: 0'0s·11fLW TOV0£ av.\,\~1r'Twp')'E'l'OV. I - <iJ
w6.np, ll( KAvlh Aesch. Cho. 332 ll. r. 37
ar;-r'... I - ... £laa.KOVCJOVlKaqiaov TEl<Va ('Undertake the 1Tpf'vµw7Jr Eur. Hee. 538 Aesch. Supp. 207
things along with us-come, father-hear us and save your eh· ,J>l1.vri{J1 Aesch. Pers. 666 Eur. Bact:h. ro17
dren'). Finally, at Electra 679, we have &µ,w' lJ.p.w£('protect
protect us') and l.\8i ('come', 680). Clearly this device, found 1
commonly in ordinary prayers to the gods, was thought someho
particularly appropriate for these exotic scenes in tragedy.
We shall end this chapter with a glance at a bizarre practice
Bond has also shown that there are two other features of th ·
which differs markedly from anything known from the archaic
prayer which are paralleled in the other scenes. First, there is t
and classical periods, namely the conjuration of dead spirits into
question of whether Heracles is listening. Anxiety over whethe
the dead can hear us recurs at Aesch. Cho. 315ff., 38of.; Pers. 639 doing particular practical tasks without any concern or recipro-
Soph. El. ro66f.; Eur. El. 682; Or. 1231f. Secondly, there is city. Rohde has collected together much of the evidence. 28 A few
particularly clear and succinct statement of need ('we're examples will suffice to give the reader a taste of what we are
dying'). This is paralleled at Aesch. Pers. 667ff.; Cho. 376f. dealing with.
Soph. El. 107off.; Eur. Or. 1227ff. The first concern here, namel 27
See Versnel, z6ff., 37ff. for humm anxiety about whether the gods can
whether the dead can hear us, seems more prominent in prayer, actually hear what we say, Gods may not have been disposed to listen to a given
prayer but nobody seems to have thought that they were physically prevented
25
I owe these parallels to Godfrey Bond's commentary on the Hercules Fu from hearing by the sort of barrier which existed between the Jiving and the dead,
26
(Oxford, 1'}81), 192. Ibid. zs Rohde 594 ff., 603 ff.
130 Prayer and the Cult of the Dead
On a lead tablet from Carthage (discussed by R. Dareste,
'Inscriptions imprecatoires trouvees a Carthage', BCH I.2
(1888), 299), we read the following: l[opid{w 111;,VEKv6aiµovaw
('I conjure you, spirit of the dead, untimely departed'). It
usual to choose the grave of a person who had died before th
time. Some of these might have died violent deaths, f3uuo9ava.r
or f3{aioi.The former term is actually found in the magical papyr;i,
(cf. f3io9avamv 1TJJEiJµa, PGM rv. 1950). A natural enough explana:-'
tion of this would be that these people, through dying before
their time, still had some of their vital energy left to them. The,'
could thus be used for diabolic purposes. This is broadly com
parable with the later belief that suicides were likely to beco
vampires, the race of the undead. Tertullian testifies to the f
that the ancients themselves thought along these lines (De anim
56): 'aiunt irnmatura morte praeventas [anirnas] eo usque vag
istic, donec reliquatio compleatur aetatum quas tum pervixissen .
si non intempestive obiissent' ('They say that those who were cul
off by an untimely death wander here continually, until theri
elapses a period of time equivalent to the age that they would,
have reached if they had not died untimely'). Tertullian is, o
course, a late source, but then so is the phenomenon we are
dealing with. 29
Sometimes, however, even a spirit seemingly at rest will be
conjured. At PGM IV. 368 ff., we read the fol]owing injunction:
µ71 µov 1ra.pa1<avav,;, I VEKt18atp,ov,TWV(VTOAWVKa( TWVovaµa-rwv, I
dAA' iyetpov µovov O'EaVTOV 011"0'TTJS lxo1fo71,;I 11£ava1rcu)O'EWSC,
OO''Tt<;.
11"0Tf ET, t:i'TE 9ii IAV<;,
EfTE &.pO'TjV, l<ai v1ray1;... µo, T~V 6Eiva ('Do not
disobey my commands and the names, 0 spirit of the dead, but.
just rouse yourself from the rest that holds you, whoever you are,
whether male or female, and bring to me N').
The use of the word lfopid(w is very interesting. It is clearly
semantically the same as Latin conjurare and English conjure--a
word still used today of spirit-raising. According to LSJ, the.
word is a later development of the classical lfop1eow. The latter
word is found at Dern. 21. 65. Interestingly, Harpocration has
29 The idea that people have a fixed span of lifo is well known from the c.lassical
period--cf. Soph. Ant. 896 and Eur. Ale. 168. A speculative person might con-
jecture that some such thought lies at the heart of the cult of heroes. These people
often die unusual or spectacular deaths. But this could only be a partial explana-
tion.
Prayer and the Cult of the Dead 131
replaced the l{op1<ovvTE<; of the codices with lfop1<l(oVT£<;
at Dern.
54. 26. This suggests that the words were felt to be the same. The
meaning would therefore be 'to administer an oath to [some-
body]'. One can op1<({1;w something in the name of a particular
power, e.g. PGM IV. 397ff. dpKl{w 11€ Kara 'TOV tpo/3EpovµEyaAOIJ
,at:w fjaq,pt;vEµovv. ... The idea is presumably that the magician
makes the spirit take an oath whether it wants to or not. In this
respect, the word l[opKl{w is very like the word ,<a.ra3w. The
practitioner simply announces that he is doing something and,
as far as he is concerned, it has actually happened. One does not
wait around to see if the spirit has actually taken the oath. This
mentality is at the root of the modern use of the word 'to exor-
cize'. The spirit is compelled to obey the priest. The only dif-
ference is that the priest wants the spirit to leave whereas the
ancient magician will have wanted it to stay and help. I do not
know of any classical Greek exorcisms in the modern sense of the
word, i.e. spells designed to make evil spirits go away.
In this chapter, then, we have seen how the dead were remark-
ably like the gods, or at least the chthonic gods, in the cult that
they received. They were, however, not gods. Gods are extremely
powerful. Heroes are rather less so, being subject to the power of
the chthonic rulers, Hades and Persephone. The ordinary dead
have an even more restricted sphere of influence. What is most
significant, however, is that they were seen as part of the network
of xapis every bit as much as the gods.

8 before. Denniston collects several examples which convincingly
The Language of Prayer
In this chapter we shall examine the structure of Greek petition
ary prayers and attempt to make deductions about the religio
mentality of the Greeks on the basis of their recurrent use
particular words.
THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF A PRAYER
Ausfeld showed I that even the most elaborate Greek prayer c
be reduced to the following three parts: (1) invocation, (2) p
epica,"' which we shal] call argumentum, and (3) request. We h
seen already that this is not an obligatory scheme. A mini
combination of (I) and (3) will suffice to make a prayer. Chapter
deaJt at length with the question of the mentality behind t
argumentum, so we shall confine our attention here to the diff.
ent words and formulae used in parts (r) and (3) and attempt
evaluate their significance.
Many Greek prayers are formed with &,\,\a ('but') followed
the imperative or infinitive, e.g. Aesch. Cho. 306: 1i.\,\' J, µ.e,-yd
Moipai, J,o(h,v -rf18ETEA.rv-rav
("a.,\,\a, 0 mighty Fates, let thin
from Zeus come about thus''). Denniston argues that the for
of a,\,\a in such contexts is less strong than that found in oth
contexts. 3 He says that, whereas &,,\,\dwith the imperative usuall
means something like 'Come now, do such and such', in prayers
'merely marks a gentle transition from the known present to t
unknown and desired future, corresponding very closely with th
English "well"'. In the example quoted above, it is indeed cl
that Orestes, having decided upon revenge, turns to address th.
1
Ausfeld. s15 ff.
2
This is the part of the prayer where the petitioner adduces reasons why
re1uest should be granted.
J. D. Denniston, The Greek Particles (Oxford, 1934), 15 f.
The Language of Prayer I]]
Fates without any strong sense of a break with what has gone
corroborate this point. He also points out that, in some cases, a,\,\d
is used to introduce a prayer which begins not at the beginning of
a speech but at some point during its course. The sense of transi-
tion is naturally somewhat stronger in these prayers. In addition
to the fifth-century examples quoted by Denniston, we might add
II. 17. 645 and Od. 3. 380. It seems that there is another important
use of &,\,\d in prayers which has not, to my knowledge, been
noticed so far. This usage is limited to Homer. In some Homeric
prayers, a,\,\d is used not at the beginning, but to mark the transi-
tion from the invocation or argumentum to the actual request. An
example of this is Iliad 8. 242:
ZEii minp, tj prf.-ruli;871/nr1,pµ.w£wv {Ja.a~17wv
ryj8'd-ry aa.aa.s ,ad µ.,v µ.lya KVOO<; 6.1T7/1Jpa<;;
oil µ111a.,,71'07( ,/,71µ,1ndv 'TN£ptKaAliea {Jwµ.dv
V7Jt 1TOAvK,\17iiS11ta,nMU/J,O' tppwv,
l118a8e,
ill' i1tl 1Ta0'1 {Jowv8-qµ.cw Kai µ.11pl'
tK71a,
U/J,O'osTpo11111 EUTEfxrnv lfaAcmrf.fa,.
d,\.~d.Zeii, -r68.,1tlp p.01 i1t&Kp171111ovU.J..owr
«UTQVSa.,, 1T<'p ~aaov V1Tf:K,/,1ryJnvKal dJ..v[iu,
p.178'oif-rw TpwHJO'IV ta 8dµ.vaa8a. :Axaiour.
Father Zeus, was there ever a mighty king whom you blinded with a
blindness like this, robbing him of great glory? I tell you that I have
never passed by a beautiful altar of yours as I came to this wretched place
on my many-oared ship, without burning the fat and thighs of oxen on
them all, keen as I was to lay waste Troy of the beautiful walls. Comenow,
then, Zeus, grant this wish for me. Allow us to flee and escape and do not
allow the Achaeans to be beaten thus by the Trojans. 4
In-vocatirm
Doubled Vocatives
Most prayers, obviously, contain the name of the addressee in the
vocative. It is unnecessary to give examples. Sometimes, however,
the vocative is repeated, e.g. Z.rv, ZEv. A few examples from
tragedy are Aesch. Ag. 973; Cho. 246, 382, 855; Eur. Hipp. r363.
Apparently, this device is most common in Aeschylus' Agamem-
4 Cf. II. 1. 508, rn. 463, 16. 523.
r34 The Language of Prayer
non which, according to Scott, has more doubled vocatives than
any other Greek tragedy. 5 One recalls the words of Christ on the
cross, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' 6 The
source of that exclamation is not Greek but Hebrew, namely
Psalm 22: I. On the basis of its presence in Greek, Roman, and
Jewish sources, we might conclude that we are dealing with some-
thing pretty close to a universal feature of prayer language. It is
easy to see how one might call twice upon a god if one felt that
one's request was particularly urgent. The repetition is meant to
add force to the utterance. 7
Verbs of Hearing and Verbs of Coming
There are several ways of attracting a god's attention. One can
simply address him in the vocative, e.g. Il. 2. 412: Zd) Kullm-r£
µ.£yu1n, 1<eAa11mpls,aUUp, vafow ('Zeus most glorious, greatest, ye
of the dark clouds, who dwell in the sky'). Very frequently, how-
ever, one uses the aorist imperative 1<>.v81 ('hear'). One of the
many occurrences of this is at 11. J. 37: 1<A&8, µ.ev, &pyvpchof
('Hear me, god of the silver how'). It is noticeable that this
word in this tense is found most frequently in Homer-elsewhere
we have only two examples, in Aeschylus (Cho. 139, 332). It is
very rare in inscriptions (SEG xxix. 1202. r).
It is well known, since the work of Rudiger Schmitt, 8 that
Homer's language in some cases preserves formulae that are
paralleled in Vedic Sanskrit and are likely to have been part of
a common Inda-European poetic inheritance. Although KAv6,,
because it is a single word, cannot be properly called a formula,
we may think it is a candidate for inclusion in the list of Inda-
European survivals. In Homer, it never appears anywhere other
than at the beginning of a line. (The same is true of the Orphic
Hymns, too, but this could easily be due to the influence of
Homer.) One feels that this phenomenon needs explanation. Is
its confinement to the first foot a result of metrical constraints or
can we discern another reason?
If we look at the distribution of d&f:li in prayers couched m
5
I. A. Scott, AJP 26 {1905), n 6
Matt. 27: 46; Mark 15: 34.
7
For instructive parallels from Vedic, see J. Gonda, Stylistic Repetition in tlie
Veda (Amsterdam, 1959), 45; also 29, 31.
s R. Schmidt, Dichtung und Dichtersprache in indogermanischer Zeit (Wiesbaden,
11,167);lndogermanische Dichtenpmche (Dannstadt, 1968).
The Language of Prayer 135
metres other than the hexameter, and also at the distribution of
the synonymous imperatives KAu£, 1<AuETE, Ki.KAuO,,aKou£, and
aKavaovboth in hexameters and elsewhere, we see that they are
much less tied to the beginning of the line. 9 This would seem to
suggest that metrical considerations were the determining factor.
But there may be another possibility.
KAv8,is etymologically identical to Skt. irudhi, plural irota/
sruta,and Avestan sraota, from an IE root •klu. Could it be
that its appearance at the beginning of the verse reflects an
ancient liturgical custom dating from the Inda-European period?
The way to check this would be to look at the position of irudhi in
the Vedic hymns. They are fairly ancient and, if they tallied with
Homer, we might reasonably conclude that we were dealing with
an Inda-European phenomenon. Unfortunately, out of all the
(not particularly numerous) appearances of the word irudhi in
the Rig-Veda, only a little over half are at the beginning of a
verse. 10
So the tendency to put KAv81as first word must be a purely
Greek phenomenon. 11 Why might this be? It is interesting to
note that there is a difficulty with the vowel correspondence
between 1<Av81 and Skt. irudh{. Greek shows a long vowel where
the Sanskrit [u] is etymologically short. It has been suggested
that the long vowel in Greek should be explained by metrical
9
,in.,,, Soph. El. 643 (middle of line}; a,wvaov, Od. 6. 325 (middle of line);
Aesch. Cho. 459 (first word), 500 (middle of line); ii1ta1<06aan, Ar. Nub. 1.74 (first
Ji. 10. 284 (firllt word); 1<t\v,,Aesch. Cho. 157 (first word); Soph. El.
word}; 1<t1<t\11lh,
1376 (last word); KAIIETE,Eur. Phoen. 005 (first word); .,,\i,8,, Aesch. Cho. 139
(middle of line), 332 (first word).
w Initial position: Rig-Veda, 1. 44. 13; 2. 11. r; 6. 21. 10; 6. 26. r; 10. ri. 9; 10. u.
9; 10. 61. 21; elsewhere in verse: I. 48. ro; 6. 17. 3; 8. 25. 12; JO. 61. 14; ro. t25. 4.
That half of the examples are sentence-initial may count for something, of course,
but we cannot tell whether non-initial irudhi is an innovation or a continuation of
an earlier state of affairs. When the word appears non-initially, this is not, as far as
I can see, due to any metrical constraint {see E. V. Arnold, Vedie MetTt! (Cam-
bridge, 1905) ).
11 There may, however, be a small throwback to Indo-European tradition at II.
5. 115, where some read ..,,\i,81 I""' and not 1<,\i,8, ,.011. Cf. ~'l on Od. 15. 172.;Porph.
ad ll. 273. 7, The dative is difficult to explain in Greek terms: is it really a datimu
commodi (R. Kilhner and B. Genh, Ausfulirliche Gmmmatik der griecliischen
Spmchel (Hanover and Leipzig, 1898-1904), ii/1. 359, A, 7, cf. p. 491)? Similarly,
at Aesch. Cho. 157 we have 1<AIIE 81;µ.01 aiflo.~, which Conington took as an ethic
dative in his 1857 edn. In the Rig-Veda, the dative is somet.imes found with verbs
of hearing (A. Macdonell, A Vedie Grammar for Studentt (Oxford, 1916), § 200 A.
1. d). Its survival in Greek may have been a direct result of this Vedic usage.
 136 The Language of Prayer
lengthening. The argument is that it is hard to see how one coul
fit • KAi18tinto a hexameter line. If, however, it were placed at the
beginning of the line, then it could be given a long vowel and
12 .
thus made to scan. I do not see the force of this argument •.
There are plenty of words of this pyrrhic (-) shape in Hom '
Much more plausible are the views of Wyatt, who thinks t
KAvlhcame about not by metrical lengthening but by a process o
analogy. 13
The fact remains, though, that the word KAvlh comes first
any Homeric prayer containing it. This must have some signifi
cance. One does not begin by naming the god. One begins b
calling for attention. 14 This is worthy of note; but not all Gree
prayers are like this. Indeed, there are plenty of prayers in Home
which do not contain KAv01 .. It is an interesting but not essentiaf
feature.
Telling a god to hear you was one way of beginning a prayer.
Alternatively, you could enjoin the deity actually to come to you.
The commonest word used for this is J>.01.The imperatives o
p.oA£ivare also used, but rarely (Ar. Lys. r297; Thesm. I r 55). On
only one occasion, outside the Orphic Hymns, is J>.Oicombined
with KAv81and that is at ll. 23. 770. In the Orphic Hymns, it is.
common to begin with KAv0iand end with I.AOI.,l>i.Oots, lpxEO,or,
once, µ.&>.n·,;(3. 3, 14; 9. 1, 11; 36. I, 13; 48. I, 6; 49. 4, 7; 59. 2, 16).
In the light of this, we might examine the validity of Ausfeld's
remarks (pp. 516-17) on the difference in tone verbs of hearing
and verbs of corning.
If, using these examples, which form part of a much larger number, we
consider which ritual formulae exhibit the most intrinsic force and the
least regard for the gods, it is immediately clear that formulae of hearing
and coming by which the god is advised to look down from heaven, so to
12
\\~ Schulze, Kleine Schri/ten (Gottingen, 1934), 55.
ll W. F. Wyatt, Metrical Lengthening in Homer (Rome, 1969), 209ff. His idem is
that there was an originally inherited pair of imperatives for the singular and
plural, • 1<>.r,thand 1<Al>rt. He argues that the lengthening came about by analogy
with verbs like ,,->.,;11,, where the long vowel is the result of a laryngeal in the
,,.-).11,,.-e,
root (tleH1- > ,,-,\71-).On all of this, see E. F. Tucker, The Creation of Morphola-
gical Regulan·ry (Gottingen, 1990), 365 ff.
14 As M. L. West has pointed out (Hesiod: Theogony (Oxford, 1978), 141), the
fact that 1<.\08, can be found alongside a:,;,.,, makes it likely that it means not just
'hear' but 'hear and grant'; d. Sappho L S-7, al m>Ta 1<aTipwTa / TtlS €/"''"aiioo~
ltlo,oo. '"1>.o,J ;c.,;i.,,.,~.
The Language of Prayer 1 37
speak, on human affairs, show greater regard for the gods and their
nature than do verbs of coming.
[i] Kenyon, Greek Papyri in the British Museum, p. I 16, Pap. CXXII,
to Hermes: [l.\9]i µ01 1<up,E 'Epµ-fiws ril. f1piefrqeis ni, KoiAfos raw yvva,1<w11,
l.\0i µ01 KVpui'Epµ,;;•.• vs. 14 ... lMUµ.01 ••• vs. 84 ... 71811 if3'f/Taxtl raxii
lv 17'111111<r1
,-a.6711
l.\81 ['Come to me, lord Hermes, as babes into women's
wombs, come to me, lord Hermes ... come to me ... now, now, quickly,
quickly, come to me in this night'J.
m [ii] Dietrich, Pap. mag. mus. Lugdun. Bat. p. 803, Pap. XVIII 6 (Jhrb.
Suppl. XVI): Efo€.\0e 1<Vp11; Kal xP1J,,,J.m1ov['Come, lord, and make me
wealthy'].
[iii] Dietrich, Abraxas, p. 185. 3: €iaE.\8eKai l11aKav116vµa, ... 5 .. .
doe.\lloVTO,- 3l TOV8Eov p.~ lvavr1CETi} oi/m ['Come and listen to me .. .
when the god has come do not meet his gaze'].
[iv] Pap. Paris. (Wessely) v. 709: µIv£ utlv lµt (sic!) b, 11'/ tfwxjj µ011.3100:
l,\8/:81 Trar,;,8£1,Kat MyE lv dv«yKTJ['Stay with me in my soul. Come, god,
and speak-you must do so'].
Ausfeld's working assumption is that individual words can
definitely be labelled as inherently disrespectful, as though they
were somehow marked as such in the religious lexicon. 13 The use
of the magical papyri is an attempt to prove this.
Ideally, one would prefer not to bring such late sources into the
discussion. Although the magical papyri may well contain much
early material, it is in practice often difficult to distinguish
between the ancient and the modern. However, before we look
at the classical sources, it ought to be pointed out that even on his
own terms Ausfeld gives a rather partial selection of the evidence
from the magical papyri. It is, in fact, by no means dear that i>i.lU
is always coercive in those texts. Arthur Darby Nock observed 16
15
Faraone, 18-H}, diso:.'Ussesthe similar arguments of Nabers, who thought that
li1rayay£r£ on one lead tablet from Morgantina sounded magical whereas 'll'<m3,f-
,a{I, on some others from the same place was more religious in tone. He concluded
that the tablets with ~X"f"'' or its compounds were prayers to the chrhonic powers
lo receive the souls of the dead and not defi:r:iones.
However, pace Nabera, 3£)(oµ.cuis
dearly being used magically in 'SGD' n8, because of in context. It appears on a
lead tablet and they are the usual medium for curses, not for sepulchral epigrams.
S,xw.1.a,can appear on sepulchral epigrams, though. I have found it at SEG viii.
799 and xxiv. r::39. It does not, of course, invalidate the argument from context-
the epigrams ue on stone, not lead. But it is still worth noticing. It supports the
view that individual words are not inherently magical or religious. They become
so by their contexts. Faraone does not dte these texts.
16
Nock, i, 19off.
138 The Language of Prayer
that we can ask of the magical papyri the same question
Lucan asked of the witches-'ignota tantum pietate merentur,
an tacitis valuere minis?' ('Did they get their power from so
unknown piety or from silent threats?'). The papyri are a curio
mixture of magical compulsion blended with an 'ignota pietas'
a vaguely Gnostic kind. We can appreciate this if we look at PG
n:po!, "H"Aiov('Communicati
III. 496ff., the so-called UVO'TaOt!,
with the Sun'):
(496) lliupo 8vip& pm •.• ( 497) ... l-rrd,mua&v µ.ou lv 1ravTf if>[ln:1TE
wpdyµ.rm ... ( 5 35) ... Jn ofoa IJOVTd. tJ[71µ.]daKai 'Td.11apdG71µa.. 3,&,KU
1rol71aovnl lliiva 1rpa[yµ.Ja lzvarK'!l,µ.~ 'TdVov[p]av.lv KWl)GW••• ( sso)
1£01 Iv Ti, &ylq.aov ff"Ep,aTpo<{,fj'TOI) dyfov 1TV£1iµ.ct'TOS,ff"ctll'TOS KTIO"Ta,/fojjv IJ
KofpavE 11aVT6f,81ao-nio-a, TOV K61Jµ.ovT<po-Eav,ov ,rva.lµ.an IJE[l]<y'•.• ( S
~'If ailToliE,\[71,,ji]KOIT1),8,8ail.-lµ.of, ,,j, ,M
V..(Uµ.ot ,,\apiji ,lj:i w-poo-w1Tlf!
(wl)v, t½,fnav, GWT7lplav, 11,\aii,rov, £1iTEKVlav,yvoor,111,EVaKo'iav, tcliµ.EVEI
x&.pw,1<<i.AAos
,;illloftav, µ.V17µ.71v, 1<,A•••
(496) Here, here, come to me ... (497) ... hear me in all that I instru
... (535) ... I know your signs and symbols. Therefore, lord, do un
compulsion N that I want, lest I shake the heavens ... (550) come to
in the holy orbit of your holy spirit, establisher of all, god of gods, lord
all, who ordered the universe by your divine spirit ... (575) come to
with gracious countenance to the desired bed giving to me, N, lifi
health, safety, wealth, offspring, gnosis, good spirits, good counse
good repute, memory, favour, beauty ...
There is no denying the coercive elements in 496, 497, and 535
The threat to shake down the heavens is particularly explic ·
Perhaps because of this explicitness, it is difficult to see wh
summoning the god should be seen as the specifically coercive
element-assuming that Ausfeld would want to say that 8,::iJpo•
equivalent to JA81:.When the god is asked to come at 575, th
situation is suddenly rather different. The god is meant to com
with a glad expression and give the magician all sorts of things
Health, wealth, safety, beauty, and offspring are common enou
requests in Greek prayers of all ages. It is tempting to specula
that uwT71pfo.has a mystic meaning here, but it need not have. It '
very common in official Athenian inscriptions to hear that mag·
trates have prayed for the owr71pfo.of the city. However, to pra
for yvwui~ is unusual. The references to the omnipotence, bene
valence and 'holy spirit' of the god do not seem coercive bu
respectful.
The Language of Prayer r39
Similarly, in passage (i) above (p. 137), Hermes is told to come
to the magician as babes come to their mothers' wombs. Some
might argue that 17071 raxvraxvlooks like a magical formula,
71871
where the anaphora is meant to persuade. Is persuasion magical?
If anything, the magician here seems to crave a particularly deep
kind of mystical union with the deity. He wants to be intimately
bound up with it. The same idea is present in passage (iv). The
god is asked to stay in the magician's soul. It is true that the
transition to Mytc £Vdvd:y1C17 represents a switch to a more threa-
tening tone, but once more this does not entitle us to assume that
the passage itself is coercive or disrespectful. In passages (ii) and
(iii), it has to be conceded that the magician is calling the god for
his own purposes. He wants the god to obey him and bring him
profit. However, I think we have seen that the tone of these
prayers is anything but consistent. They seem to lurch from
threat to adoration and back, sometimes within the same sen-
tence. When we look closely, we find that JA81:. can just be a
summons but that, importantly, it can sometimes express a desire
for mystical union. One might compare part of the so-called
Mithrasliturgie (PGM rv. 630), where the invocation 11"pOuEA8£
results in a vision of light and a fiery-haired young god, in a
white robe and purple mantle. This is surely more mystical
than magicaL As Nock points out, 17 this is a text about how to
achieve salvation, and the emphasis is less on coercion (PGM IV.
777 is an attenuated form) and more on the divine wi11 itself
(PGM IV. 499, 642).
No doubt Nock is correct to say that there is an essential
difference of tone between the papyri and the Gnostic texts which
they adapt: 'The authors and readers of the Pistis Sophia (like
Neoplatonist students of theurgy) were passionately eager to
know how the wheels went round, the authors and readers of
the magical papyri simply wanted to make them turn.' 18 But that
is an overall judgement and we have seen above that the papyri
contain passages which there is no good reason to call coercive
and that V.81:.appears in such passages. We are therefore in a
position to reject the claim that, even in the magical papyri,
EA81:. has intrinsically magical connotations.
Even if one were to find other passages, not cited by Ausfeld or
17
Nock, i. 192. ll Ibid. 193.
 The Language of Prayer
Nock, where V.(U is disrespectful, is it tenable to argue th
because J'AOJ is magical in the papyri, then it must be so in earl'
sources? I think it would be grossly misleading. There are so
genuinely eerie contexts in classical sources where we encount
the use of the verb J).8/ (Soph. El. I I 5; Eur. El. 680; Hee. 536; C
602), but it is still not clear that their employment in th
contexts makes them inherently magical. Surely lABi is simpl
the sort of thing one would say to a god in any case.
What then of the classical authors? The occurrences of J).8i an
p.OAE are few enough for us to review them and see that, here too
it is the context that dictates the tone. We begin with the parts o
llllU. First, there are the contexts which can safely be calle
magical-involving psychagogy or at least the invocation of
hero. There is an invocation of the House of Hades, Persephone
Hermes Chthonios, Ara, and the Erinyes at Soph. El. uoff., wit
the request that these powers should send back Orestes (line I 17) 1
who is their only hope. At Eur. El. 680, Agamemnon is invoke
by Orestes and Electra to come to their aid bringing as his arm
all the men who fell at Troy. In Eur. Hee. 536, we have the
invocation of Achilles to come and drink the blood of Polyxena.
Odysseus invokes Sleep at Eur. Cyc. 602. Heracles is invoked by
Amphitryo at Eur. HF 494. The famous invocation of the Clouds
at Ar. Nub. 269 uses lll0En, too. The Clouds are portrayed by
Aristophanes as eerie, mystic deities who do not seem to fit into
any easily defined category.
A text which seems to occupy a middle ground and over which.
there has been quite some debate is Sappho, fr. r (Page). Sappho
uses the word {A81when invoking Aphrodite. Archibald Cameron
has demonstrated admirably that lines 21 ff. of that poem are
clearly magical in tone because of their close formulaic agreement'
with certain magical texts. The antithetical ai oi µ.~ </,UEt, 'Taxiws
<ptATJUEt is found in PGM IV. 15 11. The insistent 'Tax1:w, may echo.
r'f611'1611'TaxvTnxv of Kenyon (see passage (i) cited bv Ausfeld, ·
19 •
above). Cameron seems to me, however, to go too far in sug-
gesting (p. 3) that the Ei 1ro1"E clause of Sappho's I. 5, where l)i(JI:
occurs, is an attempt to get the goddess to obey by some kind
of sympathetic magic. He follows Dornseiff in saying that this
passage, in common with Hom. II. 10. 284 ff., goes into a surpris-
19 A. Cameron, 'Sappho's Prayer to Aphrodite', HTR 32 (1939), 9.
The Language of Prayer I,,P
ing degree of detail in the hypomnesis (or argumentum), if com-
pared with the terseness of Soph. OT 164. It is true that there is
more detail here, but this alone surely does not prove that we are
necessarily dealing with a spell. Cameron concedes that Sappho
may not consciously mean it as a spell but that she is using a
formula that has survived from spells. All this seems hard to
believe. Surely Cameron gives us the substance of the answer
when he says that the address seems aimed more at the reader
than at the goddess. It is an example of the poet adding detail for
the reader within the framework of a traditional prayer. 20 This is
not to say, of course, that the spell type referred to by Cameron
does not exist. It is now referred to as the historiola. Examples
can be found in Faraone, e.g. p. I 12:
I Otp]Q'T(l'r!p
ft]ua-ro8,/icosKl1"!"€K(l[V871 I ... foT<iM[ic]wv
8' Iv bpu Ka'T1:Kav{J[17]
icfY'ivas,t1f'T'dp[ic-rwv], I e1TTd,\E&v-rwv.twTd 8t 'l!'ap8E(v1icat icv[a]vd.1r'8<1s
i;p<u>aav [tT)BwpiccU1rf1)m Kvavia,s ical ~oj,Bmava'.ic[dµ.]a-rov
wvp.
The [ ] who receives initiates was set aflame--and on the highest moun-
tain peak was set aflame-[and fire did greedily gulp] seven springs of
wolves, seven of bears, seven of lions, but seven dark-eyed maidens with
dark urns drew water and quenched the restless fire.
This is part of an incantation designed to soothe inflammation. It
is very different from Cameron's Et,ron clause. We have seen that
such traditional argumenta, as opposed to historiolae, are a central
parr of the network of xapi,.The example from Sappho is closer
to these than it is to the historiolae of spells and so we are justified
in explaining the extra detail in lines 5 ff. as a literary rather than
a magical feature.
Then we have the uses of Vi,8Jin contexts which do not seem
explicitly magical. At Ar. Thesm. II38 ff., we hear that Pallas is to
be called to the gathering and the goddesses Persephone and
Demeter are invoked three times at lines n48 and II55 (71K1:n
. .. µ.ollE'Tov,
ill81:'Tov).We have an invocation of the power of Zeus
10
There is a recent discussion of this poem (esp. lines 21 ff.) by J. C. B.
Petropoulos, 'Sappho the Sorceress-Another Look at fr. 1 (LP)', ZPE 97
( 1993 ), 43 ff. This reiterates the point that lines 11 ff. are clearly magical in tone.
I agree with this-it is entirely plausible that a poem about love should draw on
love-spells. However, I still do not accept Cameron's analysis of what looks to me
like a perfectly normal ,'! ,ro,., clause at lines s ff. As we shall see later in the
chapter, unnecessary details in prayers can be explained by reference to the
hymnic tradition. Petropoulos does not deal with lines 5 ff.
 The Language of Prayer
at Eur. Or. 1299f. Poseidon is called at Ar. Eq. 559. Pallas is calle
at Ar. Eq. 586 (dt/>1Kov,'arrive'). The Muse is summoned at Ar.
Ach. 665. lacchus is invoked at Ar. Ran. 326. Demeter is called
Ar. Ran. 387 (avµ7rapac1TdT1it, 'stand by us'), Iacchus is summone
again, at Ar. Ran. 397ff., this time with avvaKoAov8n ('follow').
Soph. OT 162ff. we have invocation of Athene, Artemis, an
Apollo. Artemis is also invoked at Ar. Lys. 1263 (µ&,\") and 129
(µ&,\ii). Athene is called by Orestes at Aesch. Eum. 289 (µo,\eiv). "
Parts of lKvOVfUll ('arrive') are sometimes used (Eur. Or. 123 it
R.hes. 228; Ar. Eccl. 958; SEG xxxii. 552. 3). Words like a.prif
('help') and aqi{t: ('save') need not always require the god to lea
his home but are sometimes found linked with verbs of coming (
Ran. 386 f.). It seems clear from the variety of situations above t .
many of the uses of these verbs of coming are not magical. The.
cases where they are must be contextually determined.
It should also be noted that J,\8Eis found far more commonly
on its own than in conjunction with other requests. The sort of
prayer that contains no request other than l,\8E is surely, so far
from being disrespectful, a mark of the desire of the worshipper
to enjoy the company and favour of the god. This joyful men-
tality is particularly evident in the cletic hymn to Iacchus at Ar.,
Ran. 324ff. and the address to Persephone and Demeter,• Ar.
Thesm. n55ff. Since we are dealing with a representation of a.
real cult, there is a good chance that the tone, if not the actual
words, is dose to real life. This aspect of 1,\0eis far more impor-,
tant than any supposedly magical connotations.
A curious and important fact is that we never find the verb l.>..8J
in any of the prayers which are said to accompany animal or
human sacrifice in our fifth-century literature. At II. 2. 412ff.,
Agamemnon sacrifices an ox and prays for victory. There is no
narrative reason why J,\(Ucould not be used. At II. 3. 276ff., we
have the oath-sacrifice before the truce. It is understandable that
EA8E does not appear in this context-the various powers invoked
can see from afar. At Eur. Hee. 534ff., we have the sacrifice of
Polyxena to Achilles. This seems to be an exception in that J,\8J
appears at line 536. \Ve can perhaps understand why it does this
by comparing it with a passage containing many verbal echoes of
this one, IA 157off. where Agamemnon is sacrificing lphigeneia
to Artemis. The parallels are: 8E(at ('receive', Hee. 535, IA 1572);
8wpoJµ.e8a ('we give you a gift', Hee. 537, IA 1572); 8&s ('give',
The Language of Prayer 143
Hee. 540, JA 1575). The word that is striking by its absence from
JA prayer is lA8e. The only difference between the two prayers is
the addressee--the Hecuba prayer is addressed to a dead man
whereas the IA prayer is addressed to the goddess Artemis. It
therefore appears that we have to reformulate the rule to say that
10Enever appears in sacrificial prayers to celestial deities but may
J.;!
be used in prayer to a hero. When Aegisthus sacrifices at Eur. El.
805 ff., he does not use l,,\(U, He just asks for continuing good
fortune. When Menelaus sacrifices a buU on the prow of his
escaping ship, he asks Poseidon to save him. It may be that he
does not invoke Poseidon to come because he is already at hand in
elemental form. When Cloud-cuckoo-land is being founded, the
initial sacrifice is accompanied by a comic prayer which does not
use the word J>..8E. There is no obvious reason why not. At Ar.
Pa.x 977, Eirene is asked to accept the sacrifice, but not to come
and accept the sacrifice. There is no use of J,\Oi in the prayer
accompanying the sacrifice at Ar. Ach. 247ff.
The one truly problematic case is Nub. 269ff. The Clouds have
been invoked and Socrates ends (274), V7raKotfoaTe: 6tifdp.Eva,8vutav
Kai Tois 1epoi.a1xapt:'iaa.i('Hear, receiving the sacrifice and rejoicing
in the rite'). But he began, l,\81:n (269). What are we to make of
this seeming exception? As Dover observed, the first odd thing is
that there is no sacrifice here. 21 He thinks that formulaic language
has taken over in a situation where it does not belong.
If we look beyond the fifth century, however, we find other
examples. Herondas, Mim. 4. I 1 ff. has i,\"q, 61:vTt:/ r<l,Mwropos
rot18' ... Td1r1li&p7ria 8Efa1all1:('Hither, propitiously; accept the
side-offering of this cock'). The word l>i8n1:is not used but 81:uTE
could be taken to contain an ellipse of l,\8liTt:, to mean 'come
hither'. This is problematic. LSJ, s. v. I. 2 say that 81:upo/61:vTt:
can be a simple interjection before imperatives, rather like a.yli,
Under these circumstances, of course, it would not have the force
of a summons and our theory could stand. Unfortunately, the
examples in LSJ are not quite like Herondas. They give cases of
fiEvpoclosely followed by an imperative, usually the next word. In
Herondas, it is separated from a following optative (used imper-
ativally) by more than a line. Furthermore, the Orphic Hymn to
Liknites (OH 46. 8), has Eii,/,pwvtAllE, µdKap, Kt:xap,ap.ivo.o i1:pa
olfa1('Come propitiously, blessed one, and accept the delightful
11 K. J. Dover, Aristophanes: Clouds (Oxford, 1968), ad loc.
144 The Language of Prayer
offerings'). This is similar to OH 5r. 17, ;>,(hT'br'Evq,17µ,01,;lEpo"
K£xap71&T1 Ovp.(ji('Come to the hushed rites (often = sacrifice) wit
a rejoicing heart'). There are also references to O&a,a,('sacrifices'
at OH 86. II and 87. 11.
The amount of evidence is small. Do we want to take Aristo
phanes, Herondas, and the Orphic Hymns against the rest? He ·.
ondas belongs to the third century BC and the Orphic Hym
were probably composed in Asia Minor during the second cen
tury AD. It may be that these sources are too far removed from ou
archaic and classical material to be counted as serious exceptio
It is certainly tempting to give a theological significance to t
presence of l>..OIin the prayer to Achilles over the sacrific
Polyxena. Sacrifice is the central act of Greek religion. If one
sacrificing, one is opening up a direct channel of communicatio
to a deity. The presence of the god is presumably taken fo
granted, He does not need to be summoned. In the Hecuba seen
though, the aim is to summon up a dead man and appease him
One could imagine that there might be uncertainty abou
whether he is present. Achilles is not like Artemis. She had a
established cult. He is a dead hero beneath the earth and o
needs to be sure of having attracted his attention. This would
22
account for the presence of J>.Ol.
Perhaps the most striking thing about verbs of hearing am}
coming is that they emphasize the gulf between god and man whilst
at the same time pointing to man's eagerness to bridge that gul£
The same is true of various imperatives of 6exoµm ('receive'). 23 If
one were making a sacrifice, there was always the anxiety that the
god might in some way find fault and not accept it.
Use of Oe>.wv
In the light of the above refutation of the idea that e>.Oehas
coercive connotations, it is interesting to note that many Greek
prayers actually call upon a god to do something 8i>.wv.It is
important that the god should act of his or her own free will.
22
Similarly, it is possible to have UtU in the context of a !iba1ion:·we find this at
Soph. El. us (libations having been mentioned at line 84) and Aesch. Pert. 6S9
(libations were mentioned at line 624). These prayers and libations, being made to
ghosts, do not contradict but rather corroborate the general principle being argued
for here.
21
Aesch. Ag. 521; Eur. Hee. 535;JA 1572; Eur. fr. 912. 5 N 2 ; Ar. Pax9nf.; Lys . .204;
Vesp.876; Xen. Cyr. 8. 7. 3; Pind. Pytll. n. s: O,pllic Hymn 46. 8; CEG 345,367,416.
The Language of Prayer 145
4
Examples of this are Aesch. Ag. 664; Cho. 19, 793, 814;2 Supp.
144; Pind. lsth. 6. 43{. It is also possible to remind divinities that
they have aided one willingly in the past, e.g. Od. 20. 98 f.
and Words of the i>.-Group
Use of 'Tl'porppwv
No doubt bound up with the idea that the god should do something
willingly is the idea that he should be well disposed and propitious.
The words Eix/,pwv,'Tl'poef,pwv,
,>.a.os,and Evµ,a,,f,;tum up in very many
prayers. A list of these uses can be found in Appendix L
Tricolon
\Vhen Chryses is invoked by Apollo at Il. I. 37 ff., we find that the
line breaks neatly into three parts: osXp-,J<J7111 dµipi{Uf171,cas--KU>.av
TEla.Oi71--T£Vl3o,t5 Ti:fef,,avdaa1:1,;('you who protect Chryse-and
most holy Cilia-and who rule over Tenedos in might'). This is
an example of what is called tricolon. 25 At II. 6. 305, we have 71'&-rv,'
pua1'Tl'ToAi,
'A871va.{71, Sia 0£aWV('Queen Athene, saviour of the city,
shining goddess'). At ll. 7. 202, we find Zi:v 1Ta:r£p,"l6718a, µ.£3ewv,
d6taT£ µ.lyiaT1:('Zeus father, ruler from Ida, most glorious and
greatest'). The tricolon need not be limited to invocatory words.
Glaucus prays to Apollo at II. 16. 523 f. with the words T&i>£
1<:apTEpov
' £/\KOS
0\ I KOLJL7Jl10V
O.KE<JU(U
" ' O~·oovva.s,
'"'' ~ ' 0£
uos "'' Kpa-ros
, ('Heal
this great wound, quell the pangs, and give me strength').When
l\tlegara prays to Heracles in Euripides' Hercules Furens, we find a
tricolon of imperatives (494): ap71fov, J>..8i·Ka., a,cuz rpa.111/0! µ,o,
('help-come-appear to me even as a shadow'). This rhetorical
feature also occurs in Latin prose and verse. For example, Cic.
Fam. 5. 2. 10, 'si acerbe, si crudeliter, si sine causa sum a tuis
oppugnatus' ('if I was attacked by your people harshly, cruelly,
without cause'). In Horace, Epistles I. 13. 3, we find 'si validus, si
laetus erit, si denique poscet' ('if he is strong, if he is happy, if,
finally, he asks for them ... '). 26 This might be dismissed as a
2
•The manuscripts have 81).,,,,but Wilamowit.z emended to T,Ai,v.
15
See M. L. West, 'The Rise of the Greek Epic', jHS 108 (1988), usf.
26
See Fraenkel, on Agamemnon 1243; Fraenkel, Horace, 351. Cf. Soph. OT
312f.; El. 115;'Eur. Hyps. fr. 60. 16 (Bond). For triply repeated utterances cf.
\/erg. Aen. 6. so6, 'magna manes ter voce vocavi' ('I called upon the spirits three
times in a loud voice'). Aristophanes says of the dead (Ran. 1176), ou6tTpl~.\fyov-rES"
,t,.,vo6P£9a('We do not even reach them when we say it three times over'). The
idea of calling thrice on the dead, presumably either to make sure that they are
quite dead or that one has done one's best to recall them, occurs very early, at Od.
9, 65.
14.6 The Language of Prayer
mere copying from the Greek were it not for the fact that tricol
is also a prominent feature of the Vedic hymns, dating from ab
27
1000 BC. It is therefore likely that we are dealing with someth
that goes deep into the Inda-European past. Since the Vedas a
our earliest attestation of tricola in an Indo-European language,
is tempting to speculate that tricola were originally a feature
religious language which then spread into rhetoric and secul
poetry. It must be borne in mind, however, that such a conclusi
might be falsified if only we knew more about other forms
discourse at his period. What is not in doubt, though, is that
number three has always been an important number in magic a
this may have made it useful in liturgical contexts as well.
Perhaps a prayer elaborated into a tricolon seems more powerf
and more likely to succeed. A psychological motive for this m
perhaps be that repetition makes the person involved feel th
their commands are more forceful. If you say something mo
than once, you are showing how strongly you want it to co
true. The intriguing word -rp,>Jiu1Tor (Il. 8. 488), literally meanin
'thrice prayed for', presumably depends on the same idea. 29 Tri
colon is even found in the Christian liturgy, where, in the Glori
we have ' . . . who takest away the sins of the world, have mer
upon us, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upo
us, who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer' an
towards the end, 'For thou only art holy, thou only art the Lor
thou only, 0 Christ, with the Holy Ghost, art the highest in th
glory of God the father.' A similar thing appears in the Ago
Dei.
Request: TO 8£ ,li vi,c1frw
Fraenkel has shown that this refrain (Aesch. Ag. 121 et passim) is
part of a family of formulae used when a petitioner is particularly
concerned to secure the goodwill of the deity. As parallels, Fraen-
kel cites Aesch. Ag. 217, royap E11J('let it be weU'); Ag. 349, 70 o'e
,cpa7ol11('let the good prevail'); Supp. 974, E%1J OETa J.qn:1Ta ('let
what is best be'); Eur. Med. 89, eJ ydp taTat ('for it shall be well'),
where the scholi.ast says, TO OE"Eliyap taTru" 1i1'xoµ.i1111
AEjlfil ('she is
27
J, Gonda, Triads in the Veda (Amsterdam, r976), 225.
28
For parallels, see Gow on Tbeocritus, Idyll 2. 43.
29
Cf. rp1aµ&Kap and Hennes Trismegistus.
The Language of Pmyer 147
3
praying when she says "let it be well"'); SIG 1219. 2off. (Gam-
breion, 3rd cent. Be), e1Tfivx1:a8a1 Toi, eµ.µ.lvovaw ... E:JE1!11a1 ('to
pray that it will be well for those who obey'); Eur. Ale. 1004, xaip,
cL11&,,,1:EJ 8i 8ot11s('hail lady, give us good'); Soph. OC 642, Ji
30
Zfiv, 8,80,71,;
Tofot TotovT01awfiQ ('Zeus, grant good to such men').
This may be a good point to stop and reflect whether it makes
any sense to think of the Greeks having a set of words and
formulae which they recognized as belonging specifically to the
language of prayer. We have already seen that lMU, JI,OAfi, and ,cJ.v8,
are particularly well represented in prayers. But are they confined
to prayer or somehow more appropriate in that context than in
ordinary speech?
Research shows that ,cJ.v81is, in fact, a vox propria for prayer. In
Homer, it is confined to prayer. 31 A search on the TLG disk
shows that the same is true for all appearances of ,cJ.v8,in later
Greek literature. The rule does not, however, apply to the plural
imperative KAVTE. Already in Homer, that can be used when talk-
ing to mortals. 32 It is interesting to speculate, though, that the
plural may be being used in those cases in order to lend special
weight to the speaker's words because of the religious associations
of dii81. Aeschylus uses KAVTEin prayers (Cho. 399, 802), as does
Solon (fr. 13. 2 West). As we saw above, KAv91is, morphologically,
a very ancient formation. More interesting still, it may well be
that the restricted use of dii8, is something inherited from the
Inda-European tradition. The Skt. equivalent srudh{ is also only
ever used in the Rig-Veda when men address gods. 33 The impera-
tives in -8, were rare and limited to just a few verbs. I am sure that
its antiquity commended it for use in prayer. 34 We also find that
'D\719,('be propitious') is only used when speaking to gods. This
JO See E. Fraenkel ad. Joe. on what looks like the adverb ~J being used as a
noun.
JI See B. Snell, Le:tikon der friihgriechischen Epos (s.v.); cf. J. Kerschensteiner,
Hermes 79 (1944). 153 n. L
.ii II. 2. 56; Od. 4. 722, 6 . .139, 14. 495, 15. 17.i.
33
l am grateful to Prof. Alexis Sanderson for confirming this. There is one
apparent exception when the goddess Vac is telling her audience to bear the truth
she has to tell (io. 125. 4) and says irudhi iruta ('bear (sg.), bear (pl.)'= 'hear one
and all'). Perhaps we should not worry about the exceptional use of th.is word if it
is in the mouth of a goddess.
34
This may account for the appearance of 11,S...S, at Od. 3. 380. Imperatives in
-0, llrt" common enough in Homer but he does know the thematic form a,a.,., in
prayers (Od. 3. 58). Perhaps the older form "WIili felt to fit in better beside V.178,.
 The Language of Prayer
must partly be due to its lexical meaning. To be i,\aos is t
preserve of divinity. None the less, the archaic imperative ad
to the solemnity of the words. Similarly, q,avr,fh('appear; s
yourself') is used in many prayers (see App. 1) but very sel
when talking to human beings (ll. 18. 198). Another interest"
case is that of µ.o,\E:.Although it is not completeJy confined
prayers, it seems to appear in them far more often than it does
other contexts. The same is true of its plural. 35
So it looks as though KAvlh and µ.6,\e are especially associa
with prayer. This is rather an interesting finding. In the Christi
liturgy of the Book of Common Prayer, much of the langu
used in prayers seems to a modern observer to belong only
prayers. If one were to say to one's bank manager, 'I beseech th
grant unto me x' or 'vouchsafe to me x', he might suspect so
irony. What is striking, however, is that most of the other war
used in prayer could also be used in everyday human conver
tion, e.g. V18l, 86s, iKov, cpvAD.Gf1£, ')'EVOV, and i8ov ('come, gi
arrive, guard, be(come), behold'). One might thus wonder j
how much of Greek prayer was fixed and how much was exte
pore. In an expression such as Bosµ.o1J>.fJov('give me fortune'),
is not so much the vocabulary that indicates that we are deali
with a prayer as the fact that this is not really the kind of thi
that would make any sense addressed to a human being.
same goes for prayers like 8&,;; µ.01 Jy,dav ('give me health'). It
not the sort of thing one would say to one's doctor. In a sens
Greek prayers are characterized more by the sorts of things aske
for than by the language in which the request is couched.
It seems fair to assume that an oral tradition ensured th
transmission of such formulae and voces propriae as there wer
in Greek prayer language. People would learn about 1<l.v8,and
8t 80/iq,;;
from their elders. However, beside this, we have one very
tantalizing piece of evidence pointing to written prayers kept in
temples. Proclus (Jn Ti. 65f) says that we should regard all.
prayers as examples of one of three categories: 811µ.ioupytKat,
im0apTtKa1, and {~owo,01 ('demiurgical, cathartic, life-giving').
Of the 1<a8apn1<at, he says, oia,;;8~ Kai b, -rok 1E:poi,;;;xoµ,£v avo.y£-
The Language of Prayer 149
these prayers have been like? \Ve do not know, but it is certainly
tempting to speculate that, beside the rather pedestrian 'give us
good things' formulae that are so familiar from prayers in Greek
literature, there might also have been some more artfully con-
. Is. 36
structed prayers used at certain. f est1va
A very small number of seemingly authentic cultic prayers have
survived intact. As we know, Greek religion had little centralized
organization and no Book of Common Prayer. These cultic
prayers are thus somewhat unusual and represent special cases
37
but they are none the less valuable.
(i) u£ KVEi(Proclus, In Ti. 3. 176, 26ff., 'Rain, conceive'). This
was the prayer of the initiates spoken at the mysteries. It has an
. wit. h f,ert1·1·1ty.38
obvious connection
(ii) DCJOJI, Daov,w,f,lAEi
Z£ii, Kant T'?S dpovpas T~S '.A(¼valwvKa2TWV
m,61wv(Marcus Aurelius, £ts fov-r6v, 5. 7 = PMG 854, 'Rain, rain,
O dear Zeus, on the ploughland of the Athenians and on their
plains'). Of this prayer, Marcus Aurelius said, if-ro, ov 8£i ,ilxea8a,
~ oihw, clw.\wsKai J>.rn8epw,; ('Either one ought not to pray or else
do so simply and freely like this'). Once again we see the fertility
connection. 39
(iii) wAE:iawvoo>.ovoQAovfo, iou>.ovfo (Cann. Pop. I, in E. Hiller
{ed.), Anthologia Lyrica (Leipzig 191 I = PMG 849, 'In greatest
abundance send the barley sheaf, barley sheaf, send down (?)').
This is thought to be a prayer to Demeter. LSJ think that oMos
and iou>.o,;;are cognate and mean 'barley sheaf'. This would
certainly be a fitting thing to ask Demeter for. That ovl.o,;;means
'barley ;heaf' is really just an informed guess. The usual meaning
of fov>.o!> is 'down'. This would also fit an agricultural context.
See Athenaeus, 14. 618d for the ancient debate on this question.
40
• ei\8,,v
(1v) ' " 1JPW
.. ...
Awvvae
, I 'A,\ ,
n fitwv , I ayvov
' vaov,
£S • ' auv ' X apff£aa,v
, I (S
vadv Tei> {Joecpwoo, 8vwv. / att£ mvp£, a[t£ -ravpE (Plut. Quaest.
Graec. 36 = PMG 871, 'Come hero Dionysus, to the temple of the
Alei, to the holy temple with the graces, rushing with your bull's
foot. Worthy bull, worthy bull'). This prayer has been discussed
3
" Ar. Thesm. 310; Eccf. 781; fr. 504 PCG; Eur. Hel. 754; Men. Kolllx, fr. r. sf.

ypaµ,µ,lva, ('like we have written up in temples'). What might (OCT}.

37
. .
I shall cite these prayers in the same order as they are given by Aubr,ot, J6f.
38
35 For further discussion, see F. Schwenn, Gebet und Opfer (Heidelberg, 1927),
Pravers: Ar. Lvs. u63, 1.z97.; Eur. Andr. 508; Hee. 1093; Ion 458; Phoen. 296; 3 ff; For bibliography, see Aubriot, 36 n. 8,
O,. 176; Bllcch. 553; Rhes. 226. Address to mortals: Soph. OC 88s. 30
Bibliography; Aubriot, 36. n. 9. .+o See Aubriot, 36 n. 10.
150 The Language of Prayer
at great length by many people. 41 The bull-form of Dionys ·
surfaces again in Euripides' Bacchae (1017) where the
42
invoked t/xf.vrJf.h
-ravpo,; ('show yourself as a bull'). It 1s
interesting that the infinitive is used as a command.
The fossil prayers so far quoted have in common a cert
simplicity. They are different in spirit from the more comp
literary things that have come down to us on stone. There
several interesting points to note about them. The most obvi
thing is that they are short. Also, they are concerned with £e
lity. Even the invocation of Dionysus mentions the Graces,
they are usually thought of as bringers of plenty. It is also noti
able that they all have a repetitive and jingle-like quality. This
probably because repetition and alliteration are thought
increase the efficacy of the action. 43 One hesitates to call th
magical. It is clear that rhetorical considerations, of an admitte
very crude kind, have played an important part in shapi
them. 44 It is assumed that these prayers were used in the archa
and classical periods. They certainly have an archaic look and f.
about them, if only because of their simplicity. It may be that
should see them as belonging to the class of prayers called
Proclus tq,o-rroio!('life-giving').
We shall end this formal survey with a short look at the use
verbs in prayers. We may begin by looking at the moods use
The best catalogue of these is the dissertation by K. Ziegler.
From his data, it seems that the most frequent mood used
express commands is the imperative (541 cases), then the optati
(207 cases), and then the infinitive (107 cases). In Homer, the
are 20 optatives in prayers but 72 imperatives. In all of the !yr·
poets taken together, there are 16 optatives, but over 30 impe
tives. 46 A similar predominance of imperatives is seen in Pind
41
Schwenn, Gehet 8ff.; for a comprehensive list, see Aubriot, 37 n. 11.
42
See Dodds's note, ad. loc.
43
Expressive gemination, whereby the force of a morpheme is increased
repetition, is an accepted concept in linguistics. One thinks of the Hebrew Hip
and Hophal intensives, which are formed by doubling one of the consonants of
root.
44
See J. de Romilly, Magic and Rhetoric in Ancient Greece (Cambridge, M
and London, 1974) on the whole subject.
45
K. Ziegler, De precationum apud Graecos Jormis (Diss. Breslau, 1905).
-«> Aubriot says (p. 258) that Ziegler's figures are, in fact, a gross distortion
the truth. She says that he omits a large number of the optatives that are to
found in Homer and the lyric poets. She is referring to the figures given
The Language of Prayer 151
the tragedians, and Aristophanes. The Orphic Hymns, on the
other hand, which date from the second century AD, are full of
optatives-26 of them in 87 hymns. According to Ziegler, the
writers of these hymns took seriously the criticism of Protagoras
on the opening line of the Iliad, namely that it was rude of Homer
to use an imperative in a prayer. 47 Ziegler concludes that there
was a gradual evolution to a state where the optative was pre-
ferred to the imperative because it was felt to be more polite. 48 I
do not doubt the truth of this but one ought not to lose sight of
the fact that tragedy, in particular, has a lot of optatives. They are
massively outnumbered by imperatives but, still, there they are. I
remain unsure as to how far, if at all, the audience of a fifth-
century tragedy perceived a difference between imperatives and
optatives. Aubriot takes the same view. She does not believe that
we should automatically see the optative as the mood of polite
religiosity and the imperative as the mood of boorish egoism. 49
The infinitive looks at first sight rather an odd way to express a
command or wish. The so-called imperatival infinitive may be
used as a second-person imperative or to express wishes relating
to the third (or, sometimes, the first) person. 50 If the infinitive is
doing the work of a second-person imperative, the subject is put
in the nominative or vocative case. The well-known invocation of
Dionysus from Elis (PMG 871) has l>..lkivifpw ..:h&vvaE.If it is
being used as a third-person imperative, the subject is in the
accusative, e.g. 11. 2. 413. This latter construction is believed by
Ziegler on pp. 10-u of his study, where he is counting those second-person
optatives which are doing the job of second-person imperatives, i.e. q181101, &hf
I''" ayalla equivalent to q19£ol, llor£ µo, <iya9&.He counts only two such, However,
he does later on (pp. 19 ff.) give a list of third.person optatives of the form ~ tl€<k,
y,voiro ;u,, <iyall&. He states that these are quite common in Homer and the lyric
poets. He lists 18 further Homeric optatives and 13 more lyric ones. He goes on to
say that the third-person optative is far commoner than the third-person impera-
tive during the archaic and classical periods (p. :u). Aubriot does not seem to refer
to these pages. Ziegler does not appear to me to be guilty of gross misrepresenta-
tion. When all these figures are added together, one still finds that the ratio of
imperatives to optatives in Homer is more than 3:1 and in the lyric poets about 2:1.
47
Aristot. Potrt. 1456bt 5 ff.
48
For a bibliography of discussions of the optative, see W. F. Bakker, The Greek
Imperative: An Investigation imo the Aspectual Di/ferl!1lcesBetween the Presl!llt and
tlu Aorist Imperatives in Greek Prayer from Homer up to the Present Day (Amster-
dam, rg<,<,) 108 n. 25. 49 Aubriot, 263.
50
Examples can be found in Kuhner-Gerth, Ausfiihrliclre Gmmmatik, ii/2.
l!,lff.
152 The Language of Prayer
some to be an accusative and infinitive depending on an ellipse of
verb such as Ms, i.e. 'grant that such and such may be the case' .5
The detection of an ellipse is a tricky and subjective business. 52
The imperatival infinitive is not an especially common phe
nomenon in Greek prayers. Ziegler counts 29 of them. 53 What ·
particularly noteworthy about these is that very few of them, i
. . as secon d -person imperatives.
. . 54 1 H
fact, are functlonmg n ome
there are s imperatival infinitives (Il. 2. 413 (2 examples), 7. 1
Od. 7. 311, 17. 354). None is acting as second-person imperati
This is somewhat surprising, since such imperatives are quit
commonly used in Homer when one human addresses another. 5
Pearce has recently suggested that the absence from prayers
imperatival infinitives acting as second-person imperatives can
explained on a socio-linguistic basis. He argues that, in ordina
human discourse, the imperatival infinitive is used when on
individual gives to another confident instructions or advice. I
would therefore, he says, be inappropriate for mortals to take th ·
sort of tone with the gods. 56 A serious obstacle to this view is th~
51
It is not unusual to find an explicit llJ_.with a following infinitive in prayer~
e.~. If. 3. 222, 351.
2 9
Imperatival infinitives relating to the third person are found in treaties an<f
agreements in Homer, e.g. Il. 3. 285f., 7. 79. An ellipse of .$65'being improbable, it
has been assumed that there is an unexpressed ;o,:if£V. Propositions of this kind are;
difficult to refute. However, it seems intuitively rather unlikely that one can
explain in terms of ellipse those cases in Greek where the infinitive is doing tmi
work of a second-person imperative. For example, are we really to believe that the
phrase V.IMv y/,pwLl,ovvtredepends on an ellipse of ,56;? It is worth noting that
Vedic and Avestan have imperatival infinitives that do not depend on ellipse; see P,
Sgall, Die Infinitive im Rig Veda (Acta Universitatis Carolinae 2; Prague, 1958); E.
Benveniste, Les Infinitifr avestiques (Paris, 1935).
53
De p,ecatianum ... fannis, 27 ff. According to Ziegler (p. 29), the single ·
author who uses this imperatival infinitive most often in prayers is Aristophanes.
Most memorably, in Ranae, he brings on Aeschylus and Euripides uttering.
prayers in tragic verses and using infinitives (Ran. 887, 894). This sort of infinitive
is somewhat rare in prayers in the epigraphic record. At JG ii2 • 4533. 9f., the
speaker expresses a wish that he will spend the rest of his life in the god's company
(vatuv).
54
I count 7: Hymn. Hom. Cer. 494; Anacreon, PMG 357. 8, 11; Cann. pap. PMG
87r. 1; hyllus 26; Aesch. Cha. 382 (if a.fLn~µ..,,.~w
is to be read; see Garvie, ad loc.);
Soph. Ant. 11.1,3; Ar. Vesp. 872. The other 23 examples cited by Ziegler are wishes
for the third or first person.
55
For examples, see now T. E. V. Pea.rce, 'The lmperatival Infinitive in Homer
with Special Reference to A 20', Mnemasyne, 49/J (1996), 283-97.
56
'Someone giving advice or instructions is normally confident
qualified to do so, and the imperatival infinitives mentioned above have a tone
of confidence, and often of authority' (p. 293).
The Language of Prayer 153
fact, noted by Pearce himself, that the imperatival infinitive is
twice used by suppliants. 57 One would have thought that some-
thing humble enough to be used in supplications would not be
inappropriate in a prayer.
Neuberger-Donath takes a somewhat different view. 58 Starting
from an examination of the language of treaties in Homer, she
concludes that 'the obligative infinitive wishfully appeals to the
sense of responsibility of the one spoken to, in his own interest or
that of others'. 59 She observes that 'Consistently, a human being
never addresses a god by an infinitive'. 60 One is left wondering
why not. Is it because human beings have no right to try to oblige
gods to do things? But we have seen that the Greeks were con-
stantly bringing forward reasons why their prayers ought to be
granted. It is hard to see why such a mild, wishful demarche
should be out of place in prayers.
/l. 22. 34-2;Od. II. 72 ff.
;i
58
R. Neuberger-Donath, 'The Obligative Infinitive in Homer and its Relation-
ship to the Imperative', Folio Linguistica 14/1 (1980), 65-82; not cited by Pearce.
She uses the terms 'obligative infinitive' where we have so far been referring to the
imfgeratival infinitive.
It is difficult, however, to see anything wishful in Zeus' command to the
baneful dream at Il. 2. ro. Maybe infinitives like this ought to be exempted as a
special case. They come after verbs of motion (J1atr,?i8,,line 8) and that may be
sufficient to explain the form (cf. W. W. Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses
of the Greek Verb (London, 1912), § 772 (b} ). A further problem for both Pearce and
Neuberger-Donath is what to make of those contexts where the imperative and
infinitive are found together, e.g. II. 3. 459, where Agamemnon tells the Trojans to
give back Helen and the booty that went with her, and to make fitting amends;
,,,/)on, Kat T<ft~V d,ro;w/;1-"'v eqv;w' f0'1<W. Neuberger-Donath says ('Obligative
Infinitive', 79), 'Agamemnon now avails himself of the right to demand the return
of Helen; however, with regard to the payments, he wistfully appeals to his
enemy's sense of duty.' It is difficult to see why he should need to do this. Pearce
believes that the imperative infinitive often refers to a 'further future' than the
ordinary imperative ('Imperative! Infinitive', 291, 293). Cf. C. Hentze, 'Der
imperativische Infinitiv in den homerischen Gedichten' Beitmge zur Kunde der
indog. Sprachm, 27 (1902), 100-37; R. Wagner, Der Gebmuch des imperatimschm
lnfinitius (Schwerin, 1891). However, Pearce classes II. J. 459 as an unusual case of
a11 imperatival infinitive referring to the immediate future. How can we say for
sure that d,roT1vlµ,a refers to the immediate future? Might it not refer to a process
beginning in the 'further future', once Helen and the booty have been retumed?
This shows up the complexity of the problem. Is the choice between imperative
and infinitive dictated by socio-linguistic factors such as authority or is the
difference one of time? If two factors are involved, how can we tell which is at
work at any given time?
•u Yet at p. 67 n. 4, she contradicts this thesis by citing two examples of the
imperative! infinitive that precisely do come in prayers.
154 The Language of Pra·yer
There is something strange about the absence from Hom
prayers of imperatival infinitives referring to the second pers
In later texts, a few such second-person imperatival infinitives
found, but they are still outnumbered by those rererring to
first or third person. We cannot tell why this is. Furthermore,
cannot really tell what factor determines the choice of imperat
infinitive rather than plain imperative. It is conceivable tha
single element can be isolated and that a variety of socio-lingui
or pragmatic considerations are in play, A detailed .study of th
matters is clearly a desideratum but that is something which
outside the scope of this book.
There has been a good deal of discussion about the distribuf
of the present and aorist stems in the various moods used .
prayer. The aorist predominates over the present in all moodi
Some have found this preponderance so startling that they th·
it needs special explanation. Several modern studies have call
into question our whole understanding of aspect, asking us
abandon the received idea that the present denotes a punc
action and the aorist a durative one. I do not accept the validity
this and I believe that this imbalance, whilst striking, does
require us to rethink all our views on aspect. The reader w
wants a more detailed discussion of the issues may tum
Appendix 2.
To move on to slightly different territory, I find it a Ii
difficult to agree with the conclusions that Aubriot draws w
she considers the difference between persons in verbs. She c
eludes that the second person of the imperative (of whate
tense) is actually more respectful than the third person of
optative (of whatever tense). 62 This, she suggests, is because
third-person optative is used when the speaker is making
request which he thinks ought to be fulfilled without questi
because entirely in keeping with divinely sanctioned laws.
second-person imperative, on the other hand, at least shows t
the petitioner has the courtesy to recognize the god as an indi
dual. Thus, when Chryses says Tffot:tav Aavaot (II. 1. 42), he
doing no more than demanding that Apollo punish an obvio
wrong. This could lead to difficulty. When Odysseus ble
Queen Arete and King Alcinous (Od. 7. 148) and says Oeolo
61
See App. :z for references.
The Language of Prayer 155
6offv, are we to suppose either that this is a rude way to talk of the
gods or that Odysseus sees such rewards as no more than the due
of a faithful host?6 3 Are we to interpret V.80, at Aesch. Eum. 297
as a request made by Orestes because he thinks Athene is bound
by some divine law? He simply says he wants her to come and
rescue him from his troubles. One could multiply such objec-
tions; I fear that we are unable to formulate a definitive judge-
ment about how the Greeks viewed these matters.
It is interesting to note, in this connection, that defiriones tend
to avoid second-person imperatives. The indices to Audollent
show that imperatives are used, but sparingly. People more often
used third-person imperatives and optatives, or first-person for-
mulae such as 1<:aTaokw. This might be thought to lend weight to
the idea that the third-person optative is somehow self-assertive
and takes no notice of the will of the gods in these matters. This
can only be speculation, though. There could be other reasons for
the choice. One can imagine a completely opposed explanation
that said that people were afraid to address imperatives to the
underworld deities and preferred to leave things with the more
wishful optative.
In this chapter, then, we have examined the language of Greek
prayer and seen some of the conclusions that can be drawn from it
about religious mentality. In the next chapter, we shall look at
what prayer was actually like in practical terms.
~J There is also the question, raised in Ch. 1, of whether such utterances as this
one of Odysseus have any real claim to he counted as prayers rather than wishes.
The ul<l'E,av of Chryses is, however. to my mind, a prayer since (a) the whole
utterance is called a ~~xiiby Homer, (b) it is addressed directly to Apollo, and (c)
there is in any case also an imperative 1<p,j71vav.

9 look at these matters later on.
Sitz im Leben
WHERE AND WHEN
Some religious groups recognize certain occasions as particular
appropriate for prayer. The Koran, for example, enjoins Musi'
to face Mecca and pray twice a day, at sunrise and sunset.
sacred duty, called Salat, is considered to be one of the Fi
Pillars of Islamic faith. 1 Christian worshippers are enjoined
attend Matins and Evensong, whilst those in monastic or
observe seven daily periods of prayer. Such prayers as th
might be called 'hourglass prayers'. In addition to regula
recurrent prayers, there are other, rarer, occasions when pra
is thought proper. The Book of Common Prayer sets fo
prayers which may be used in times of famine, drought, or ot
times of need. Such prayers, whilst not likely to recur frequen
are none the less provided for in the overall liturgical sheme
things, and we might call them 'situational'. In addition to the
any Christian, Muslim, or Jew may pray to God on sun
occasions as necessary, for example for the health of a sick re
tive. Such prayers obviously differ from those already mention
in that they are unpredictable and form no part of an accept
syllabus.These we might call 'adventitious' prayers. In this s
tion, we shall consider whether Greek prayer falls into sue
categories or not.
Ancient Greece had no Book of Common Prayer and knew n
centrally organized religious authority. Even within an individu
state, such as Athens, religious activity was largely organized
subgroups of society such as the oikos, phratry, and genos. Wh
large groups gathered together, for example at meetings of t
assembly, the prayers were carried out in the name of all und
1
In Medina, the custom arose of observing a third Salat at noon; see
Hinnells, A Handbooh of Lfoing Religions {London, 1984), 137.
Sitz im Leben 157
the auspices, so to speak, of the presiding magistrates. We shall
Our evidence for hourglass prayers is exiguous and sketchy.
Greek prayers could in theory be made at any time of day or night
as need arose. Large, public religious festivals might even involve
staying up all night, the so-called 1ru.wvxt8es ('all-nighters').
There was no liturgy of the hours. None the less, prayer at
dawn and dusk seemed to occupy a special place in the Greek
world. Probably the most famous reference to prayer at sunrise
and sunset is in Hesiod (Op. 338ff.):
&.UoTE11£117TOVOi'Jcn 8v1;<1<1ln lAliaKfiaBa,,
1}µ.tvOT' aJva,11 </>aos-
Kal /»-'il.11 lEpov lil.871,
~. Kfi TOI iil.a.011 1<pa8{11v Kal 8vµ.ovlxwaw,
orf,pd:,\i\u,vw"7iKM7pov,µ.~ TOV TEOV d:,\.\os-.
At other times, too, propitiate the gods with libations and sacrifices
when you go to bed and at the coming of holy day, that towards yo~
they might have a propitious heart and mind, so that you may buy
another's plot of land, not another yours. ·
A passage in Plato (Leg. 887e) may refer to the same practice. It
describes people 8rnts EOxai:s 1rpoa8uiAeyop.EVOIJ!i Kai lK£TElats, ava-
-ri; ov-ros-T£ rit,\ ,ov Kat CJ£ 71in,s-Kat 1Tposovap.a.~
',\,\ I I ' ,\ I \ ~ , , o
tov-rwv 1rpoKvA,aus a.µ.a.
H J
KO.i 1rpoC1KIJV'ljC1fi.lS U.KOVOVT(S" T£ Kal. opwv-r£s ('talking to the gods in
prayer and supplication, at the rising and setting of sun and
moon, hearing and seeing prostration and abasement'). In this
passage, Plato says that such abasement (1rpoKvMaus aµa. Kai 1Tpou-
1wv170£1~)was typical of Greeks and barbarians alike. Festugiere
was particularly surprised by this. He thought it was a purely
oriental practice. 2 Dodds seeks to refute him, pointing to paral-
lels for sun worship in archaic and classical literature. 3 This is
~ 'Platon et !'Orient', Revue de Philologie, 2l (1947), 23.
E. R. Dodds, The Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951),
232 n. 70. Socrate.s prayed to the Sun, according to Plato (Symp • .uod). Somebody
prays to the Sun m a fragment of Sophocles (fr. 752 Radt). Ajax prayed to the Sun
Just b~fore his _death ~Soph. Aj. 845f.). As to the possibility that the 1rpoo,wvria1sin
Plato 1s an onental idea, we have to bear in mind the prayer at Aristophanes'
P/utu, (771): 1<al1rpoatrovw y~ ,rp,;,-,-,.
,:uv -,-.;v17.\wv.These words are spoken by
Plutus himself and there is no reason to think there is anything odd about them.
As ';e shall see later on, however, 1rpoaKWlwcan have two very different meanings
1~ Greek. See Jesse, RE ,.:iii, s.v. 'Helios'. Jon Mikalson ('Unanswered Prayers in
Greek Tragedy', JHS 109 (1989), 97-8) makes the important point that the cult is
J. n,ot convincingly attested in Sth-cent. Athens. It was, however, very important in
Cormth.
 Sitz im Leben
somewhat confusing. Sun worship is not necessarily what Plato is
talking about. He has been describing prayers and sacrifices to
the gods. The genitive absolute o.11a7if ,\,\on&s T£ ~).iov Kai 0£1\:rivris
seems to me to be an indication of time of day. It does not follow
that the sun and moon were actually receiving the prayers. 4 Since
there is controversy over this passage, its usefulness as evidence
will not be pressed any further.
Xenophon gives us some evidence to support the idea that
,vorship in the morning was particularly recommended. We
hear that the Spartan king, oTav 8611-ra,,a.pxnru µ.EVTOVTou Tov
lpyou ln KVf.tpaio<;, 1rp0Aa.µ,f:Mv£w
fJov>.oµ.f.Vo<;
T~V TOV 8£ov f.UVOtav
('when he sacrificed, began the business while it was still dark
since he wished to capture the goodwill of the god early', Lac. 13.
2. 3). The idea is presumably that, if you obtain the god's favour
early in the day, then you will have the benefit of it for the whole
day and this is a more prudent policy than praying, say, just
before lunch and risking trouble in the late morning. It is diffi-
cult to know precisely what weight to give to this passage. If such
prayer were very common, why would its purpose need to be
explained? I suspect that there might be a perfectly intelligible
motive behind Xenophon's giving this explanation. It was no
doubt the case that some people did pray at dawn and others
did not. Since Hesiod, there had been a school of thought that
maintained that it was a good idea to do so. Xenophon therefore
reminds us of this, and in doing so emphasizes the wisdom of the
Spartan Lycurgus.
It will be noticed at once that all the above evidence relates to
sacrificial contexts. We are not dealing with 'free' prayer at dawn
and dusk. In so far as. prayer always accompanied sacrifice, it may
well be that what we are dealing with is times of day when
sacrifice was appropriate, and it follows a fortiori that prayer
will accompany these sacrifices. The dose link between prayer
and sacrifice was highlighted at the beginning of this study.
Whether the ancient Greeks knew much situational prayer is a
tricky question. It is plain that by far the commonest kind of
situational prayer must have been prayer that accompanied sacri-
4 6
Mikalson (art. cit.) thinks that Plato is, in fact, referring to the worship of the
Sun and that this evidence, being conditioned by his own quirky ideas about astl1ll
religion, cannot be taken as indicative of popular beliefs as a whole.
Sitz im Leben 159
fice. We know that Greeks commonly sacrificed, and therefore also
prayed, on many occasions. Of these, many will have been pre-
scribed by the local cultic calendar, like the Roman Fasti. What one
wants to know is whether there were other occasions, such as those
provided for by the Book of Common Prayer, which are not calen-
drically determined, but which recurred regularly and were
thought to call for prayers. A possible candidate may be the class
of prayers before battle or other military endeavours. There are
plenty of references to this kind of thing in our literary sources. 5
The problem is that it is hard to know whether these situations
would have been construed by a Greek as times when it was appro-
priate just to pray rather than as times when it was appropriate both
to sacrifice and pray. Even though not every literary example of
such prayers mentions sacrifice, we have seen again and again
during the course of this study that Greek prayer was intimately
associated with the xap,s generated by sacrifice. It seems to me that,
with one possible exception, there were no culturally defined cir-
cumstances when prayer was commonly practised without either an
offering or the recollection or promise of an offering.
The possible exception is the case of home-coming. When
Odysseus returns to Ithaca (Od. 13. 356ff.), he kisses the ground 6
and makes a prayer to the nymphs:
IIVp.tptJ.1
"'7ia&;, KOUfXJ.1 cywyt:,
.:J,6;, oii "ITOT.
iiµµ.' l#,p.riv· vtiv 8' t:i}xw}.fi;ay,;wfiu,
0,/11,aD'
xalp£7~ (!Tap Kai 8wpa 818d>t:1oµa,, ws TOw&.pos1rt:p,
aCKW lij -rrp&q,pwv ~ .:Jul, 06yaT7Jpdyt:.\£CT/
a1hov TE ,wuv Kill p.01 rf,O.ovulov ,Ufy.
Nymphs of the water, daughters of Zeus, I never thought I would see
you again. Now rejoice in my friendly prayers. But I shall give you gifts,
as before, if only Athene, daughter of Zeus, bestower of the spoil, is well
disposed and allows me to live and lets my dear son grow up.
In Aeschylus' Agamemnon, the herald, who has just returned to
his native land after ten years at Troy, makes a prayer to all the
indigenous gods that they should give the army a kindly recep-
tion (512ff.). When Agamemnon himself returns (810ff.), his
; Jl.10. 278 ff., 284 ff.; Od. 24. 518 ff.; Xen. Cyr. 3. J. 21; see also W. K. Pritchett,
The Greek State at War (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1979), iii. 186ff.
As did Agamemnon, Od. 4. 522, This lends further weight to the idea that
home-coming was recognized as a special time when certain religious acts were
· performed.
 160 Sitz im Leben
first concern is to address Argos and the (J.:ovsJyxwplovs;.Again,
when Heracles comes back beyond all hope to save his family,
Amphitryon reminds him how important it is to go and address·
Hestia (goddess of the hearth) and 'let the ancestral house see'
him (Eur. HF 6oo). When Polyneices takes his leave of the
ancestral gods (Eur. Phoen. 633), he says be does not know if he
will ever speak to them again. The verb he uses is Trpoar:11rr:r11.
Thi
is the same word used by Agamemnon and Amphitryon. The
word recurs at Ar. Ach. 266 and Pax 557. It is reasonable to:
assume, therefore, that this was the vox propria for prayer offered
to the gods on home-coming. Both speakers in Aristophanes say
they are glad (a'.ap:&os)to be talking to the gods in this way;
Clearly the re-establishment of communication after a hiatus in.
a foreign place was a welcome thing.
None of these prayers is said to take place within the context of
a sacrifice. Odysseus mentions that he will soon start offering•
sacrifices again as he once did, but the prayer itself is not sacrifi-,
dally determined. Whilst I have no doubt that the overall func-
tion of such prayers was to re-establish and confirm the existence;
of links of reciprocity (x&pis) of the kind that have been a central'
feature of this investigation, it is still noteworthy that they did.
not obviously form part of a sacrificial ritual. What is even more
striking, however, is that these addresses are not petitionary in
nature; they are more like greetings to long-lost friends. It is
revealing that the herald at Aesch. Ag. 508 uses the word xaipE.
As we saw in Chapter I, there is good reason to suppose that, for
the Greeks, prayer meant petition. 7 These addresses to the gods
7
The words of Odysseus at Od. 13. 3SSff. are called by the poet an dp<iand are
accompanied by outstretched hands. Lexically, then, Homer, al!llociates this activ-
ity with other petitionary prayers which he describes as dpal. However, in the later
evidence, these prayers at home-coming are not called -.iJxru or dpa.CAll this may
be an accident of the evidence or it may represent a real historical change in Greek
•viewsof what did or did not constitute 'prayer'. At any event, l would be reluctant
to press too far the signincance of dp&:oµ.,,.,
in this passage from the OdyS$ty. We
have already seen that it is not easy to establish precise and discrete spheres of
meaning for dp&oµm and ,/Jxoµ.,,.,in Homer. The fact that a petitionary and a non-
petitionary prayer are both described as an dp&does not mean that Greeks were,
unable to distinguish between addresses containing petitions and those which did
not. We, too, are doubtless correct to make the same distinction. Those familiar
with Bruno Snell's argument (The Discovel')' of the M'ind (Eng. trans., Oxford,
1953), 5-S) that the Homeric Greeks, lacking a particular word for 'living body',.
must have lacked also the concept of 'living body' will be aware of the limitations:
of attempting to reconstruct the mental universe of a culture strictly in terms of
their lexicon alone.
Sitz im Leben 161
on home-coming therefore have to be looked at as prayer-like but
not real prayers. Nothing is being asked for, as far as we can tell,
and nothing is being offered either. 8 They allude to the idea of
xapt,relations but do not contribute to it in a concrete fashion.
It has been suggested that another circumstance when it was
appropriate to pray was when passing a statue of a god or a
temple, grove, sacred precinct, or any other kind of holy spot. 9
This conclusion needs to be reconsidered. Whilst there can be no
doubt that all these places were places where prayers were
offered, it is far from clear that any sort of prayer had to be
offered obligatorily by people who just chanced to be in their
vicinity. For the purposes of this investigation I shall treat as one
category statues on the one hand and temples, groves, sacred
precincts, and holy spots on the other. They are all places where
the numinous power of the gods was felt to reside. Statues might
be found either in the courtyard of one's own house or in tem-
ples. 10 This is not the place to enter upon the general question of
how far Greeks enjoyed universally unrestricted access to tem-
p les.11 I simply wish to review the evidence relating to prayer
before statues. Orestes in Aeschylus' Eumenides (258ff.) and Elec-
tra in Euripides' Electra (22 r ff.) both make prayers before sta-
tues. These are not casual prayers, however, but the prayers of
suppliants who have deliberately sought out statues of the gods.
There are plenty of examples of prayer before statues by people
who are not suppliants. 12 In all these cases it will be found that
the individuals in question sought out the god's statues for a
specific purpose. There is nothing casual about what they were
doing. These passages do not constitute evidence for praying
whenever they saw a statue.
Aubriot, however, cites various pieces of evidence which seem
8
I think the words of the herald at Aesch. Ag. s12 ff. are deceptive. He asks
Zeus and Apollo to be kinder to the Greeks than in the past but this request is
surely atypical. There is no reason to suppose that the words spoken at home-
coming normally included an element of request.
9
Aubriot, RS, following Ausfeld, soll.
10
On statues at home, see J.P.Poe, 'The Altar in the Fifth Century Theater',
Cl. Ant. 8 (1989), u6-39.
11 See Aubriot, 97 n. 249. The two essential studies are J. W. Hewitt, 'Access to
Greek Temples', TAPA 40 (1909), 83-g2, and P. E. Corbett, 'Greek Temples and
Worshippers', BICS 17 (1970), r49-58). These contain much useful and detailed
historical and archaeological information.
12 e.g. Eur. Amir. 1u7, Hdt. r. 31. 4, 6. 6l. 3; Ar. Eccl. 7SO.
 Sitz im Leben
superficially to lend support to the notion of casual prayer wh
passing either statues or sacred places. As she herself obser
though, we have to distinguish between a specific request and
simple greeting. At Od. 6. 321 ff., Odysseus prays in the grove
Athene. It seems to me that Odysseus here is far from being
casual passer-by. He has a specific request to make and so
example does not imply that prayer was customary when sim
passing a sanctuary, At Soph. El. 1374f., Orestes teUs Pylades
go indoors 1TaTpcpa1rpoadaav8' ;s.,,I 8Ewv ('having saluted
seats of the ancestral gods'). This is, in my view, an act of gre
ing, not a prayer. Whilst Mme Aubriot takes a very wide view
what can pass as a prayer, 13 I have already argued that Greeks s
prayer as something involving a request. This element is
present in the Sophoclean example. Jn Euripides' Hippoly
there are three references to addresses to the statue of Aphrodi
on the stage. At line 99, the o_ld man asks Hippolytus 1rws ovv
aEµvriv8alµov' ov 1rpoaEVVi1rEis('Why do you not address the au
deity?'). This, however, need have nothing to do with prayer. It
presumably the same kind of simple act of greeting that we sa
was denoted by 1rpouEt1rei:v in contexts of home-corning. 14 At Ii
102, I think r:l.a1Td(oµ,uhas the same function. It implies nothi
about prayers properly so called. When, at line u6, the old sl
says 1Tpoaev(6µEa0aToia1 uofs aya,\µaatv ('I shall pray to y
statue'), he has a specific request. It is not an example of a cas
prayer.
Aubriot also says that statues and sanctuaries are special pla
for prayers to be made. I agree with this entirely. I am n
however, convinced that one had to pray every time one p
one. This seems to be the implication of her observation abo
the rarity of sacred sites which had to be passed by in silence o
of fear of the anger of the inhabitant. 15 She refers to the pa
from Sophocles' OC (13off.) where the chorus tells us that peo
pass by the grove of the Erinyes a8EpKTWS,/ acpwvws,a,\oyws TO
/ Etff/nfµov aToµa rppovrt6os / iEvTES ('without looking, soundlessl
wordlessly, moving the lips in mutely reverent thought'). This
a problematic passage. We have absolutely no indication of w
ll Aubriot, 24.
14 Aesch. Ag. 811; Eur. HF 009; Ar. Pax 581; Hdt. ;. 72. 3.
15
Aubriot, 88.
Sitz im Leben 163
it was that the mind conceived or the lips were mouthing. It is
quite possible that all that was involved was a tacit expression of
the same kind of greeting which we have already seen to be quite
normal when passing a temple. Perhaps, if prayers were uttered,
they were of an apotropaic nature. We do not really know what is
happening here and so we cannot really argue that its converse
(whatever that might be) applied in all other instances when
people passed by a sacred precinct.
In Euripides' Alcestis (1002 ff.), the chorus envisages a mer-
chant passing the tomb of Alcestis and greeting her and saying:
airra 1TOTt. 1'TpoMlav'
dvop6.-,
viiv FII.GT1µ.&Ka1pa. oa.fµ.wv·
xa£p: if, ,r6m', .,J Bi 8ot71s.
This woman once died for her husband. Now she is a blessed spirit.
Greetings, lady. 16 Give us good.
This, too, is not a straightforward piece of evidence that can be
used to suggest that anybody passing by any sacred spot would
make an utterance of this kind. For one thing, what we have here
properly belongs with a whole group of epigraphic texts where
the dead are saluted with the word xafpE ('greetings'-lit.
'rejoice'). As Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood has recently shown,
such addresses are made to those of the dead who have achieved
heroic status. 17 I have, in any case, no objection to the idea that a
passing wayfarer might address words of greeting to a divinity. 18
The presence of EV BE8ot'l"f,does, however, make the utterance into
a prayer according to the definition we have been following so far.
None the less, it would be unwise to extrapolate from this the
conclusion that the words eJ 8£ 80{71sstandardly formed part of
greetings in all circumstances when people passed by a place
where a god was thought to reside. To my knowledge, the phrase
xaipE, EliSE8ol71sused in such a context is unique to this passage.
If the passage did reflect real-life practice, the most we could say
is that it was usual to salute heroes in this way. We could not
H, The meaning of x,aip1£ in these contexts is not straightforward to translate.
See, C. Sourvinou-lnwood, 'Reading' Greek Death (Oxford, 1995), 207 ff.
I, Ibid. l95 ff.
18
Although this is often considered to be a common practice in the classical
period, the earliest attestation known to me of x,a•~ used in this way is found at
Men. Sam. 444.
 Sitz im Leben
prove that people said xa.ipfi, fiV l>E8ol71swhen passing the sane.
tuary of a god.
To conclude this section, we may say that most Greek pray
was adventitious. The evidence for 'hourglass' and 'situation
prayer certainly exists but is not plentiful enough to constitu
any kind of norm. · the fact that he was officiating at a sacrifice.
LOCALE AND OFFICIANT
In modern Christianity, most people would recognize some so
of distinction between public and private prayers-those made
church and those made at home. To be sure, there must ha
been a similar distinction in ancient Greece between praye
made by an individual in solitude, prayers made by a fami
group, and prayers made by the larger civic units at a festi
However, this distinction was perhaps not as keenly felt in Gre
as it is in modern England. It is obvious that the context o
private prayer is different from that of a public one. There d
not, however, seem to have been much significant difference
content. 19 An individual making a sacrifice at home need
always be praying for himself alone, 20 Similarly, when the wh
city joined in group prayers, one assumes that these prayers we
none the less intended to benefit individuals as welJ. This bro
question of public and private in Greek prayer has alrea
received attention and is too large to enter into here. 21 We sh
19
See C. Sourvinou-Inwood, 'Further Aspects of Polis Religion', AION,
(1988), 264ff. She shows that personal prayers and polis pr11yersare to be seen m
as subsets of the same activity rather than as radically opposed poles.
20
Whether prayer for others was particularly common might be doubted
the basis of a relllllrk in Herodotus who, contrasting Persian and Greek cust
(1. 131..2), says that Persians, when making a sacrifice, do not pray for their o
good but rather that of the king and of all other Persians. Herodotus dearly
that this contrasts with Greek practice. On the other hand, we do possess ex
of private prayers for other people. Usually, they relate to dose family or frie
and so are, in a sense, self~interested. Examples of such prayers are Il. 6. 476{.,
1.4off.; Od. 3 381, 17. 354; Ar. Eccl. 1007. Furthermore, we have a considera
number of inscriptions attesting to prayers made on behalf of the well-being
3
other people in one's family, e.g. IG i • 857.
21 This question and its difficulties have been explored by Mme Aubriot ·
paper gi\'en at the Colloque organized by the Centre Louis Gernet in Paris, 15
March 1995. Her paper was entitled 'Pertinence et limites de l'opposition pub!
prive pour la priere (jusqu' ii la fin du Verne s.)' and will be published shortly in
proceedings of the Colloquium.
Sitz im Leben
confine ourselves to the question of where, physically, people
prayed and who, if anyone, took charge when a group was
involved. Here, as in the foregoing section, it has to be borne
in mind that much of the evidence js from a sacrificial context.
The person who made the prayer frequently did so by virtue of
It was perfectly possible to pray on one's own wherever one
happened to be. The literary evidence suggests that individuals
frequently offered free prayer on their own. This is very common
in Homer and tragedy, of course, but equally we hear in Plu-
tarch' s Aristides (7. 6) that the ostracized statesman prayed to the
gods as he left Athens that no harm would befall the Athenians as
a result of his banishment. As we saw in Chapter 1, there is no
reason to doubt that extempore prayer was practised in Greece,
although we need to bear in mind that our literary sources may
not be a wholly faithful reflection of all aspects of real life and
that any such 'free' prayers will none the less have relied on some
sort of quid pro quo offered to the god.
Another common scenario for private prayer will have been the
small group praying at home. 22 Isaeus attests just such a cere-
mony (Isae. 8. 15ff.). The hearth was physically and symbolically
at the centre of Greek family life. 23 The cult of Zeus Herkeios
was another important focus of family religious life. His altar will
have stood in many courtyards. Here, of course, we are in fact
dealing with a sacrificial scene. It is obvious that prayers would
be found in this context. I know of no instances where the house-
hold got together to make free prayers. It is quite possible that
such prayers took place but we only hear of those which accom-
panied ritual actions.
The same is true of public prayers. For the most part, we only
hear of public prayers when they accompany sacrifice. The first
important thing to note is that a priest was not the only person
who could sacrifice and pray. The first sacrifice in the Iliad is
conducted by the priest Chryses (ll. I. 447ff.), but this is because
he is the person who caused the plague and it is only right that he
should call it off. In the very next book, we see Agamemnon
22
On Greek household cult, see H. J. Rose, 'The Religion of a Greek House-
hold', Euphrosyne, 1 (1957), 95 ff.
n See RE viii. 125?-1304, s.v. 'Hestia'. Also liymn. Hom. Ven. 21-35; Ar. Vesp.
846; .4u, 865 ff.
166 Sitz im Leben
sacrificing an ox at his hut and praying for victory (I[. 2. 410ff.
In the Odyssey, Nestor officiates at a public sacrifice (Od.
444ff.). Jumping to the fourth century, we read in Isaeus (8. I
of Ciron performing sacrifices to Zeus Ktesios in his own ho
with the help of his grandsons. When it comes to uttering
prayer, however, it is the old man alone who speaks. We mi
call this the paterfamilias principle. It always falls to the m
. or most sacre d person present to per form a sacn"fice. 24
senior
naturally also had the right to dictate to what ends the x
generated by that action ought to be used. It is interesting t
we are told the contents of his prayer: 71vxE-ro~µ,iv vytECav1h36
Kai KT1jaw aya8~v. WU'TTEp ElKo~OV'Ta 1T(l1T'1!'0V
('He prayed, as it
proper for a grandfather to do, that we should be given health a
success with property').
Although it was not always essential to have a priest in order
offer a prayer, there were certain occasions when nobody else b
a priest would do. There is a good deal of epigraphic eviden
relating to the question of who is allowed to sacrifice and pray
particular occasions. In a lex sacra from Oropos dating from
second quarter of the fourth century, we find some interest'
rules governing the spheres of competence of priest and priv
citizen. 25 We read (starting from line 25):
6
• . . KaTE6x11a/Jai2 8t TWV [,:paw,ca1t1Ti
.-ovltpla,
TOVf:fo,µ1,vtm-rt/Jt:iv,OTav'll'Il('E<,
OTUV 0~ µ,~ 11'!'Lptt,-riJ.v6vovm, Ka1 TEL fJvaln
mhov EnVT(J< KUT£VXEa6m lKaa-ro", ...
When he is present, the priest shall pray over the offerings and pi
them on the altar; when he is not, the sacrificer shall do this and e
man shall make his own sacrificial prayer himself.
It is dear that a priest was not essential
24
See L. Ziehen, 'Opfer', RE xviii (1941,), 6o4ff.
lS LSCG 69. Excellent critical edition by A. Petropoulou, in 'The Epa
Documents and the Early Oracle at Oropos', GRBS 22 (198t), 39-63.
26
P: Stengel ("Ka:rap;,crn8mund ;,,&.px•a8<1,",Hermes, 43 {1908), 463-4) 11.r
that we should read 1eaT<ipx•a8<1, instead of K«T£1JX£a8<1,
on the grounds that
cannot find a parallel for the latter verb governing a genitive. The photogra
the acrual inscription show that the cutter without a doubt wrote 1eanux
Ziehen ('Opfer', 607 n.) can, however, adduce a parallel, in a fr. adesp. of
tophanes: Kock, Comi'corum Atlicorum Fragmenra, p. S93, no. 913. Here, we
.,;Jfa.a9<11,c,:n•a x,>urr6K£pw11,fla.,,wTov.
Although the preverb has become separa .
from its verb, it seems a perfectly good parallel.
Sitz im Leben
However, if he was present, then it was he who had to sacrifice,
according to the paterfamilias principle outlined above.
A sacred law from Erythrae (LSAM 24), relating to the cult of
Asclepius and dated to 380-360, prescribes (side A. 25 f.):
, • • o-ro.vot f, 'll'OMsn,v Oval"f}v
TWL .ltaKA"f]l'l'IWI 11'01~(, -ra
njs- 7l'o,\,;ws-
81
11'pon/}{,a(Ja,O'll'tp 1raVTwv, ;Buf,TTJS'
1"('0/Jvl-rwh T~• lop-r~•,
f,L"f}OEls- 8~ o.va
1011&.Uovxp6vov 7Tpo6vfrwKa.Ta TU
11'poyqpap.µlva.
When the city is making its sacrifice to Asclepius, the city's preparatory
offerings are to be sacrificed on behalf of all; let no private citizen
sacrifice at the festival, but at other times let him sacrifice according to
the foregoing regulations.
On the occasion of a public sacrifice, then it must be the priest
who officiates. 27 By priest, one means somebody who was a
member of one of the hereditary priestly families (like the Eteo-
butadae) or somebody whose full-time occupation was the super-
vision of a particular cult. 28 But it was not only priests who could
do so. There is abundant evidence that officials could be selected
by lot for a given purpose to perform designated religious tasks
on behalf of the whole community for a given period of office .
These will have involved either prayer on its own or sacrifice
accompanied by prayer. The author of the fourth-century treatise
on the Athenian constitution, which has come down to us under
the name of Aristotle, gives the fullest account of the religious
duties of the various officials selected by lot in his day. 29 So it is
11
There are parallels for this kind of thing from other parts of the Greek world.
LSCG 117 is a 5th-cent. law from Chios. It refers to the possibility of an a;..:,17/5
(private citizen) making a sacrifice. LSCG 119, also from Chios but dating from
the 4th cent., is a regulation relating to the cult of Herades. It is made clear that a
private citi,:en can sacrifice if the priest is not present. LSS 129 is a Sth-cent.
regulation from Chios, relating to the cult of Zeus. If the person wishing to make
the sacrifice cannot find the priest, he is to shout loudly three times. If the priest
does not come, then the individual in question should make the sacrifice himself.
Herondas 4. 41 shows us some women visiting a temple and making a sacrifice.
The neoconu takes care of this for them. Since his job was rather like that of a
sacril!tan, one assumes that, in the absence of the priest, he became the most senior
person in the sanctuary and so had the right to carry out any sacrifices.
8
' On the lack of corporate identity for the Greek priesthood, see R. Garland.
'Priests and Power in Classical Athens', in M. Beard and J. North (eds.), Pagan
29
Pn'ests (London, 1990), 75 ff., esp. 78. 54. 6ff.
168 Sitz im Leben
fairly clear that one did not have to be a priest on the narro
definition of that word in order to offer sacrifice and pray
Antiphon (6. 45) tells us that there was a special altar of Z
Boulaios and Athene Boulaia in the council-house and that
members of the council made prayers and sacrifices there
behalf of the city (v?TEP 7"ij!i 7T6At"ws).
It is an interesting fact about ancient Greek priests that th
were not the only people fit to intercede with the gods on oc
sions of sacrifice. They did not constitute a well-organized gro
of specialists with clearly defined responsibilities. Any s
ciently senior person, who, depending on context, might be
head of a household or a city magistrate, could lead sacrifices
prayers for a given group of people. So far, however, we ha
confined our attention largely to the sphere of enfranchised Ath
nian males. Do women and slaves, the disadvantaged grou
differ from this class in any significant way with regard to t
kinds of prayers they make or are allowed to make?
The Participation of Women
There has been a good deal of discussion recently about the rol
of women in Greek religion. We know that they had a ve ·
circumscribed freedom of action in the political sphere
some have tried to argue that this extended to religious matte
as well. 30 Detienne, for example, has maintained that worn
were excluded from eating sacrificial meat. 31 It will not be th
purpose of this section to try to settle such enormous and com
plex issues. We shall concentrate rather on the question of wh
women's prayer was like.
In discussing this, one has to bear in mind that much of t
evidence for prayer is found in the context of sacrifice. If Isaeus
to be believed, it was the paterfamilias who, in household cul
actually spoke the prayer. 32 An obvious consequence of this
that women did not. But it also follows that neither did any ot
male relatives. So this is not purely an exclusion that aft,
women. It affects everybody except for the head of the hou
l(l For an overall discussion of the scholarship and a refutation of excessi
se<:tarian analys.es, see R. Osbome, 'Women and Sacrifice in Classical Greece', C
43 ~ 1994), 392-405.
3
See Osborne, 'Women and Sacrifice', 494. 32
lsae. 8. t6.
Sitz im Leben
hold. In the public sphere, women were not admitted to high
civic office, so they will not have been in the position to offer
prayers for the state--unless they were priestesses. Priestesses,
obviously, will have been professionally involved in prayer and so
are hardly a typical case.
Did ordinary women pray in Greece? Greek tragedy is full of
women who pray. In Homer, on the other hand, there are very
few women who pray. 33 There again, in Homer, there are rela-
tively few women at all. It might be thought that Aristophanes'
Thesmophoriazusae (295 ff.) is good evidence for all sorts of
aspects of women's prayer. But what can Aristophanes have
known of this all-female event? The prayers he creates are clearly
modelled on something he did know about, namely the prayers at
the beginning of an assembly. Those, of course, will have been
spoken by a male herald. 34 In Menander's Dyscolus, we hear (line
260) that Sostratus' mother makes sacrifices to a god every day
and that she has just gone out to find a p.&y,zipas('butcher-cum-
cook'). Did she also say the prayer over the sacrifice? At line
660 ff. of the same play, the cook Sicon tells the slave women
inside the shrine to make libations and EVXEulh,70v 'JIEpoVTauwlHjvai
1<0.Kw~ ('pray that the old man will come to a bad salvation').
Although the substance of the prayer is parodic, we might take
this as a piece of evidence suggesting that women, and slave
women at that (line 460), could without difficulty make libations
and pray.
If we move away from literature and look at the inscriptions,
we find plenty of ex-votos dedicated by women. CEG 863 {4th
cent. Be) was set up by a woman called Archo. JG ii 2. 4588 was
dedicated by one Phile on behalf of her child. At JG ii2.4348 we
do not have the woman's name but we know she was a woman
from the formula ft}(a]p.fu-, d.vl971K£ ('having vowed, she dedi-
cated'; the participle is in the feminine gender). As these dedica-
tions are erected in fulfilment of a vow, we can see that women
were quite at liberty to make vows to gods in order to get favours
from them. They would then set up dedications in return. 35 So I
33
34
Theano and those with her (JI. 6. 305 ff.); Penelope (Od. 4. 762ff.).
Cf. Aeschin. l. 23. See H. Kleinknecht, Die Gebetspamdie in der Antike
(Stuttgart and Berlin, r937), ad. loc.
35
Further examples can be seen by consulting \V. H. D. Rouse, Greek Votive
Offerings {Cambridge, 1<)02).
170 Sitz im Leben
think we need be in no doubt of the basic fact that a woman cou
pray. We shall see in a later section that they were also present
festivals, participating vocally in the group prayers.
Having established that women prayed, can we discern
significant difference between their prayers and those of men·
terms of content? When Penelope prays for Telemachus at Od.
762:ff., she seeks to draw not on her own accumulated x&pi!:but
that of her husband. Has she none of her own? Lack of info
tion makes it unwise to speculate on why Homer has drawn
scene as he did. 36 What is clear, however, is that the simple
that women did not officiate at household cult did not prev
them from sacrificing elsewhere and from benefiting from
xapi,that accrued from animal sacrifice. Although Sostra
mother in Menander's Dyscolus did not strike the actual bL
that killed the animal, she has still provided it. The divine er
would go to her. The same is true of the women in Herond
who hand over a cock to the neocorns. He takes charge of
sacrifice for them but the animal was provided by them.
fourth-century cultic calendar from the Attic deme of Er
(LSCG 18 A 44ff.), we hear that the women are to make a sacr'
to Semele. Clearly this would involve prayer and the accum
tion of xapt, to the group.
Do women differ from men in the gods they invoke?
answer seems to be that they do not. Both men and wo
pray to male and female deities. There does not seem to b:
polarization whereby women pray more to female deities than:
male ones. 37 Aubriot has pointed out, however, that some cliff;
ence between the sexes can be seen in the matter of oaths. Wo
tend to swear by female deities and men by male ones. 38 We n
to be cautious here that we are not taken in by the biases of
literary sources. Although the details of women's involvemen
court proceedings are shady, 39 there is at least one example
woman swearing a legal oath by a male deity. At Demosthenes
36 Burkert thinks this whole passage is affected by a passage in the Epi
Gilgamesh, see W. Burkert, The Orientalizing Rnwlution {Cambridge, ,
r992), 99f. Mme Aubriot (p. 85) looks at the prayer in purely Greek terms.
37 Aubriot, llo-t and in particular 81 n. t87.
38
Ibid. 81 and n. 188.
9
J For women and oaths, see R. Just, Women in Athenian Law and
(London, 1989), 36ff.
Sitz im Leben 171
10 f., we hear that a woman called Plangon took an oath in the
sanctuary of Apollo called the Delphinium. This oath will pre-
sumably have been sworn on the name of Apollo.
We are in some difficulty when it comes to determining how far
women were involved in defixiones. Their authors tend not to
name themselves, no doubt for fear of falling victim to the spell
themselves. 40 Thus, although many women appear as victims in
these texts, we cannot often determine the sex of the person
actually making the curse. One exception is, however, known to
me. A lead tablet found in Athens and dated to the third/second
centurv BC ends with the names both of the author of the curse
and h;r victim.' 0 Both names are written upside down. The
writer of the curse is Bitto and her victim is Sosiclea,
We can thus see that women did pray and that there is no
reason to assume that their participation in this activity was
fundamentally different from that of men. During household
sacrifices the husband will have spoken the prayer but it is pos-
sible that he would have sought to channel the xap,, to other
members of the family. At a public festival, a woman and her
husband would be on the same footing since neither was actually
making the prayer or sacrifice and both will have been simply
part of the group gathered to receive the x&pts generated by the
offering.
Slaves
The old servant in the Hippolytus asks Aphrodite to look with
indulgence on the folly of the young man. He says that he will
speak ws 1Tp£1r££ 6ou,\oLs Mynv ('as slaves ought to', ns), but
actually offers rather bold advice to the goddess (120): aorpwT£povs
)'tip XP~ {3poTwvelvai Oeovs ('Gods should be wiser than mortals'),
We know by now, of course, not to judge everything on the
standards of tragedy. This prayer is important for the plot. It
seeks to defuse the tension set up by Hippolytus' extravagant
in DT 43 preserves the name 'Ar,;u1,p<9.s.,,,.Wunsch restored 'Ap,aravoP'I' and
suggested that this was the name of the author of the curse and that it had been
scrambled so that he would not be harmed if the spell tried to make him its victim.
41
G. Kaibel, Epi'grammata Gmeca ex lapidibus ccmlecta (Berlin, r878), 1136.
Also published in translation in M. R. Lefkowitz and M. B. Fant (eds.), Women's
Life in Greece and Rome (London, 1982), no. 131.
 Sitz im Leben
hymn of praise to Artemis and his espousal of the virgin lifes
(58ff., 73ff.). It may not be a typical prayer.
It is noticeable that, in both tragedy and comedy, slaves n
mally make simple requests in the optative rather than care
formulated prayers. 42 The nurse in Aeschylus' Choephoroe (
prays that the divine will might make everything turn out for
best. In Euripides' Medea (83), the nurse prays that Jason will
die. At the beginning of Aristophanes' Equites (3), the sl
Demosthenes delivers a curse against Paphlagon. In Menan
Dyscolus (221), Davus curses Sostratus. At line 968f., the sl
Geta offers a blessing. In the Epitrepontes (358), Syriscus mak
blessing. At line 424f., Onesimus utters a curse. At line 548,
dancing-girl Habrotonon prays that she may become free.
imagines that this was a frequent prayer among slaves. At 1
907 1 Onesimus asks Zeus to save him. What could be the meani
of this?
I suspect that the answer lies in the fact that slaves would h
been fairly low in the pecking order in domestic cult. They co
attend ceremonies, for the most part, but, with the operation
the paterfamilias principle, it will have been the master of t •
house who actually spoke the prayer. Therefore, if slaves pray
all, they have to do so without sacrificing. They make wishes a
hope that they will be answered. In drama, the fact that th
nearly always offer prayers and blessings in the optative points
that they are sometimes little more than helpless spectators, m
ing their humble wishes known from the sidelines. 43
In Antiphon (1. 16-19), we hear that Philoneus took his co
cubine, a slave girl, 44 with him to the Peiraeus where he and
4
l
43
Aubriot, 66 n. 115,
We might recall at this point the prayer of Penelope at Od. 4. 761.ff. We s
that she concentrated in her argumentum not on her own previous piety but on
of Odysseus. We speculated that this might be because she had not made
animal sacrifices herself. It is interesting to nole that Eumaeus makes a prayer
the same kind at Od. 17. 1.39-46, He, too, has not made any animal sacrifices
which he can draw the attention of the Nymphs. Eumaeus and Penelope sudd
seem rather similar, despite their considerable separation on the social sc
Conversely. it is striking that the herdsman feels confident enough 10 use
same formula used by his queen. We have to remember, of course, that Eum
is not just any old herdsman. He was of noble birth.
41
She is described as a 1Tilla1<~ ('concubine'). She is almost certainly a sl
since Philoneus hll!l complete control over her and she is later tortured
summarily executed.
Sitz im Leben 173
friend made a sacrifice to Zeus Ktesios. There the girl, allegedly
acting on the orders of the accused woman, administered poison
to the wine. What is revealing though is the following phrase: ~ 6E
\\ I \ ~\ # -, I t t J 1
1f{llV\ClK1} • • • 'T1}V CJ7TOV07JII aµ.a. tyx1:ovaa EKEivo,, EVXO/J.OOt, ('The
concubine poured out the libation as they were praying').
Although she was present at the sacrifice, her job was purely to
prepare the libation. She had no part in saying the prayers. In
Euripides' Electra, Orestes hears that Aegisthus has set out to
make a sacrifice, accompanied by a band of servants (629, 631).
Later on we see these servants going about their various sacrificial
tasks (799ff.), bringing the bowl for the blood, fetching the bas-
kets, lighting the fire, and setting up the cauldrons. Furthermore,
Aegisthus invites Orestes and Pylades, whom he believes to be
total strangers, to participate in the sacrificial meal (784f.). But,
when it comes to making the prayer, all these servants, Orestes,
and Pylades retreat into the background. It is Aegisthus who
makes t?e prayer and he asks simply for his own well-being,
along with that of Clytemnestra, and that his enemies may be
destroyed. It looks, once more, as though the paterfamilias prin-
ciple reduces all other roles to insignificance. Slaves must always
have found themselves at the bottom of the ladder. 45
Group Participation
We read of several ceremonies in different places where a whole
crowd of different officials all appear to be celebrating at the same
time. JG ii2. 1175 (Attica, c.360) tells us that the a.pa (probably a
public curse) is to be performed by the demarch Nicostratus
along with the -raµlm (stewards) and the priests and priestesses.
Such an inscription is rather puzzling. It seems difficult to escape
the conclusion that we have lots of people speaking at the same
" · There are some interesting remarks preserved in Athenaeus (6. 262 ff.) on t.he
exdusi~n of slaves from getting any of the sacrificial meat offered at sacrifices.
There 1s also a question about the attribution of lines in Ar. Pax 978ff. This
addre".8 to Eirene is put in the mouth of Ti-ygaeus' se!'Vant by Rogers. The OCT
gives 1t to the chorus. It is a parodic piece, however, and even if it were in the
mouth of the slave it would not really tell us very much. At Eq. 147, the slave
Demosthenes addresses the sausage-seller with a parody of the language of a cletic
hy°:n lo a saviour god. But this does not mean that slaves usually participated in
detic hymns. Comedy often likes to laugh at slaves performing roles that they do
not actually have in real life.
174 Sitz im Leben
time. It is equally difficult to imagine precisely
when the priests and priestesses whose job it was to curse
biades all faced west and uraVTe,; Ka-r11pa.aaVTo ... KaTa -ro v6
Tei1TaAatdvKai ilpxafov ('stood and cursed according to the an
and old custom', [Lysias] 6. 51). The only alternative to ev
body speaking at the same time is that they elected one person
speak on their behalf and symbolically murmured with him.
is certainly possible. It is just imaginable that a group of pri
could have rehearsed a curse among themselves, particular
that curse is said to be an ancient and traditional one. It may
have been something so obvious that nobody thought it nee
to add an explanation in any of the sacred laws. It remains s
what mysterious. 46 In a decree from Mytilene, dating from
330 and concerning the settlement of difficulties after the re
of exiles (SEG xxxvi. 750), we read that the council and
people are both to pray to a whole series of gods. We have li
idea of how this will have been managed. Such texts as these o
up the whole question of how much we know about group pa
cipation in Greek religion.
To begin with, we may look at those Homeric prayers w
one person speaks but the poet summarizes the act: with a
mulaic phrase such as av-rap £1T€Lp €.V[aV'TO ('now, when they
prayed'). At Il. r. 450, Chryses makes his prayer t:o Apollo to
off the plague. We are told roia,v Xpvar,s µ,t')'a.,\'evxe-ro. What: is
force of roicn ('for them') here? Does it mean that he prayed
the group said nothing? Surely it must. Such a prayer w
after all, make no sense if the exact: terms of the petition, refe
as they did to a previous exchange between Apollo and Ch
alone, were to be repeated verbatim by the rest of the group.
Homer rather puzzlingly says of the prayer (1. 457f.): wsl
tvxop.evoi;,
• ,
-rov
• ~·
o - \
£KAVE A, ·R
,voi,.,o,; •A I\\
n'ITOAAWV, I av-rap
, ' £1T£1
' ' p" ev"t5aVTo
he spoke in prayer and Phoebus Apollo heard him; now, when
46
Antiphon 6. 45 and Demosthenes 19. 190 both refer to members of
council praying and sacrificing together for the good of the city. This is interes
both because it is further evidence for large numbers of people celebra
together and because it tells us that the council as a corporate body had th
to pray and sacrifice, The Antiphon passage tells us that there was an al
Athene Boulaia in the bauleuteri<m and it was on this that the members
council sacrificed. Once again we can see that one does not have to be a prie11
sacrifice. By the paterfamilias principle, the councillors will have enjoyed the ·
to sacrifice here because it was their special altar.
Sitz im Leben 175
had prayed'). We have a similar thing at: II. 2. 412. Agamemnon
sacrifices and makes a prayer that the sun should not set before he
has sacked the city of Priam. Again, it is picked up by a plural
verb at line 421. We cannot imagine the group repeating theµ.£
('me') of line 414. When Theano prays to Athene inn. 6. 30.sff.,
the situation is rather different. Although her prayer is described
both with a singular and a plural verb (6. 31If.), the words
themselves could easily have been repeated by the women in
the group. In the examples quoted from Books 1 and 2, as we
have seen, it would be hard t:o imagine the group repeating the
phrases. We must have to understand the plural verb in a non-
literal sense. The group prayed not by repeating the words but by
agreeing with the general sentiment. We do not know if this was
silent assent or a shout of acclamation. The example from Book 6
is less clear. Can we dismiss the plural verb as merely formulaic?4 7
A striking parallel can be adduced from Homeric descriptions
of sacrifice. Sometimes the act: itself is given a plural verb, e.g.
;,aq,a[av ('they slaughtered') as in Il. 1. 459. Homer only becomes
specific about who did what at 1. 462 ff., saying that: the old man lit
the fire and poured on the wine whereas the young men stood
around with forks in their hands. The slaughtering is a shared act
only in the metaphorical sense. Such a parallel could be used to
explain how some of the plural verbs used in prayers come to be
used in a figurative sense. At 11. 15. 369, we have the interesting co-
ordination of a plural verb of praying with a singular subject:
XEtpO.S&.vtaxov-r£,;µ.era).' €.VXETOWV'TOtl€au-ro,; ('Holding up their
hands, they prayed, each man'). Each man makes his own
prayer-as at: It. 8. 347. At Il. 15. 37of., however, Homer says
Nia-rwp atl-re p.4A£UTO. .•. I evxe-ro ...• ('Nestor, most of all,
prayed'). We are then given the text of a specific prayer. In these
examples from Books 8 and 15, we are being shown prayer by the
whole group. In both passages, the prayers are not part of an act of
worship. They do, however, show that: a group could offer separate
but related prayers. It is conceivable, but impossible to prove, that
this is also what was going on at Il. 1. 457ff. and Il. 2. 421.
47
At II. 6. 241, Hector had told the Trojan women to pray to the gods ,ra.aa;
€fd71,('all in order'). Although this could be taken to mean 'he told them, one by
one, to pray m the gods', rather than 'he told them to pray individually to the
gods' {Le, the adverb qualifies how he told them rather than what he told them), it
still looks as though a gTOup act of worship is envisaged.
 Sitz im Leben
Perhaps our most explicit statement about group participati
is Thuc. 6. 32. \:vben the fleet is about to sail for Sicily, this
what happens:
rf, µ.tv udi\myyt u,wmi {nrr;u71µ.d.v871, fvxa, 0£ T'OS vo,u,oµ.ivos 1rpo
Avarwrv, oil KllT'li vaiiv E"K<1UT'T}V, g6µ.1raVTES:OEtl1roK1]pllKOS: iTTOtoVVT'O,
.... ,
T'T}pa;, "
TE KEpauavns -rrap . ~
Kai' EK1rwµ.aai
" a1rav TO' aTpa1'Et1µ.a ' , ,.,
xpvao,;,
Apyvpo,, .,r7'£ lmf3d.rn, Kai ol &.pxov-rES: 01TEV0ovn;. fwnr116xov-ro OE
/illo, r'iµ..\os:oiK 1'1]5'r,j;, 1'WVTE 1roA1TwvKai ,;f 7'15'/J.,\,\o,- Elwou, 1rap,jv
rra,avlcravH;,8/i:Kai ,-e,\r;aiaav-rr;,:TO>"GTTovoasAv-qyov-ro .••
The trumpet sounded for silence and they made the prayers which
customary before departure, not individually in each ship, but aU of
together led by the heraJd, with mixing-bowls having been filled
wine throughout the army and the commanders and marines pou
libations from gold and silver cups. There also joined in the prayers
crowd on dry land, made up of citizens and any other well-wishers. Wh
they had raised the paean and finished the libations, they put to sea.
This is extremely interesting for several reasons. First, it sho
us an example of people definitely praying together in a synch·
nized way. The co-ordination of the plural verb [vVE11'7JOXOVTo w prayers') in Thucydides refers to a fixed form of words. Unfor-
the singular noun oµ.iJ.o,stresses that each individual in the cro
participated in the prayer. 48 The herald leads them. Altha
Thucydides does not explain exactly how this works, there i
passage in Diodorus Siculus which is most enlightening. In 3
BC, Ptolemy I Soter and Demetrius Poliorcetes were about
engage in a sea battle for control of Cyprus. Diodorus tells
TOL5'8€oi, £1TOIOVVTO, 1Ca8a.1r€p
(20. 50. 6): £1'X0:5'J1<Ci1'€pOl 'ljV e8o,,
TWV K€A£vcrrwv, avv€1TiAa/3oµlvov Kal -roti 1rA718oti,-ry</,wvfj ('B
sides prayed to the gods, according to custom, by means of
signalmen leading and the crowd joining in with its voice').
looks very much as though the signalmen, whose normal job
to beat time for the oarsmen, were here being used to lead
prayers while the crews chimed in after them. It is more t
likely that things were orchestrated in the same way in the Th
cydidean passage. If this were so, it might provide a model i
many other public ceremonies. 49
48
Cf. II. 8. 347.
49
Compare Dern. 18. 259, where Aeschines is described as 1<EAEuw" [sc. myste
dpov ~,vov ('ordering [them] to say, "I have e
initiates] Myuv l,f,,ryov KG><<>>',
what is evil and found what is better"'). Clearly he spoke the words of this m
acclamation and the initiates repeated them after him.
Sitz im Leben 177
There is, however, another way in which public prayers could
be made. An appointed person issued an invitation to pray and
everybody joined in with their own individual prayers. An exam-
ple of this is Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae (lines 295 ff.,
332ff., 351ff.). Here, in separate batches, the heraldess says
TE
EVX£a8£ ('pray') followed by a catalogue of gods to be prayed to.
The chorus answers with its own prayer. A similar thing happens
at Aves 865, where the priest says £ilxr;a8£ and Peisthetairus carries
on with the prayer himself. There is also wxd,µ.£8a at Pax 967,
which seems like a good parallel for our 'Let us pray'. In the light
of the two previous examples involving £VX£C18£, I do not think
£uxwµ,E8a can be taken as meaning that the celebrant will pray on
behalf of the others. On the contrary, it looks like very good
evidence for the group joining in with its own prayers.
If they all made their own separate prayers, one wonders how
different one was from another. Was there a fixed form of words?
We cannot know the answer to this, but it is tantalizing to spec-
ulate that the phrase £uxas BE Ta,
1101,u{oµ.eva,('the customary
tunately, it is just as likely that it means that some sort of prayer
had to be said because it was customary. Also interesting is that
Thucydides tells us that they prayed all together, not just ship by
ship (ov KaTa vativ EK&CJrrJv, [6µ.1raVTES81). Obviously there were
times when people did pray ship by ship. This is clearly another
possible sort of group prayer.
At Ar. Pax 967, Trygaeus says: d,\)i' e1'xJ,µ.£8a / T(, Tjj8£;1roti1ro-r'
tfoi 1roJ.J.011<aya8ol; ('Now, let us pray. Who is here? Where are
many good men?'). This is a reference to real cultic practice. The
Suda, under -rl, -rn8£.has this to say:
l,\eyov TLS'rf,&; d.v-r1Toii 7{: TrO.pEUT<P,,JT11.
ol cmivOoV7'€S' ol 1rapov-rfS111,,/,71µ.{-
'6µ001 i.\iyov· 1r0Mo1Knyo.8ol. TOin-o 8~ J1rowiiv ivo. ol avvu'SoTtS, 1'< fo,m,,,
UT01T1>V
lKxwpo[& ,.,;;., cr1ro118wv
Those who made libations said, 'Who here?', meaning 'Who is present?',
and then those who were present, using words of good omen, said,
'Many good men'. They did this so that those with something on their
conscience might withdraw from the libations.
In Ranae 479, Dionysus jokingly says lyKlxo8a· K«A£t 8Eov ('I have
shat. Call the god'). The scholiast says this is a parody of one or
both of two cultic practices:
 Sitz im Leben
h TOt!; A,wa:i"KOi!; dywcn TOULliolll)aov,l li(!,&oiixo!;
KaTlxwv i\aµ11ii8a ,\
flowat"L'Eµ.EA1•'
K«AELTE8£01'.Kai ol 1nraKOIJ01'TE!: "laKXE1TAOVT08o-ra." ,j
TOh Tai, /foaims tmAeyoµ.wov. (:,rn/iiiv yap U1Tov,'lo1roniawvTa,, ~mi\iyo
81,011.
( I( K(XVT(I.'.KltAE<
At the festival of the Lena.ea, the Torch-bearer of Dionysus, hold'
torch, says, 'Can the god'. 50 Those who are listening shout, 'So
Semele, lacchus, bringer of wealth'. Or else it is referring to what .
say at sacrifices. For when people are making libations, they say at'
same time, 'It has been poured out. Call the god'.
At the Lenaea, then, the group summons the god at the invita
of the celebrant-a very direct kind of participation. The
liast makes the more general remark that there was also
special formula for use with libations. That, however, c
have been a purely individual thing. It does not imply callee
prayer or responsion.
51
The ili\o,\vyr/'
Another element of ritual which has a claim to be considere<f
prayer-like, and to some extent constituting a sort of group p
cipation, is the ili\oi\11')'17
or ili\oi\uyµ.&s.
The word no doubt refe
onomatopoeia to the production of some sort of shrill cry such
still produced by wailing women in the Middle East. 52 Some ·
it is found independently of any ritual context. At Aesch. Ag.
Clytemnestra says that she let out the il,\oi\11')'17
because of her
(xapas ihro). Mostly, however, it is explicitly associated with
religious sphere. At Od. 3. 450, the women raise the oi\o,\11')'17
the moment when Thrasymedes strikes the neck of the ox
his axe. It is reasonable to assume that this is some kind of e
tional counterpoint to the act of shedding blood. It is the femi
response to the male act. At first sight, there is no obvious co
tion with prayer. None the less, it is a kind of participation.
It is, however, found in contexts less dramatic than that ·
animal sacrifice. In Od. 4. 767 when Penelope prays to Athe
the poet describes the end of the prayer as follows: ws£lTT".
so For II diJK:ussion of the Lenaea, see A. Pickard-Cambridge, Tiu!
Festivals of Athem,2 rev. J. Gould and D. M. Lewis {Oxford, 1991 ), 25 ff.
51
See L. Deubner, Ololyge und Verwandtes (Abh. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1941.
Berlin, 1941); F. Schwenn, Gebet und Opfer (Heidelberg, 1927), 35ff.
52
It has been suggested that the whole practice is Near Eastern in origin.
word itself may be related to Hebrew Hallelujah. Evidence against this might
the Skt. uluuli. It is, after all, conceivable that piercing shrieks made by wo
could arise independently in different places.
Sitz im Leben 179
6,\6,\vfe, OeaSi ol e«,\ve, apijs ('So she spoke and made the ritual
cry and the goddess heard her prayer'). Despite ritual washing
and the throwing of barley-groats, there has been no sacrifice.
None the less, it looks as though the cry is an important part of
the communication with the goddess. It is an inarticulate noise
which follows the more measured tones of the prayer. The
0,\o,\vy,f is closely associated with the prayer itself. In the scene
in Iliad 6 that we have already looked at (297ff.), the women of
Troy make an offering to Athene. The poet says of them (301): al
o'J,\oi\uyji TTaaail'1871"71xeipas ci.viaxov('with a ritual cry they all
held up their hands to Athene'). Here, again, the cry goes up at
the same time as the hands are raised in prayer. The two are
closely linked.
At Eur. Med. n73, we hear that the old maid, finding Creon's
daughter in a frenzy, thought herself in the presence of the god Pan
and so raised the di\oi\11')'17.
When she realized the truth (n76f.), she
&vTtµoi\1Tov 'lj«o oi\o,\vyijsp.fyav / KWKVTOv ('let out a great wail of
grief, the opposite of the ololyge'). Clearly it would have been
appropriate for a woman to greet the god Pan with an 0,\oi\vyrf.53
Could the oi\o,\vri have been a greeting used for other gods too?
At Eur. El. 69of., Electra says to her brother, ~" µ,tvl,\(J'!l 7r6a-r,s-
evTvx~s ai8£1J,/ dAoA6te-rat'/TaV Swp,a ('If it is reported that you are
doing well, the whole house will raise the ritual cry'). This may
refer to some sort of thanksgiving to the gods. A clearer example
of the ili\0Avy71 as an ejaculation directed at heaven is at Od. 22. 4o8,
when the old nurse wants to raise an di\oi\uy71 over the slain suitors.
It looks like an act of thanksgiving. Odysseus rebukes her (412) by
saying ovx &atr,KTap,lvotatvbr' av3pa.aw £il)(ETaaa8a1('it is not holy
for you to boast over slain men'). Odysseus' religious objection
suggests that the il,\oi\11')'17
attracts the attention of the gods.
In a fragment of Euripides, however, we find an extraordinarily
explicit equation of ili\oi\uy71 with invocatory prayer. In fr. 351 N 2 ,
from his Erechtheus, we find the following, d,\o,\v,eT: ,1, yvvai1<£s,
Ji, lJ..Or,
0ea / XPVUTJV lxovaa I'opyov'ITTlt((JVpos'ITOAU('Raise the ritual
53
Cf. Ap. Rhod. Argon. 3. 1218, where the Nymphs greet Heca.te with an
rt,\o,luy~. It is connected with the worship of Cybele in Anth. Pal. 6. 173. Cf.
Menander, fr. 326 K. Hesychius (s.v.) thinks that the oiloilllY'7is purely a cry of
grief, The evidence of the Medt!a, at least, would tell against this. If the 1<wK.,.,.6~
~'wail of grief') is dvT4,oA,,,..,~
('the opposite noise') to the oAoAll)"1.
then surely the
oilo.lu;,,i itself must be a shout of joy. Nicholas Richardson points out, in his
commentary on II. 22. 405 ff., that 1<w1<vE,vis used exclusively of women in Homer
and tragedy. See his The Iliad: A Commentary, vi, Books 21-24 (Cambridge, 1993).
180 Sitz im Leben
cry, women, so that the goddess will come as a helper to the c'
with her golden Gorgon-shield'). The clear implication is t
the cry of the women will summon the goddess Athene to c
to their aid. Herodotus (4. 189. 3), talking of Libya, says tha
thinks the sacrificial ci,\o,\r.ry,f originated there. For, he says, K
yap
' TaVT'!}
' xprwVTa:1
, a:1' .tit,-,vaaa1
A IQ Kat' xpiwvTat
, Ka,\. tu!i ('th e women
Libya use it very much and they do so beautifully'). That t
noise had a foreign origin is not unlikely. As we have seen
similar thing can still be heard today in the Middle East.
is interesting, though, is that Herodotus thinks that their pa
cular o,\o,\r.ry,f is performed ,ca;,\ws. He recognizes, perhaps, t
there is an aesthetic and spiritual dimension to the act.
So we can conclude that the o,\o,\vy,f is many things. It co
accompany the high point of a sacrifice. There are also occasio
when it took on an aspect more like that of free prayer, either
greeting, or as an expression of joy to the gods or as a dir
invocation. What is particularly striking about the o,\o,\r.ry,f,
course, is that it is a purely female thing. 54 I know of no exam
. . t h e o',\ 0Atry77
of men raising \ ' un der any circumstances.
. ss " that the shout was aimed at Enyalios but it is quite plausible that
54
Cf. Xen. An. 4. 3, 19. The Etym. Magn. actually defines it as such (s.v.):
y1111a,1<wv ./iv1T<><<>>nrTa<
b, Tois l~po,s nlx<>µ,£vm ('a sound made by women when
are praying at sacrifices'). The author seems to be saying that prayer and
01\0,\IIY'I are two different but closely connected things. In describing the siege
Plata.ea, Thucydides says (2. 4. 2): ,ro]\).i;;8op6f3'1'a.u,-wv T~ ,rpo,:r{:lal\6V"Twv Hat
yw,uKwv Ka.!,.,;;., ot1<uwvil.µ,a&.,,.,l Twv ol1<1wv 1<paurfin 1<al<11\olurfi ,:pwµ.lvwv M801.11
1<111 ('with a great noise, of them themselves attacking and at
,..~iu'I'-'!'/3aX\<>V'Twv
same time of the women and slaves, with shouting and o1loA"Y'1], throwing st
and pelting them with pots from the houses'). We should not, however, take
ne.::essarily ro mean that both groups, women and slaves, were involved b
oAoAvy~and shouting. It is more than likely that the words are arranged c
ca!ly, so that Kpaurfi goes with ol1<<-ruw and &,\o,\urfiwith yw<1iKwv, so that the sla
were shouting, the women raising the oAo,\uy,i,
55
Demosthenes alleges (r8. 200) that Aeschines did so; but this is in the cont
of a scurrilous attack when he is saying that Aeschines helped his mother
administer mystery rites. I think it is more likely that Demosthenes is trying
blacken Aeschines by likening him to his mother than that he has incident
preserved a piece of evidence that the ,l,\o,\uy,iwas used by men in the context
mystery worship. Trygaeus tells his slaves to &~o,'\u,ovat Ar. Pax. 91, but this n
not mean that male slaves regularly raised the d,\o,'\uy,i,merely that Trygaeus
not being particularly precise or that he was using the word in a transferred s
to mean 'shriek like women'. The most telling apparent exception is proba
Aesch. Ag. 594ff., where Clytemnestra says yw1111<El'I' ""I'-'!' I oAoAvyµ.ov ,'l
,;'..\).o9fv Kimi ,,.,..,.\w/ .:1l<111·1<ov
ii,,f,riµ.oiiVTE'i('After the fashion of women, diffe
men here and there throughout the ciry, shouted the ritual cry with well-om
mouth'). Although this is an example of men raising the o.\o,\vy,.&s,the use of
qualifying phrase yvvt:1,1<E1<Jl v6µ.w is surely intended to stress that this is an ex
tional occurrence. So unique was the occasion that even some men were dra
into what was usually an exclusively female activity.
Sitz im Leben 181
Men made a different ritual noise. Heliodorus writing in the
third century AD says (3. 5), w,\6,\v{nv al yvvaiK£S, ~,\a,\afav 8~ ol
avopi,;. So the verb designating the female ritual cry is o,\o,\~{w
whereas that which denotes the male cry is a.i\a,\&{tu.There is also
the verb EAEAl{w, The sound referred to is d.,\a,\a,\a{ or a,\a,\o. 1
('alalalai / alalai', Ar. Av. 1763, Lys. 1291) or £AEA£A£V ('eleleleu',
Ar. Av. 364). At Xen. An. 5. 2. 14 we read, a.µ.a. TE Tei>'Evva,\fu,
~,\€,\,{av Kai lOEOv8p6µ.q, o, 61TAfra,('The hoplites shouted "elele·-
leu" to the god Enyalios [a god of war] and ran at a dash'). There
is a variant manuscript reading at this point, ~,\41\c.itav. The verbs
&,\a,\&{wand J,\e,\llw are clearly similar enough to cause confusion
(cf. An. I. 8. 18). At An. 6. 5- 27, they £77'dllll'£,OV Kai µ,ET<i Tav-ra
~A<Ua{ov('raised the paean and after that cried "alalalai" '). The
fact that the word has the indirect object 'Evva,\(q, at 5. 2. 14 makes
it pretty dear that it is some kind of address. The context, namely
before battle, might lead us to suggest that quite a lot of feeling is
squeezed into this. Could it be some kind of abbreviated prayer
for success? Presumably it is Xenophon who supplied the detail
this was going through the heads of the troops themselves when
they raised the shout.
At Ar. Au. 1763, the cry of victory is raised: «:Ua,\a,\all-qn-airJw,/
T17vE,\,\o;Ka,\,\{v,Kos, ~ / oa,p,6vwv imEpTaTr ('alalalai ie paeon, hurrah
glorious victor, o highest of the gods'). We shall consider later the
significance of the paean as a prayer-like shout, but it is clear that
here the cry d.,\a,\a,\a( is being addressed to a deity, probably Paean.
This cry may not be an exclusively male thing. The evidence
depends, however, on passages which are textually disputed.
According to the manuscripts, women make the d.,\a,\ay17at Eur.
Bacch. II33, but Diggle emends to di,\6,\v{ov. d.,\a.\&{ETtumay have
in its favour the fact that the scholium to Pind. 0/. 7. 68 says, -q
yap a.i\a,\ay11KvpCws £77'1 ri}s TWI/ 11'0AEµ.lwvavp,/30,\f/s y{viTat, efT'ouv
Myern, Kai Jn-i TWI' £K/3aKxwµ.aTOJV ('the cry ''alalalai" is properly
made when closing with the enemy and it is also used at Bacchic
orgies'). It is reasonable to assume that women may have been
involved here. (However, ,\a,\ay17 is a variant reading for o.,\a,\aY17
in the scholium.) The cry is also found in the mouths of women
at Soph. Trach • .205, associated with the o,\o,\r.ry,f.Once again,
though, the text is suspect. 56
56
See H. Lloyd-Jones and N. G. Wilson, Sophoclea (Oxford, 1990), 156f. for
discussion.
182 Sitz im Leben
The Paean 57
The paean also has a place in the discussion of group partici
tion. Obviously the subject is a vast one. I do not propose to d
here with the identity of the god Paean, Nor shall I enumerate
occasions on which the paean was sung. The fact is that the pa
seems to have had a dual nature. It could either be a simple sho
l~ llauhv/llat&.v, or else it could be a complex hymn with the
llatwv as part of the refrain. We shall deal here purely with th
instances where the shout seems to be a prayer and where
group is involved with it.
We have already looked at Thucydides' description of t
ceremony surrounding the departure of the Sicilian Expediti
He tells us that the prayers were followed by a paean. It
possible that it functioned as a kind of 'Amen' in these circu
stances. Clearly the paean was appropriate because these w
men preparing to go to battle but it is significant that it foll
directly behind the prayer. Is it perhaps a sort of tailpiece? I
think of three very suggestive parallels for this. In Xenoph
Anabasis (3. 2. 9) somebody sneezes and it is taken as an om
Xenophon decides that they should all pray to Zeus Soter and t
other gods. They all vote that this is a good idea. Therefo
11v[allTO1Cali1Tatav1uav ('they prayed and raised the paean').
may just be that it was a paean of praise, or it may be that
have a communal prayer rounded off by a paean as a kind
'Amen'. In Aristophanes' Vespae, there is a prayer to Apo
which ends with the refrain l~ llat/111(874). This is an ambiguo
piece of evidence. It might be argued that, because it is a pray
to Apollo, it has acquired the characteristic refrain of the pa
All the same, the prayer itself is not a paean, so we may want
see this as a third example of the phrase l71llaiav closing a pray
The really convincing piece of evidence comes from Aris
phanes' Thesmophoriazusae (3 l r ). When the heraldess has spok
N 'ITatWIIl.;,waiwv. xatpwp.Ev('t
the prayer, she ends with ,.;, 'ITalWV
paian, ie paian, ie paian. Let us rejoice').
At Xen. An. 4. 3. 19, we hear i1T£lKaAO.~117'0. aq,aym, £1Tata11t{ov
<JTpanCJTat1Cal «Jn1AaAatov, uww,\0,\11,0118£ al yvvailCliS'a1Tau
s, For general details about the paean, see A. Fairbanks, A Study of the G
Paean (CorneU Studies in Classical Philology, 12; Ithaca, NY, 1900} and L. Kap
Paian (Berlin, 1992).
Sitz im Leben 183
('Since the sacrifice was favourable, the soldiers raised the paean
and the shout of "alalai", and all the women raised their sacred
cry too'). We cannot tell what the nature of this paean was. It is
clearly separate from the li,\a.\al. The paean can also precede
battle. Sometimes it is musical (Diod. Sic. 5. 34. 5; E to Thuc.
1. 50; Plut. Lye. 22. 2f.); sometimes it was more of a shout (Pl. Ep.
348b; E to Pl. Resp. 383b; Plut. Crass. 26. 3; Polyb. 2. 29. 6). Since
the paean seems originally to have been an invocation, there is
every reason to suspect that this shout may under certain circum-
stances have been a sort of prayer like the o,\o.\vri,
At Xen. Cyr. 3. 3. 58, we read; ifTJPX€11 aihds clKiipos 1TO.uivo. T611
voµ.1toµ.,11ov,oi 8£ 8,ouE/Jws(JI/VE1f11X11<1av
µ.eya,\71 rf, q,wvf, ('Cyrus
himself led them in the customary paean and they reverently
joined in the shout in a loud voice'). This looks like a very
good piece of evidence for group participation. It is not like
group performance of hymns, since it is less organized. Cyrus
starts up a paean and the men follow. It is said to be a pious act,
8£oa,fJws-. This probably means it is meant to impinge on the
attention of the deity.
Other Sorts of Cries
There is a small but important class of cries and shouts that
should be mentioned alongside the foregoing. These are EVof
('Euoi') and uaflor ('Saboi'). The former is associated both with
the cult of Bacchus (Eur. Bacch, 142) and of Sabazius (Dern. 18.
260). The cry £6oi ua/Joris said by Demosthenes (18. 26o) to have
been used by Aeschines, along with ~s d.TTTJS a.n11s v'i;s ('Hyes
attes attes hyes'). Dodds has a very instructive note on how it
might have come about that the cult of Sabazius and of Dionysus
shared some elements. 58 An adjective ,v1os exists in Greek, which
seems in all likelihood to be formed from the cry £110,rather than
vice versa. These cries probably originated as invocations of the
god (dialectal vocatives) but clearly they also function as excla-
mations, made by the votary at the moment of supreme emotional
and spiritual elation. If everyone shouted together, it would
58
E. R. Dodds (ed.), Eunpides: Baccha,l {Oxford. 1900), 76£. For a concise
a~count of all these cries and of ancient and modern conjectures about them, see
C. A. Lobed;, Aglaophamus (18.29), ii. 1042, rn.u.
 Sitz im Leben
doubtless have produced a strong feeling of belonging to a spe
group and of being in the presence of the deity.
Sacred but not Silent
£/x/,71µ,(o.:
We examined above (p. 177f.) a passage from the Suda (s.v.
rflo£).We saw that ol rrapovns £Vcpr/p,t{6µ,wo, i,\eyov· wo,\,\ol ICd)'
('those who were present, using £v4nJp,lo., said "many good men"
To those accustomed to believe that di<Jrr,µia denotes simply ri
silence, this comes as quite a surprise. Similarly, at Ar. Pax 96
the chorus says, rotp'f/p.£fvXP'fl1Ca1.p,~ t/>,\o.iJpov
/ p.'YJoevypv{rn,
o,\o,\u{uv ('It is necessary to observe £v,j,r,p.laand not mumb
nonsense but raise the &,\o,\vyf). The &,\o,\vyl'}, for all that it is
wild, piercing cry, is still a species of £OtprJp,ta .. There are ot
contexts where £V'P'l'jp,iw clearly denotes speech rather than sileQ,
It is used of singing hymns (Aesch. Pers. 620), of the paean (E
IT 1403f.), of the &.\o,\ll,'l'}(Aesch. Ag. 595f.) 1 and of !amen
(Aesch. fr. 350. 4 Radt). 59 At Ar. Thesm. 295ff., the heralde
asks for £Otp71µ.ta cnw,/ roef,71µ,(a
saying: EOtprJp,la '1mo. / £VX£U9£Ta.
€J£ap.otp6po,v ('Let there be £1Jtp71p,fo.
Let there be £Otp71p,lo.. Pray t
the Thesmophorian deities'). The prayer then follows.
We can see from all these examples that t£iltp71p,fo does n
denote silence, but merely an abstention from certain forms o
(ill-omened) speech. Once £vtp71p.lais established, then one c
utter prayers. Thus, we can consider £/xp'f/lL£i-r£ as another way o
inviting the group to join in. It is a positive act, done for the sake.
of the god. The group may then go on actually to speak a prayer
or to join in group hymns or paeans,
CONDUCT OF PRAYER
Praying Aloud and Silent Prayer60
The bulk of our evidence suggests that the ancient Greeks prayed
out loud. When Chryses makes the sacrificial prayer to call off the .
59
We also call to mind ll. r. 22, 1rav.-£;l1r,v,p~µ'laav :<txn«><
all,,iaila, (f i•pija.
Clearly i1r,ucfniµ1J<1av
must mean something like 'expressed their assent'. Perhaps
the Argives all shouted n, ('good idea'). Perhaps they just murmured their assent
in some other way, Either way, the word does not refer to silence.
60
An excellent recent discussion of this topic is P. W. van den Horst, 'Silent
Prayer in Antiquity', Numen, 41/1 (1994), 1-.25.
Sitz im Leben
plague, Homer says (Il. 1. 450): Xpvur,, p.iya,\' £VX£-ro.This is
usually taken to mean that he prayed aloud. 61 That prayer spoken
aloud was the normal practice is underlined by the fact that silent
prayer is treated as an oddity. When Ajax is arming for battle, he
says (ll. 7. 193ff.):
,U,\' liyE-r~oef,p'
av lydi 1roA£,..~i'a
-rE6xEa66w,
0µ.EISetJx£u8EJ 11Kpav(wvlavaKTI,
-r&,J,p'
u1yfl l,J,'fl/.£Elwv, fva µ~ Tpwi; YEm)(Jwln'at,
~t Kal &µ,l,a8!71v, ov
l1rEt nva 8fl81p,EV lµ"fTT/S,
Come now, while I am putting on the annour of war, pray to lord Zeus
son of Cronus, silently to yourselves, lest the Trojans find out; or do it
openly, since, anyhow, we fear no man.
The implication of Ajax's having to add the qualification 'silently
on your own' is that most prayers were not of this kind. It is
important that the Trojans do not hear, or they may offer a
counter-prayer. It may therefore be convenient that Chryses
goes off on his own when cursing the Greeks at II. 1. 35. Pre-
sumably nobody heard the prayer because eventually a seer had to
be called in to identify the cause of the plague. 62
Another example of silent prayer comes in the funeral games for
Patroclus in Il. 23. 769f. Odysseus prays to Athene for strength:
e:lixn..:4871va{ny,\av/U.Q1TWI &v K4Td Bvµ&v·
"K.\ii8,, 8Ea, a.yalh)/LOI l1rlppa8osl.\8t 1r0Soiw".
He prayed to the owl-eyed Athene in his heart, 'Hear me, goddess, come
as a good helper of my feet.'
The phrase ov 1CaTa llvp,611
('in his heart') is unusual in prayers.
It recurs in Od. 5. 444, when the exhausted and half-drowned
Odysseus is praying for help to the River-god in Phaeacia. The
scholiast points out that prayer 'in one's own heart' is appropriate
for an exhausted swimmer. 63 The shortness of the prayer may
1
'' Parallels are 11.3. l75, 8. 347, 15. 369.
62
Another force may also be in play here, though. Characters sometimes do
seek solitude for prayer, especially when cursing, e.g. Pind. 0/. 1. 71 ff.: Pelops
goes at night to the sea•shore. But he wants to communicate with Poseidon, so this
may be more logical than commentators think. There is still the fact that he goes
when it is dark. This may give the thing an eerie, magical tone. See D. E. Gerber,
Pindar's Olympian One, A Commentary (Toronto, 1982), II4ff., with the extra
bibliography there mentioned. It is significant that Pelops, too, is uttering a curse.
61
Richardson (Iliad: Commentary, vi), commenting on Il. 23. 769 points out the
similar observation in Eustathius 1329. 19f.
186 Sitz im Leben
lead us to believe that this is why Odysseus prays to himself in
23. 769f. In the latter context, however, there may also be,
element of his not wanting his rivals to hear the prayer. Eit
he felt ashamed or else was afraid that they would make a c
ter-prayer.
In later periods, silent prayer was often explained by sa
that the petitioner's request was somehow dishonoura
According to Clement of Alexandria, Pythagoras thought t
praying ought ~.,aq,wvfis t/301JAOVTO
EiJxEa8a1... OTI OtKO.«:LS-
Tll!, Evxas-,lk o1'K av ns- alow8El1]7"0£Eta8atwo.Uwv avvnSo-rwP
pray aloud . . . because they wanted the prayers to be just, of.
sort that nobodv would be ashamed to make if there were
witnesses'). 64 This is rather later evidence. There is, in fa
good deal of late evidence, mostly from Rome, to suggest t
silent prayer was linked with shady, magical practices. 65 I s
not parade the Roman evidence here. It is best not to procee
the assumption that Roman religion and Greek are essentially
same thing. Roman religion frequently does preserve earlier p
tices, but it is a tricky business to know what they are. 66
There is a good example of silent prayer in Herodotus (2.
4). The wife of Amasis makes a mental vow to Aphrodite, and
prayer is fulfilled at once:
~ a~Aa.olK1/,lw€{n ol ap,;vp.brJoil.S~v lylv£TO wp71th,;po, ,i 'Ap.ain,, n1xETIU
T(pv&q, rfJ )14,poolT'f}, ~v ol tlw'lKt;lV71V
T~Vv6,c,rap.nx/Jfi,i 'Ap.acn,,TOVTOy
Kl.tKOV tfva11-''f/XOf, e,
&ya,\µ& ol awowlp.iµ1;u, KVprjV71V, a,
j-Lf!T(J. T~VEilx~v av
ol lp..-lx/J"I,i '1p.a.,;,s.
Since Ladice's husband, despite her prayers, was becoming no mild •.
she prayed to Aphrodite in her mind, saying that if Amasis had sex w'
64 Clem. Al. Strom. 4, .z6 (171, 1). This is cited by Versnel, .z6 n. 98.
65
The primary and secondary evidence is far too extensive to examine in de
in the text. The reader should consult the following works on the question. Fi
Versnel, 25f. This gives a good deal of secondary material in his footnote 91'>.
cites the fundrunental word of S. Sudhaus, 'Lautes und leises Beten', AR
(1900), 185-ioo. Particularly useful as well is the supplement to H. Schm
Veures phi/asophi quomodo iudicaverint de precibus (RVV 4; Giessen, i907).
Versnel notes, he has a lot of evidence on siJent prayer which is not motiv
by low concerns, although this comes mostly from the late period under Neopl
nist influence (Venne!, 66ff.). There is a good footnote in Gow's commentary
Theocritu11 2. n, on dwxa.
66
We saw this in Ch. 6, where the Roman formula 'sive mas ... sive f
was shown to be very different in purpose from the superficially compar
Greek formula ,;,,.,.,f
ff<>T' lGT,v.
Sitz im Leben
her that night (for this was what all her troubles were about) she would
send her a statue to Cyrene. Immediately after the prayer, her husband
had sex with her.
The prayer is probably made mentally because Amasis is stand-
ing in front of her. He has accused her of using magic to make
him impotent and is threatening to kill her. Clearly a silent prayer
to Aphrodite is her only hope in such a dire situation. 67 I do not
think that the fact that Amasis' wife is Egyptian should affect our
view of this passage. If Herodotus had meant to tell us that silent
prayer was another respect in which Egyptian customs were the
opposite of Greek, he would have said so more explicitly. What is
most interesting about this passage is that it implies that if Ladice
bad been alone she would have made her prayer aloud.
It was also possible to mutter a prayer, rather than make it in
perfect silence. When Clytemnestra, in Sophocles' Electra, prays
to Apollo (638f.) about her dreams, she repeatedly stresses that
she is speaking a KEt<pvµ.p.EV1Jv .•• f3altv. ovya.p Jv 4,l>.ms- / oµ:u8o,;
('hidden saying; for I am not among friends as I speak'). At the
end of that prayer, she says that there are other things she has not
said which she expects the god to know by virtue of his divinity
(657), TO. li' aA>.a'ITaVTa Kai 111W'ITti)OTf'ii €,-WVI tmif,w OE 8a(µ.ov'oVT"
e[a8/va,.
68
The request is somewhat base. Clytemnestra does well
to hush it up because Electra is present and she could easily make a
counter-prayer if Clytemnestra were too open about her feelings.
One should also notice, though, that there were silent prayers
which did not stem from base intentions on the part of the person
praying but from fear of the power being addressed. The best-
known example of this is probably the scene in Sophocles' Oedi-
pus Coloneus, where Oedipus asks the chorus how he should pray
67
One of Aphrodite's epithets was 'Pl8vpo, {'whisperer'). There was also an
"Epw~(Eros) if,,Ot,p,,;and a 'Ep;,:q;(Hermes) if,,8vp,GTT/S,This testifies to people's
need to address these deities in silence. People should not know of one's amorous
intentions or one's secret projects. See Schmidt, Veteres philorophi, 55 for refer-
In Hdt. 1. 47. 3, the Delphic oracle advertises that it knows men's minds, oil
,Pwv,iino; A1<ovw ('I hear him who does not speak'). It is important to know that
Apollo is often thought to be omniscient. There is a clear statement of this at
Pin d. Pyth. 9. 45 ff. So it may not just be because he is a daimon that Apollo is
likely to know Clytemnestra's thoughts. Of all the gods, he specializes in this kind
of thing.
188 Sitz im Leben
to the Erinyes. They reply (489), 0.11Vl1Ta qiwvwv µ:q8eµ''}KVYWV
('speakingly so that nobody can hear and not raising a shout
It is perhaps not very surprising that public prayers
spoken out loud. It is hard to imagine a group gathering
completely silent prayer. However, the story of Ladice in H
dotus is more puzzling. Clearly, even in private, it was tho
usual to pray aloud. Some Greeks clearly did think that the g:
knew what was going on in their heads (cf. Hdt. J. 47. J, 2. 181,
but most people did not make much use of this notion in
prayers, Perhaps most people simply did not think of the go
omnipresent and omniscient. 70 Even if they might theoreti
look into their minds, it was perhaps more prudent to draw
attention with audible speech. 71
Gestures: Standing, Kneeling, and Supplication
The subject of gesture in Greek prayer is a colossal one. The b
recent treatment of the subject is undoubtedly that of Aubrio
She has collected together all the relevant primary and second
evidence. What follows is on a rather more modest s
Attempts to speculate about the meaning of gestures are frau
with difficulties, whether we are looking at the gestures of
ancient Greeks or even those of our own day. I shall not att
anything like this here. It is, however, noteworthy that the Gre
69
All this must be linked up with the fear that made people pass the grav
heroes in silence. See Rohde, eh. s n. 110, and E. Keams, The Heroes of At
(London, 1989), 167-8, for evidence.
70
On Greek anxiety about being heard, see Versnel, 26ff.
71
J am disinclined to link silent prayer with silent reading. That the latter
unusual is probably the result of the fact that not all Greeks had become
tomed to translating abstract visual symbols into sound in their brain withput
intermediate step of vocal articulation. Prayer, however, is a different ma
There is no reason to doubt that Greeks heard sounds in their minds just as
do, for example when imagining something one intends to say or when recoil
ing another's words or a piece of musk. Achilles knew that one can think one
but say another (Jl. 9. 312ff.). The practice of speaking aloud must rep
deliberate choice to vocalize one's thoughts. Perhaps the spoken word was
more real, and therefore more efficacious, than insubstantial thought. On
significance of speech-acts and silent reading in antiquity see j. Svenbm, P
,ikleio (Paris, 1988).
72 Aubriot, 125ff. See especially C. Sittl. Die Gebiirden d11,Griechen und R
(Leipzig, 1890), 174ff; G. Neumann, Gesten und Gebiirden in der griechisdum
(Berlin, 1965), 78 ff.
Sitz im Leben 189
themselves thought that the gesture of raising the hands in prayer
was universal. [Aristotle] De mundo 400"16 tells us, 1r~vns ol
av8pwrro, &vaTl:4VOf.J,£11TO.S' x1:ipos 1:ls TOV ovpav6v, 1:vxos 1TOmQµ.a,o,
('All of us human beings stretch out our hands to the sky when
praying'). We do indeed possess a great deal of evidence for this
prayer-gesture in other, non-Greek, cultures. 73
What was involved in this gesture of raising the hands, XEipas
avanlvuv? It seems that often they were raised above the head,
palms upturned towards heaven. The palm of the hand is usually
angled outward at about forty-five degrees. An excellent three-
dimensional representation of this is a Roman copy in bronze of a
fourth-century Greek statue known as 'The Boy in Prayer'. It is
attributed to Boedas, son of Lysippus and is in the Pergamum
Museum in Berlin. 74 There are many small variations possible-
the palms can be almost at right angles to the arm or they can be
held out straight so that they merely continue the forearm. 75
Sometimes this gesture is produced with the arms and hands
less elevated, so that the hands are at about the level of the
shoulders. 76
Very often, however, only one hand is raised. This gesture is,
according to Van Straten, more common in the iconographic
record of the classical period than that of raising both hands. 77
In these scenes, however, the hands are not raised above the head.
Rather, they are held out in front of one in a gesture like that used
by policemen to halt traffic.
The palms are made to face down to the ground when praying
to the dead or to a chthonic deity. 78 Furthermore, according to
Plato, if only one hand were being used in prayer, then the right
was used for the Olympian gods and the left for the chthonians. 79
71
See T. Ohm, Die Gebetsgebiirden der Volker und das Christentum (Leiden,
De junctamm in precando
1948), esp. 246ff. and pls. vm and 1x.; C. F. Vierordt,
manuum origine Indo-Germanica et usu intu plurimos Chrutionos adscito (Karls-
ruhe, 1851), 7. The modern gesture of putting the hands together in prayer was
unJmown in Greece, according to Vierordt. He thinks it came from India (p. 13).
4
' There is a good photograph in J. Hermann (ed.), Lexikon Jriikerer Kulturen
(Leipzig, 1987), i, 130, s.v. 'Betender Knabe'. 73 See Aubriot, 129,
76
Van Straten, 'Gifts', also appends some good photographs of these gestures: pt
7, from the sanctuary of Demeter at Mesembria, shows the hands at shoulder height.
0
Van Straten, 'Gifts', pls. 8-10, shows worshippers approaching Zeus Mei-
lichios with one hand raised.
78
70
II. 9. 568; Hymn. Hom. Ap, 333; Aesch. Per$. 683; Eur. Tro. 1305f.
See Pl. Leg. 717a, and Aubriot, 132 n. 23.
I90 Sitz im Leben
A particularly well-known chthonic prayer was that of Alth
when she cursed Meleager at Iliad 9. 567ff. She is describe
kneeling on the ground and beating it with her hands.
doubt this is to ensure more effective contact with the infe
powers.
Kneeling is not a particularly common posture. It always
to be thought that it was the normal gesture when prayin
chthonic deities, e.g. Theophrastus, Characters 16. 5. This
has been challenged by F. T. van Straten. so He shows
whether one stands or kneels has little or nothing to do
whether the deity is Olympian or chthonic. It seems to
had more to do with the nature of the request, lt is often
ciated with emergencies, under which circumstances prayer;
assimilated to lKE:n:la.81 A particularly striking representat'
of a kneeling man praying is the vase-painting of Ajax be
his suicide. 82 It is interesting because he is not only knee
but he has his hands outstretched to the deity. If we read
scene in Sophocles (Aj. 856ff.), we remember that he ma
very emotional prayer invoking many deities, particula
Helios, So kneeling here is dictated by the emotional tenor
the scene.
The Olympian and the chthonic are thus not as sharply diffi
entiated as some would like to think. 83 Some reliefs show
worshippers in the presence of Zeus Meilichios are very inst
tive in this respect. 84 In Van Straten's 'Gifts', pl. 8, the wors
pers are standing and their hands are raised towards the g
shown as a bearded man seated at his altar. It is likely that
80
Van Straten. 159"'"80. He points out that it is also possible to kneel
Olvmpians.
ill Some cults, however, do seem to have involved more regular kneeling
others, e.g. that of Heracles Pankrates in Athens. See E. Vikela, Die Weihreltejs
tkm .Athener Pankmtes-Heiligtum am /lissas {MDAI (A), Beiheft 16; Berlin, 1
1J f., with references to plates and further discussion in the text.
82
K. Schefold, 'Sophokles' Aias aufeiner Lekythos', AK 19 (1976), 71-8, pl.
(at end).
83
Van Straten, 176 f., for an excellent account of this. He refers to ,
demonstn1tion that one cannot easily distinguish between Olympian and cht
simply by the mode of sacrifice (see A. D. Nock, 'The Cult of Heroes', HTR"
(1944), 141 ff= Nock, ii. 575 ff.). See now S. Scullion, 'Olympian and Chthoni
Cl. Ant. 13 (1994), 75ff.
84
Van Stn1ten, 'Gifts', pp. 82-3 and pls. 8-10. They can also be seen in J.
Harrison, ProlegWlena to the Study of Greek Religion 3 (Cambridge, 1922). 18-'.
Sitz im Leben 191
should understand the man as representing the god. So clearly, it
is more appropriate to raise the palms to a cult statue than to
make them face the ground, even when the deity involved is
chthonic. Van Straten's plate 9 is more complex, however. Most
of the worshippers are standing, but the woman at the front is
kneeling. This suggests that the choice of gesture is in some
circumstances down to the individual and how he or, in this
case, she feels. Plate 10 shows standing worshippers with
upturned palms before a snake. It also represents Zeus Meili-
chios.
There is another type of gesture where the worshipper is
shown standing with the right hand raised in worship but with
the left hand closed and the thumb clenched inwards. 85 It is
usually supposed that this disposition of the left hand is meant
to give the prayer some sort of extra efficacy.
There were also less formal gestures in use. 86 If one were just
passing by a sanctuary, it was only polite to greet the god with a
xaipi; ('greetings'). Alternatively, one might greet a god with
7rpoaKvvr,u,s. This practice is mentioned in many passages, e.g.
Ar. Eq. 156 and Soph. OC 1654f.87 Some interpreters have taken
this word to mean 'fall on the ground in worship'. 88 We are
familiar with the idea of 7rpoaKVV1/a,i; as bodily prostration in a
89
Persian context. However, it is usually assumed that in Greek
contexts 'll'poaKuviw refers to something else. 90 Edith Hall says, 'it
is probable that since the Greeks genuflected before the images of
the gods (Aesch. PV 936, Soph. Phil. 776, Ar. Plut. 771), when
they encountered the Persian act of obeisance towards mortal
superiors, the two gestures were identified. ' 91 I know of no evi-
dence for Greeks genuflecting as such and I see no reason in any
85
l owe this reference to Van Straten, 'Gifts', 83. His n. 86 gives further
references. 86 Burkert 7, nn ,~ 'l
l'li , ..J • 4<V; •♦
See the note of R. A. Neil, The Knights of Aristophanes (Cambridge, 1901),
ad loc., who collects manv parallels for this.
88 •
For example, Jebb on Soph. OC t654f.
89
That this word may not always refer to throwing oneself on one's face has
be~~ argued by E. Hall, Inventing the Barbarian (Oxford, 1989), 97.
· The Greeks certainly saw prostration as a thoroughly barbarian business, e.g.
Eur. Or. 1507. Although the composite verb .,,.pouo:wfo,is only found in sources
dating from the period after the Persian Wars, the word is found with its preverb
in tmesis in Hippon. fr. 47 West. Since his traditional ftoruit is 510 Be, it is likely
that we are dealing with an indigenous Greek custom.
91
Hall. Inventing the Barbarian, !)6{.
192 Sitz im Leben
92
case to connect the word 11poo1<vvlwwith that gesture. If pr
tration is not a native Greek custom, then we need to know w
93
the Greeks meant by 11poo1<v11Jw. 1 suspect it might mean 'blo
kiss', something not altogether surprising when one rememb
that 1<vvlw means '1 kiss'. This interpretation was put fo
long ago but some have objected that this gesture is not found
any fifth- or fourth-century representations of worship
approaching deities or altars. 94 None the less, if 11pooKu11'fJ<1f.t
neither prostration nor genuflection, we have to assign so
meaning to the word. Either we have to conclude that, on
basis of available classical evidence, we just do not know what
92 The primary and secondary texts cited by Hall, op. cit. 96 and n. 188, do
to my mind corroborate this notion of genuflection. We might note that Hd
134 refers to the way Spartam1 greet each other in the street. If they are
equals, they kiss on the mouth. If one is a little inferior to the other, then they
on the cheek. If, however, one is far inferior to the other, then he wpornr(
1rpoaKVW€<rov hipov ('falls to the ground and 1rpoa1<111'<w-s the other'). At Hd
136, Greek ambassadors to Susa refuse to 1rpoa1<w££w{Jo.m>.Eo. 1rpoD1T{1TTovro.~
(
on the ground and 1rpoa1<vnw the king') because it was not their custom to d
before mortals. This suggests either that Herodotus is being wildly inconsiste
that 1rpoa1<111'£w is being used differently in the two contexts. Since, in the p
from Bk.1, Herodotus was describing different kinds of kiss, it is likely
1rpoa1<vviw also refers to a kiss. The fact that the Spartan falls to the gro
need not mean that this was an inherent part of the meaning of 1rpoa1<Wf!w
all Greeks. Indeed, the very fact that ,rpoo1<vvfw is frequently associated
,rpo=lm-w or ,rpotnf,T11w means there is a possibility that the two things were
the same.
93
At Ar. Eq. 155 f., Demosthenes says to the sausage-seller, ayfa; "" 1<ar
,rpw,o. T1r .,,,~., xaµo.(· / ;,,.m·o.rl,v Y~" "ITp<)DKIIUOIIKlll TOllS 6eous('Come, put
gear down on the ground first of all. 'Fj,en wpou1'w;w the earth and the gods').
sausage-seller replies ,'aot!·,l fo.,.-,v; ('There you are. What is it?'). The action
clearly something that can be performed almost in an instant. It is not likely to
prostration or genuflection. SimiJar references to wpoa,ctl"'la,, almost en passant
Soph. El. 1374; Phil. 533, 657; Ar. Plut .. 771. lt is hard to imagine that any g
ritual gesture is involved in these contexts.
94 For the gesture of kissing the hand, see Sitt!, Die Gebarden, IS?, 174ff.,
181-2. For Minoan-Mycenean seals showing worshippers in this attitude, see
Brandt, Gruss und Gebel (Waldsassen, 196s). Van Sttaten, 159, objects that
may not be a classical practice. A fundamental discussion is that of J. H
Prosky11ein(Giitersloh, 1932). At pp. 44£., he rejecrs the idea that ,rpoaKVviw co
refer to blowing kisses in the classical period. There is disagreement as to
this might actually be. However, on p. 48, he says it can refer to a numbe
things: 'die Korpererhaltung, das Knien, sich.zu-F(iBen.werfen, Bucken, an
seits der Kull, richtig vollzogen oder nur durch die KuBhand erfebt'. This will
do. Kneeling is something quite different. Also essential on this topic are
Delatte, 'Le Baiser, l'agenouillement et le prosternement de )'adoration', Bull
de la classe des lettns de l'ac:ademie royale de Belgique, 37 (r9.51), .µ3ff. and H.
Bickerman, 'Apropos d'un passage de Chares de Mytilene', PP 18 (1963), 241-5
Sitz im Leben 193
meant by 11poaKvvlw in contexts where it does not refer to barbar-
ian prostration or else we might tum to some later texts which
could throw light on the matter. The third-cenrury BC writer
Polybius (15. r. 6ff.) tells us of Carthaginian envoys who had
gone before the Roman senate in Tunis and,
Cl!)µ6vov -rotl<;fJrnu<; yi)v 11"p0<1KIJVTJ<11Lt&,
&cmo.<1awroKai "TTJ" Kallo.m,p la-rw lfJo<;
ro,r a,\,\o,r ihitJpw1ro,;,.u.\aKilt 11"t:a&vrE;l1rl "TTJV
yi)v i½,ffVJ!w;
rotis 1r68as
Ka,at/>ilom, rwv b, -repavVE8pl41
They not only greeted the gods and 1rpoa1<vv.lw-ed the earth, as all other
men customarily do, but they actually fell on the ground and ignobly
kissed the feet of the members of the council.
It is conceivable that 11poa1<uvJwrefers here to something other
than falling to the ground. 95
Lucian, if his evidence can be reliably taken to have anything to
say about the fifth century BC, actually describes the action of
1rpoCJKVVl)CJt,.In his Demosthenis encomium 49, we read, in the
context of somebody declaring that he will be on his way as
soon as he has saluted the god: Kayw p.iv ~v t11t rijs t>.11{80, -ravT71,,
Kat "T~V XEipa Ttp <IT6µ.ct.Tt 11pooayay6no,, ovSiv a.U'ii 11poaKVVEil'
i'm,;Aaµflavov ('I was expecting him to do this and, as he moved
his hand to his mouth, I realized that he was just -rrpoCJKWVEw-
ing'), This makes it quite clear that the word 1rpoCJKVV'fJCJts
can refer
to a gesture of raising the hand to the lips. 96 All we can conclude is
that there is a strong possibility that Lucian is continuing a
95
Plutarch certainly distinguishes between {,f,/,E,;J,r/ 1rp&uw1ro~and 1rpo<1Kv"'1au;
(Mor. 166a = De superst. 3). It has been argued by Lily Ross Taylor, The Divinity of
the Roman Emperor {Middletown, Conn., 1931), 264 n. 30, that it might have been
difficult for the banqueter mentioned at Arrian, Anab. 4. 12 to prostrate himself
with a cup in his hand (unless it was empty, a detail which she thinks may have
crept in from other sources). We also notice that in the account of Arrian and in
Plut. Alex. 54, the person making the 1rpoa1<6"'1"" is described as b.vnaros. It is
possible that this means that the person got up from the couch only to throw
himself to the floor but it is also possible that 1rpoo1<i>v7/<1<£
could be done standing
up. The passage in Aman is comprehensively discussed by A. B. Bosworth, A
Historical Commentary tJll Aman's History of Alexander, ii (Oxford, 1995), 68ff.
96
There is a particularly clear description of this gesture in Apuleius, Met. 4.
28: 'et admo\•entes oribus suis dexteram primore digito in erectum pollicem
residente et eam [sc. Psyche] ut ipsam prorsus deam Venerem venerabantur
religiosis adorationibus' ('and moving the right hand to the face, with the first
finger resting on the outstretched thumb, they venerated her [sc. Psyche] with
pious adoration as though she was actually the goddess Venus herself'). There are
Sumerian and Babylonian reliefs showing worshippers making this gesture.
194 Sitz im Leben
classical tradition, particularly given his
tendencies.
Having looked at the practicalities of gesture, can we make
inferences about the status of prayer? We know that, from H
onwards, people knelt in order to supplicate (lKETruiw). This
true of supplicating both gods and men. This might lead one;
think that praying is rather different and that the proof of it l
in the fact that in Homer one stands and raises one's hands
pray (ll. 1. 450, 3. 275, 5. 174, 6. 257, 7. 130, 18. 75, 19. 254, 24. 3
97
Od. 9. 294, 13. 355, 17. 239, ;w. 97). Surely this is an existenti
affirmative gesture, calling the god to take notice of one. It is
possible to integrate Van Straten's evidence that Greeks knelt
prayer on Iy m• emergencies.· 98
We saw above that in the iconographic record of the classi
period it is more common for worshippers to be shown pray'
99
with just one hand raised than with two. I do not know w
perceived difference, if any, there was between these gestures.
the following discussion, we shall concentrate on those situati
where both hands were raised. Prometheus says (Aesch. PV I
that he will not go crawling off to Zeus to ask forgiveness w·
yvva,Kop.{µ.o,s-unnaop.aat ('womanly raising of the palms').
pejorative tone of the passage makes it clear that raising of
palms is meant to be seen as a gesture fit for subservient wo
and not real men. The fact that when men (as well as wo
prayed they regularly raised their hands in this way might sugg
that the gesture is one of-submission. Sittl, in his book on g
ture, cites many passages not related to prayer where raising
hands is connected with helplessness. 100 So is prayer someh
related to supplication then?
The stretching out of hands in supplication is usu
described by the words J(Etpas-17,;;7avvvv1u ('to spread the han
or v1r7{a,;XEtpa, 1rpoTElv,;;w
('to hold out upturned hands'). Ther
surely a difference between this action and that described
XEipa,; avaTElvHv ('to hold up the hands'), usual in prayer.
imagines, furthermore, that the average Greek did not do a g
deal of surrendering. Even if we did think there was some kind
VI For more examples, see Sitt!, Die Geharden, 186-7.
98
Van Sttaten, tll3ff. 'l'l Ibid. 161.
lllO Sitt!, Du Gehdrdm, 14ff. In particular, we might note Hdt. 7. 233; Thuc.
58. 3, 3. 67. 5; and Od. t8. 89.
Sitz im Leben
deep link at the dawn of time between prayer and surrender, it
may not have been very significant to the Greeks themselves at
any given period. Supplication is dramatic. Prayer, for the most
part, is not.
We have differentiated between the raising of the hands in
prayer (avani'vnv) and stretching them forth in supplication (npo-
TEtviiv). However, at Od. 18. IOO the phrase xiipas- avaax6p.wot is
used to describe the raising of the hands in mirth. What are we to
make of this? We know from our own experience that the mean-
ing of a gesture can differ according to context. 101 Furthermore,
although these gestures of prayer and mirth are described by the
same word, it is possible that there were none the less subtle
differences in reality. An Attic red-figure amphora (London,
BM, E 291) shows a priest praying with raised hands. 102 A cup
in Vienna (Corpus Vasorum AntiqUorum: Austria, i, pls. 12-13)
shows Odysseus raising his hands in joy when he wins the arms of
Achilles. The two images are, however, different. The fingers of
Odysseus' hands are further apart from each other. He looks more
like a child who has just opened a present and is wiggling his
fingers with anticipation. Furthermore, the faces of the two men
are different. The priest is looking upwards whereas Odysseus is
looking directly at the action before him. There is, therefore, no
need to equate prayer and supplication on the basis of the ges-
tures used.
This discussion, then, has sought to describe the gestures used
in Greek prayer, trace some connections, and eliminate certain
Iines of enquiry. This whole chapter has been concerned very
much with the realia of Greek prayer. In the next chapter, we
shall examine the fruits of intellectual reflection on prayer.
101
It is possible to raise up one's palms to indicate that one is at a loss for what
to say. Yet the same gestuFe is made by a priest at various points during the Mass,
Indeed, one can imagine a priest in the street being asked a question and raising
his hands to show that he does not know the answer. One difference between the
two gestures is the length of time for which the hands are kept in the air. A prayer
is a more sustained and deliberate business than a transitory expression of con-
fusion. Nobody would seriously attempt to connect these things.
lf!l Conveniently reproduced by Van Straten, 161.

IO
Prayer, Reason, and Piety
In the previous chapters, we have been uncovering the detail$
ancient Greek ritual practice and advancing some modern in
pretations of that material. However, the Greeks themselves
not unaware that prayer was a topic for intellectual discussion
this chapter, we shall look at some of what they themse
actually had to say about prayer. We shall see that it was
only philosophers with an interest in theology who discus
prayer. Literary figures, too, give us some important insig ·
into the world of archaic and classical thought about prayer, •
seems to me that the material falls broadly into two categorie
complaint and accommodation. It will emerge in due course w
is meant by the latter term. Let us for the present turn
att-ention to the first category.
Already in Homer, we find characters who criticize the gods
not behaving as men think they ought. Sometimes this critici
seems to be formulated as a simple apostrophe and sometimes
forms part of a prayer. An example of a criticism which seems
be formulated more as an apostrophe than as a prayer is Il. I
631 ff., where Menelaus speaks as follows:
ZEv rranp,ii'l'E al ,:paai 1TEpl4,plva~lµ.µ.EV(LI&.Uwv,
av8pwv7)8(lfonv· al:o8' (K ,.,U)errriV'Ta rrJAOl"T!ll"
ofov 871
&v8/)fiGfJl xapl,m, ofjpwTfia, ...
Father Zeus, they say that you are wiser than other men and gods; yet
this is your doing. This is how you show favour to insolent men ...
Menelaus is not here asking for anything, but rather making
complaint. 1 Aubriot would classify this utterance as a praye
1
On these prayers of complaint, !lt'eJ. Labarbe, 'La Priere contestataire d
poesie grecque', in H. Limet and J. Ries (eds.), L'Expirienc:e de la priere d
gmndes religions (Louvain. 1980), 137 ff. Labarbe gives a good catalogue of
prayen1, in Homer and the later literature, but his conclusions (p. 148) are rat
brief.
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 197
because she defines prayer as any act by which man addresses a
2
deity. The definition of prayer adopted in this study, however,
says that prayer has to involve an invocation and then a request.
One might, of course, argue that speeches such as that of Mene-
laus involve an implied request, namely that the god ought to
acknowledge the justice of the complaint and change his beha-
viour accordingly. Corroboration for that idea might come from
the speech of the Trojan Asius. At ll. 12. 163ff., he addresses
Zeus in indignation (a.\aa-nfaas) and says that the god must be
qu.\oipEv?nfs('a lover of lies') since he, Asius, had not thought that
the Achaeans would be able to stand the onslaught. We are
explicitly told by the poet that these words did not move the
mind of Zeus (173-4). It is clear that the expected result was that
Zeus would change his ways.
However, formally speaking, the request in these contexts is
only implicit. 3 There are contexts in Homer where there is an
explicit request alongside a complaint. At Il. 8. 236ff., Agamem-
non tells Zeus that he does not deserve the ,fr71that has been sent
upon him. After all, he had never passed by an altar of Zeus but
that he had adorned it with a sacrifice. Using this moral reproach,
he asks Zeus to put an end to the Trojan successes that are
proving so disastrous to the Greeks. Although the address is
once again only a part of a speech which began as an exhortation
to the troops, there is no doubt that we are dealing with a prayer.
Agamemnon actually says (11. 8. 242) alla, Zu'J, -roaE 1rlp pm
lmKp7171vavU.\awp ('Come, Zeus, grant this wish for me'). 4 It is
striking, incidentally, that no sacrifice accompanies this request.
It is as though pricking the conscience of Zeus were felt to be
enough to encourage him to act. Similarly, in the Odyssey, Odys-
seus formulates a prayer to Athene saying: (Od. 6. 325f.) viiv8711r£p
µ.rn aKovaav, i1rEl1rapo,;ov1roT' a.Kovaa;-/ patopivov ('Hear me now,
since before you never listened to me when I was being crushed'),
and he then asks for a friendly reception in Phaeacia.
' Aubriot, 24.
1
Similar complaints, with no obvious request attached, occur elsewhere in the
Poem. At 11. J. 365 ff., Menelaus tells Zeus that he is more J,\o6s ('baneful') than
any other god. Otherwise he would never have allowed Menelaus' sword to break.
Philoetius the cowherd complains of Zeus' injustice at Od. 20. 201 ff.
4
This is similar to much Near Eastern lamentation literature, e.g. Psalm 44:
24 ff.; 89: 40 ff.
 198 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
In all these addresses, the gods are being criticized for
playing fairly in the opinion of human characters. However,
clear that the grounds for complaint can be analysed into
subtly distinguished categories than that. When Menelaus
ticizes Zeus at l l. 13. 6 31 ff., he says Zeus is failing to live u
his reputation for wisdom. Agamemnon, on the other h
lL 8. 236ff., criticizes Zeus for not respecting the bonds of X
Since Agamemnon has always sacrificed dutifully on
altars, he does not see why his wish is not granted. 5 Ody
(Od. 6. 325f.) appeals to a sort of negative reciprocity: A
has ignored him for long enough and he is now owed some
of help. . possessing honour and great power, and you know well the heart and
In later Greek sources, the gods continue to be criticized:,
the same sorts of things, For example, Menelaus' idea that Ze
not living up to his reputation for wisdom is picked up in Sop
cles' Trachiniae 126<iff., where Hyllus says:
8;;0,;wv ayvwµ.ocnlv-qv
jL<i)'6.A'7V
,;l8&n~ lpywv Twv wp«aaoµ.~vwv,
oi ,f;vaaVT<i~
Kai KA71{oµa,01
waTlpE~TOlairr'l,f;opwo1w&.O,.,.
But mark the great folly of the actions of the gods; they begat us and
called our fathers and they stand back and watch these sufferings.
At Theognis 342, the poet says to Zeus, a;,soiµ..oiav"TtKaKwv
'TI'1Ttl8£iv aya9ov ('Instead of bad things, let something good
pen to me'). He is tired of ill fortune and does not think
deserves it. 6 This is highly reminiscent of Odysseus' prayer
Od. 6. 325f. 7 Theognis has more to say about Zeus' responsi
ities concerning justice. At lines 373ff., he says:
5
We know, because the gods say so, that the Trojans, too, displayed exemp
piety. If one enjoys a 'god's eye viev.', as Homer does, then one can appreciate ·
simply sacrificing does not guarantee success. There m11ybe competing cl ·
be weighed up in the mind of Zeus.
6
Not all the verses that h11vecome down to us in the name of Theognis
actually thought to have been composed by him. The name Theognis is used
to include everything printed by M. L. West as Theognidea in his Iambi et
Gmeci 2 (Oxford, 1989), The reader who wishes for further elaboration
consult West's remarks, op. cit. 17:iff.
7
This theme is later picked up in tragedy, at Eur. Phoen. 84ff.; Hel. 1441ff.,
900N 2 •
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 199
Zw ,f;lA.<i,
Ooa.1µ.a,w
ae alJy&p 116.vT£OOW av6.aon,
T<fL~"avTO, exwv Kai µ.£ya.A17v Mvaµ.w,
l,.vOpdJwwv o' .,-Jola8a v&ovKai 8vµ(}VEK<lUTOV,
oov 8i Kpa.Tos11aVTwv'fo(l imo.Tovf1aatA£v.
1TWfi fof(11,V Kpovl8T/TOAµ~VOOS' &v8pas:b.A1Tpou,
h Taihfi µ.olpr, TOVT£ 8lKatov lx,;w,
1]11'l'fi Ew/aw,f;poa.Jv-qvTp£,f;6fiv6os-.;;vTI£1rpOS'vf1pw
&v8pw1rw11, &olKol~lpyp.aa, 1rn6oµi11w11;
oiJotTI Kl!Kpl~VOV1rpos;Oa(µ.ov6;Jan {JpoToiaW,
ova'.i:oo; 'tjvnv' lwv &BavaTOIO'IV&ao,;
Dear Zeus, I am amazed at you. For you rule over all men, yourself
mind of each man, and your might is greatest of all, 0 king. How, son of
Cronus, can your mind bring itself to hold in equal esteem both the just
man and those who are wicked, whether man's mind is turned to pru-
dence or to insolence, with some trusting in unjust deeds? And do the
gods not make any distinction with regard to men; and is there no path
which man could follow to please the gods?
The tone of this prayer is almost chatty. It is not the angry tone of
the complaints in the Iliad. The anaphora of the second-person
pronoun suggests a certain intimacy. 8 Furthermore, Zeus is called
,f;O.os ('dear'). It suggests an atmosphere of comfortable familiar-
ity.9 The 9avµ..a{w a€ ('I am surprised at you') reminds us of the
mildly patronizing w8avp.a.<11f('you extraordinary fellow') of the
Platonic dialogues. Later on, however, the poet advances an argu-
ment which might almost be called threatening. At lines 747ff. 1
he asks how men can go on honouring the gods when they see this
disgraceful state of affairs.
8
Cf. Sappho fr. 1, lines 2, 5, 9, 13, 27.
? The word ,f,O.o; does not always have this tone. It is sometimes used quite
seriously and implies that men did think they had relations of ,f,.>.{a
with the gods:
Hippon. fr. 32 West (Hermes); Pind. Nem. 10. 55f. (Zeus); Aesch. Sept. 154
(Artemis), 159 (Apollo), 174 8alp.ov£r; Ag. 515 (Hermes); Eur. Phom. 684f.
(Demeter); Eupolis, fr. 30; (Zeus); Ar. Nub. 1478 (Hermes); Pa:i,: 416, 718
(Hermes); Thesm. 286 (Demeter); Eq. n70 (Phoebus); Ar. fr. 404 PCG (Helios);
Men. fr. 13 K (Ge); Callim. Epigr. 6. 4 (Zeus), :.16. :i (Gaia): Nonnus, D. 19. t2
(Dionysus); Anth. Pal. 5. 86. 1 (Phoebus), 5. 109. 4, 167. 6 (Zeus), 5. 113. 4, lOl. s
{Aphrodite); PMG 868 (b) (Helios). Aristotle says [Mag. Mor.] 1208 27) that it
would be absurd if a man said that he loved Zeus, because ,f,.>.€iv
('to love') implies
70 &n«f,1,Mr18a,('to be loved in return'), and this, he says, is not po111;iblewhen
dealing with the gods. He says a similar thing at EN 116:.1a4.However, this looks
Very much like Aristotle's own opinion. The weight of evidence shows that other
. Writers did not agree.
200 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
This kind of statement recurs again and again in the later Ii
ture. When Orestes and his sister are praying to Zeus for he
avenging their father's death, Orestes says (Aesch. Cho. 255 ff.
1<afroI Burijpo, 1<alOff 7'1p.wvro, p,lya
7T07'po; VffOOOOO; ro6a8'a:1rrx/,8E[pa, .,.,;ea
lfns &p,olasxnpo, wfJ01vov yepas;
If you destroy the nestlings of a man who sacrificed and honoured
greatly, from what like hand will you receive the gift of a fine hanq
The implication is that Agamemnon's piety should have e
both him and his children some credit with Zeus. If the .
allows the just to suffer, then he will no longer be worship
because he wiJI be manifestly unjust. This utterance is a
developed form of Agamemnon's complaint at II. 8. 236f'f.
think the gods ought to reciprocate favours done to them. I
gods do not do so, they may be endangering their chances
receiving any more attention from men. · €Xii.I7'I ax~µ,a KIKA:,fan,v8toUs I OT(ZV 7'1S ~p,wvSvaTvxi >.a/JyTVXT/"('I
We meet the same kind of thing in a well-known chorutf
Sophocles' Oedipus Tymnnus (895f.). Having observed the
of affairs, the chorus says, tl yap al TOialSt7rpa!,m;·rtµtat, / Tl
xoptVHv; ('If such things are honourable, why should I dan
There is no point in honouring the gods if they let human af
degenerate to such an extent. They continue (897 ff.):
o.lKfr17'0J! c'i8ucrov ti.l:p,1
yiis i.,.•oµ.,pa.Aavo:lf3wv,
a.lo' ~s rlw 'A/3afo1va&v,
o.lli11 rav Vi\vp,Trlav,
El p,~ r&.llExnp&llwrra
Tr0.01vdpµ,&o:n{JpoToi,;.
&,\,\: ,J, KpO:TVVWV,El7rti.p op8'nK06£1s,
Zdi, TrttVT' &vaao:wv, µ,~ ,\6.801
A8ava7'0ValfV apx&.v.
(]:f Tav T£ cr&.v
No more shall I reverently go to the untouched navel of the earth
Delphi], nor to the temple at Abae, nor to Olympia, if these oracl
not come true so that all men can point to them. But, 0 mighty o
you rea11yare such, Zeus, ruler of all, may it not escape you and your ·
deathless power.
This sort of prayer is particularly common in Euripides, wh
A M. Dale christened it the 'challenging-nouthetetic' type. 10 ·
ID A. M. Dale, Collected Papers, 182.
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 201
Cyc. 354ff., Odysseus, after a fairly straightforward prayer to
Athene for her help, says, Z£ii f.1v,:opa Ta8~£i yap aiha ,.,_~ {J>.l1rus,
/ a:Uw.- a,v(fot.-('Zeus, protector of strangers,
voµt{n, Z£ii, r6 µ,710Jv
see this. If you are not looking, it is in vain that you are believed
to be a god, Zeus, when you are really nothing at all'). 11 Odysseus
takes a similar tone at Cyc. 6of. In a prayer to Hephaestus and
Sleep, he invokes them to come to his aid. If they do not come, ~
7'7/" 7'VX1}VP,6V 8alµ,ov'~ytiu8a, xpewv, / Ta 8a,µ.6vwv 0£ njs TVX71S
J,\aaaova ('It will be necessary to believe that chance is a god
and that the gods are subservient to chance'). This is a rather
hectoring tone.
There are still other prayers where a character angrily declares
that it is no use calling upon the gods because they do not listen
and so are poor allies. In the TroaJes, Hecabe calls on the gods
but then says (469ff.), KO.KOVS' µlv a.vaKaAwTOVS' avµ,p,axovs,/ oµws 8'
am calling upon poor allies; none the less, it is conventional to call
on the gods whenever one is in misfortune'). She repeats a similar
complaint at Tro. 1280 f. Some tragic heroines are more subtle.
\\''hen Electra is asking Apollo for help, she ends her litany of
supplication by saying (Soph. El. 1382£.), Kat 8ti{ov a.v8pw1rou11
Tamr1µ,1a/ nj5 Svuat{Jtlas ota Swpoiivrai 8£ol (' Show mortals the just
deserts which gods mete out to men for impiety'). This is a very
subtle way of shaming the god into action. If he doesn't help, he
will not emerge well from the affair.
Any god who is thought to be failing to promote justice can be
criticized in a prayer on the grounds that he is not very wise. This
is partly, no doubt, a consequence of the intellectual climate of
the fifth century but we ought not to forget how Menelaus impli-
citly criticized Zeus for not being wise (Il. 13. 631ff.). In Eur-
ipides' Phoenissae, Jocasta says to Zeus (86f.), XfJ11V tl ampc'Js a:
11
. It may well be that the same kind of request should be understood eliptically
in other prayers; e.g. at Ar. Vesp. 43!!, Cecrops is asked if he is just going to stand
by and watch (.,,.,p,opg;); at Eur. Bacch. 372, Hosia is asked if she can hear the
blasphemy of Pentheus. In both cases, it is likely that the thought is, 'If you can,
then do something about it'. For a mortal inferring the non--existence of the gods
~ro'!1,the failure of prayers, compare Od. 24. 351 f., where Laertes says: Zai wl<rllip,,}
II;"<T <arf ll<o, 1<ariil""KPOV 'O.wp.m,v / •l <T<OVP,ll'I/Ori/P£rd.-ra.allaAovi!{Jpw~.,.,,,.11,
( ~lllher Zeus, you are after all gods on high Olympus, if the suitors really have
Pai~ for their overweening insolence'). Evidently he had entertained some doubt
untl] then. For a more extreme version, cf. Eur. Hipp. n69f.
202 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
TTEtpuKus, oVKliiv {Jpo-rbv/ -rbvaihbv alEIl!ucnvxfi Ka8£11-r&.va1 ('If
are wise, you ought not to allow the same person always to
misfortune'). Menelaus echoes this idea at Eur. Helen 1441
ZEi,,1ra.-r71p 8i&s,I {fAl.if,ovnpbs 'ljµiis Kal
TE Ka.laot/,os KA1J{11
aov Kmtwv ('Zeus, you are called "father" and a wise god,
towards us and deliver us from our woes'). At Eur. HF 3
Amphitryon bitterly accuses Zeus of failing to be 4,1).or; C
look after those who are close to him) and says, apnij aE
8V71Tos wv 8£ovµl.-yav('I surpass you in virtue, I a mortal and
great god'). He ends his address with the extraordinarily
fut line (346): aµa(hfr ns Ef8£os 178{KO.IOS OVKitf,vs ('Either y
stupid god or one that is not just'). The chorus also critici "
gods at line 655ff. with the words:
£{8£ 8£oir ,Iv flll'Ell'L, 12
KCI.I
CJO,f,(a
1((1:r' avllpas-,
8l8vp,ova_p1{{3av l,f,Epov,
,f,avEpovxapaKT~p' lJ.pETQS
1fo0Lll'tv jMTO. ..•
If the gods had understanding and wisdom regarding men, people
enjoy a double youth, a clear sign of virtue in whoever had it ..•
This is interesting both because of its relation to the the
wisdom but also because it implies that this kind of thing is ·
power of the gods. If they wanted, they could so order the
that the just could be recognized by their having a second
This suggests that they have power to intervene in the c
processes of the cosmos. It also suggests that they oug
intervene. There is a very interesting teleological assum
behind a prayer like this, namely that the gods ought to.
care that the world is configured in the best possible wa;
mankind. 13
The a.µ.a8{a('stupidity') of the gods is the subject of an
burst by Orestes who is doubting the wisdom of Apollo's
mand to kill Clytemnestra (Eur. El. 971). He exclaims, w
12
It is interesting to note that lilv£a<,is II particular preoccupation of E
It is sort of practical intelligence. In a par<J~ic passage (Ar. Ra~. 891),
II
phanes has Euripides address it as one of his gods. The word is anse
Sophocles (who has f"wr6s once) but appears twelve times in Euripi
thirteen times in Thucydides.
13 The idea surfaces elsewhere in Euripides, e.g. Med. 516ff.; Hipp. 616
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 203
-rroAA7IV -y' aµ.a.Of.av
l8lamaa, ('You have prophesied great folly,
Phoebus'). 14 Another example of gods being told to examine
their intellect is in the prayer of the old servant to Aphrodite in
Euripides' Hippolytus (120). He asks her to indulge the youth
because, in that memorable and often-quoted phrase, aocf,w-rl.povs
yap XP~ {Jpo-rwv e:lva.i8rn6s ('Gods ought to be wiser than mortals'),
This idea is echoed in the Bacchae by Cadmus (1348) who tells
Dionysus to his face that gods should not be like men in their
tempers.
There is, however, another sort of prayer which, whilst not
explicitly challenging, seeks to persuade the deity that it is some-
how in its interest to grant the request. We have aJready exam-
ined the prayer of Orestes in the Choephoroe (255ff.). He not only
tells Zeus that he will lose credibility if he does not intervene-he
also points out that sacrifice will cease. There is an element of
this, albeit rather muted, in the prayer of Theano to Athene at II.
6. 305ff. She says that Pallas should save them so that (8tf,pa)they
can once again offer sacrifice. It is not a straightforward vow. The
implication is that if they are all killed then worship will come to
a total halt. The goddess is not being offered a simple bargain
which she can take or leave. She is being asked to recognize that
all her worshippers may soon be dead and to reflect on where that
would leave her. 15
A more attenuated form of this argument can be detected in
prayers where the worshipper expresses the wish that he or she
will be able to offer many more gifts to the god in the future. In
Euripides' Electra (805), Orestes prays, 1roAAa1as µ.e:/Jav8VT1ew
('May
I often sacrifice oxen'). In Aristophanes' Thesmophoriazusae
(287 f.), Mnesilochus (pretending to be a woman) says, 1roAAa
1ro,U&.K1, pi 1101 / 861ewlxovaav ('May I have much to sacrifice to
you often'). The similarity between the two phrases might sug-
gest that this was a real formula. In the epigraphic record, we find
in a fifth-century dedication from the Athenian Acropolis {JG i3 •
14
He also expresses his disgust with Apollo in Eut. Or. 285, but not in an actual
address to the god. He is speaking to Electra. We have already seen in Aeschylus
dun oracJes can be mentioned in nouthetetic addresses. At Aesch. Cho. 258ff.,
Orestes says that nobody will ever believe Zeus' oracles again if he allows the just
to suffer so much.
15
A similar argument regarding the self-interest of the deity may be present in
Psalm 79: 9 ff.
204 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
728): IM8£s O:,\o&va0ivai('Grant that I may dedicate another').
course, the primary idea is that the worshipper hopes that he
continue to enjoy good relations with the god. But this im
that the god is expected to do his part in ensuring the contin
of the nexus of xapts. If the god fails to answer a prayer for h
and the worshipper is carried off by an illness, then the god
have lost a customer.
One might well wonder at this point what happened to p
who complain in this way. Apart from the Trojan Asius, who .
in any case fated to die because he was a foolish braggart (ll/
II 3 ff., 164), it looks as though people in the literature do
come to any harm for saying this sort of challenging thing to
gods. 16 It looks very much as though nouthetetic prayer is
meant to be seen as the last resort of the rascal. It is a means
conveying very real concerns about the ways of god to man.
may not tell us what the poet actually thought the answer
but it provides him with a way to let his mortal characters
voice to their concerns which almost certainly reflected the tre
in contemporary theological speculation. One doubts that m
if any, people actually prayed like this but it is interesting t
poets chose to put these complaints into the context of a pra
rather than, for example, a monologue. Prayer has been used
its dramatic effect. We have seen that Euripides was, par e
lence, master of this genre but we ought not to forget that the i
was not foreign to earlier writers either.
We have seen that mortals in literary works complained voc
if they did not get the returns they expected from the gods.
adduce principles (e.g. honouring of xtip,,and ef,i,\ta;behav
with a°"1ta and ~vvwt.) which gods, like men, ought to foll
When Agamemnon complains of Zeus' failure to help him
spite of his egregious piety in the past (Jl. 8. 236ff.), he se
to be implying that all one's past favours towards the gods enti
one to prosper in the present. It is a rather vague notion of ere
1~ Odysseus' prayers in Em: Cyc. (354ff., 599ff.) do not attract divine puni
ment. In Aesch. Cho. (.155ff.), Orestes and Electra achieve their purpose.
action of Eur. Hipp. shows that the old servant had a good point in his p
(n4ff.). The same is true of the remark of Cadmus in Eur. Bacc. (1348). lphig
does not come to any harm as a result of her nouthetetic prayer at IT rnll
Finally, Amphitryon's outburst in HF (339ff.) is not without justification if
looks at the final tragedy of the play.
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 205
However, we may think of his prayer at Il. 2. 412 ff. where he
sacrifices an ox and prays for victory over the Trojans. Here we
have an immediate quid pro quo and yet we learn (line 419f.) that
Z eus ovo',:.,apa WW 0£ E'ITEKpatatVE
# , • , I
•• ,
I 111\11
' \ \> 0., YE 0£1(7'0
~ ,
fLEV ,pa('did not
' • •
yet grant his wish but he received the offerings'). This is a rather
interesting passage. The poet, with his Olympian perspective,
can tell us that Zeus did not yet grant Agamemnon's wish. Homer,
then, knows that Zeus will eventually comply. So there is not a
total failure in reciprocal relations. To Agamemnon, of course, as
to most people in everyday life, such insights into the workings of
the mind of Zeus were not available. It must have looked as
though the prayer and the offerings had failed. We may recollect
that, at II. 6. 3 I I, Athene rejects outright the prayers of Theano
and the women of Troy for protection from Diomede. Despite all
their piety, what they ask runs contrary to Athene's wishes.
Homer tells us so in half a line: U,VOl£V£ ai [la).)./,.,; 'AlhfV11 ('But
Pallas Athene refused'). To the women of Troy it must have
seemed that they had been deserted by their patron goddess for
no good reason.
Why might their prayer have failed? Mabel Lang thinks it was
intrinsically rude to address Athene in so offhand a fashion. The
prayer sounds a little like an ultimatum: 'If you want more
offerings, save us.' She suggests that the prayer may have been
rejected for that very reason.17 But this is implausible. Such
arguments seem to be successfully used by mortals elsewhere. 18
I think it more likely that the prayer was rejected because it ran
counter to Athene's plans. Morrison has already argued for this in
·
prmt. 19
Furt h ermore, when Bacchylides (16. 67) refers to the
aµ.q.1.wTo,; ivxa ('blameless prayer') of Minos, it is possible that
its opposite, a JJ,EJ1.1TT~ £VX7J,is precisely something which was
intrinsically wrong and/or contrary to the will of the god. 20
17
M. Lang, 'Reason and Purpose in Homeric Prayers', Clami:al World, 68
<1 ~45),309-14. 18
Aesch. Cho. ass ff.; Sept. 76 f.
J. Morrison, 'The Function and Context of Homeric Prayers: A Narrative
Pef~pective', Hermes, II9 ( 1991 ), r 45 ff.
We should not connect this with the fear expressed at JI. r. 65 and 93 that
Apollo £iixw-i,j, lrr.,..li,4,na1..It does not mean that he finds fault with a prayer.
Rather, this use of /4,,.,,.oµa, with a genitive seems to mean 'complain that one is
?0 ; receiving' such-and-such a thing, cf. Aphrodite who, at Eur. Hipp. 1402, T1µ.f;;
•µ•p.,f,fhi. Similar genitives of deprivation occur at 11. 5. 178, 21. 457. See D. B.
?ilonro, Grammar of the Homeric Dialect 2 (Oxford, 1891), § t51c.
2o6 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
The idea that the gods only reject prayers that are contr
their own plans and/or unjust has been developed at length
D. Mikalson. 21 He believes that in the Iliad, the people
the prayers often have a perfectly good moral point w
ignored because it conflicts with the will of Zeus. In the Od
the unanswered prayers are unanswered either because the
(and the plot) have better things in store (so Artemis will
allow Penelope to die, Od. 20. 61 ff.) or because the petitioners
downright impious (hence the failure of the suitors' rep
prayers for the death of Telemachus). Mikalson thinks that
is more than just a difference of emphasis between the
poems. He thinks there has been a real evolution and that
poet wants to portray the gods as genuinely more concerned
matters of human justice and morality. I am not so sure that
is so. After all, characters in the Iliad know that Zeus has
some interest in justice. It is he who gives the kings their 8e
('laws', Il. 2. 206). At Il. 4. r6off., Agamemnon says th
knows that the mills of the gods grind slow but exceeding
There will, in fact, be a day when Troy will fall. The will of
is not entirely out of keeping with what we would think
justice but there are other determining factors which are be
22
our ken. ...
Mikalson goes on to argue that, within the corpus of Gr.:
tragedy, it is the Odyssean model which prevails. That is to
that when prayers are not answered, it is because they are u
or contrary to the better things the gods have in mind. Whi
broadly agree with this, I would make two caveats. The
that, in the polytheistic system of the ancient Greeks, things
not always simply up to one god. Even though Zeus is
powerful, the other gods' opinions also count. When Zeus
thinking of saving Sarpedon, he was dissuaded by the argum
of Hera(// .. 16. 44off.). So if a prayer is unanswered, factors
have been involved which went beyond the will of the one g
which it was addressed. Secondly, we have to remember
literary sources give us a privileged insight into causation.
poet knows what the gods are doing, although even 'to him t
21
J. D. Mikalson, 'Unanswered Prayers in Greek Tragedy', JHS 109
81 ff.
n H. Lloyd- Jones has dealt with this in detail in his Justice of zeul (Berk
and Los Angeles, 1983), chs. 1-2.
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 207
motives are not always transparent. If we ask why Zeus does not
grant Achilles' prayer for the safe return of Patroclus, all we can
guess is that it was contrary to the mysterious .:l,os-J3ovA71
('plan of
Zeus') mentioned at the opening of the poem. Perhaps anybody
can appreciate why the suitors are unsuccessful in their prayers
for the destruction of Telemachus. To ordinary human beings,
however, going about their everyday lives, it must have been
difficult to work out why, for example, an individual who prayed
for delivery from a serious illness did not recover but died. There
can be no doubt that such things happened.
\Vhilst it is true that there are countless ex-votos which testify
to the gratitude of those who thought their prayers had been
answered, one suspects that there would have been many more
if people had chosen to keep records of all prayers which had
failed. Since, as we have already seen, many people were con-
cerned in their dealings with the gods to procure health, one
doubts they can have thought that failure to obtain it can have
been due to the inherent injustice of the request. Most people see
nothing wrong in the idea of being healthy. So there must always
have been an element of mystery in these matters as far as the
common people was concerned.
So far we have looked at complaint and failure. Perhaps it is
now time to look at what I called at the beginning of the chapter
'accommodation'. There were in antiquity various people who
seem to have thought that what one needed to do was to accom-
modate oneself to the will of the gods, to let them decide what
was best.
Pindar asks Zeus (fr. 155 Snell-Mahler):
-rl lp8wv ef,lAo,;aol n:, 1.:apT£pd{Jpov-ra.
Kpovl8a, ef,O'°'•llEMolaa.,,;,
E-JfJuµ.lg. .,r.,,v,
'T£ µ.l).wv a,;,,.-,,µ.[
'TOUT' UE.
What should I do to be dear to you, thundering son of Cronus, and dear
to the Muses, and a care to Euthymia? This js what I ask you.
Prayers of this kind seem to represent a move away from simple
requests for everyday goods. One thinks of the Lord's Prayer
where 'Hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
(1
done' comes before 'Give us this day our daily bread'.
Like many of Pindar's prayers, this has a bearing on his art as
Well as his soul-cf. Pyth. 8. 67ff. None the less, he dearly wants
208 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
to know how to be on good terms with Zeus. This is a thing
asks for. The information would be a welcome gift to the poet.
similar thing recurs at Pyth. 1. 29: £i71, Z£v, -riv £i7JavclavEW ('
me, let me please you'). The repetition emphasizes the mes
Pindar wants to please the god. He takes a similar tone at
Jpalµ,avKaAwv,I 8uva-r<tµ,a10µ,fi.VoS
I I. 5of.: 8£o8fi.V iv <iAtKli;i('M
with the help of the gods love what is fair; striving within
limit of the abilities of my age').
At Nem. 9. 2Sff., Pindar asks Zeus to defer any contest of
for the men of Aetna, £l 8vva-rov('if possible'). That qualifi
is very interesting. Unlike many Greek prayers, the petitio
explicitly recognizes that the will of Zeus may be different. Th
words are precisely those used in the Greek of the New Tes'
ment to describe Christ's prayer at Gethsemane.
23
We ought
however, to rush to the conclusion that Pindar has invented an.
kind of piety. As early as Homer, men knew that Zeus did
always want things to go in the same way that men did.
poet's remark about the prayer of Achilles regarding Patro
(ll. 16. 250) says as much. We also have an example of a pra
that recognizes this. When the Greeks are praying for the vict
of Ajax, they say (ll. 7. 203 ff.):
llos vlwriv A Eav-r11ra1a.y ,\adP u}xos a.pfofJa.1
• µ.6fJ01s1<11.l
1=lSt 1rai "E1r-rop£rrl=p,f,1Mur Ka.IK1Jlifi.aL
mhov,
£1Tf/1' f3l'IJPKa1 1<u8or
i1µ.,/,0Tipo11J1 Srraaaov.
Grant victory to Ajax and that he might win shining fame. But if
love Hector and care for him, give equal might and glory to both.
This looks like pretty clear recognition that the will of Z
should not be taken for granted. None the less, the prayer d
seek to bargain with Zeus. If you love Hector, then you might
least want to consider giving half the glory to Ajax.
One wonders if Pindar would have tried to strike such a b
gain. At Nem. 8. 35ff., he defines his own
contradistinction to the prayers of others:
23 Matt. 26: 39---fl/,r<ipµov, •l li.,,.ar&v;..,...,, rrapd6frrw lirr'lµoii Td rro'T>)ptov
wAl)vooxw;fyru 6lAw &)J.' wsa6 ('My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass
from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but u you will'). Mark 14: 36 gives a
different emphasis with ,,l,v-ra s.,,,,.,,.;.
ao, ('all things are possible for you'), lik
prayer of Sarpedon at ll, 16. 515, Mvnam ll~ c,~ ,,..~,>Toa'b.,rn,;.,, ('you can
everywhere'). Luke is nearer Matthew with f:1flovJt,, ('if you wish', 22: 42),
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 209
µ.-,jrroTE µ.01 TOIOIPl'OV
fi.•TJ -q/Joy,
Z£ii 1rdTEP,&,Ua Kfi.AEulJo,s
,hr,\6a.1, ,was i,f,arrTolµ,a.v,/Javtilv w,mual KA£o,
/L~ T6 8va,f,aµ.ovrrpoaav,w. XPVOOV
fi.VXOV~
Tai, n£8[ov 8' €Tlipo1
,1,,,,pairrov,(Ytil o' aaTOLS'dowv l((ll xfJovi yvia KaAv,pa,,
alviwv aitlf/T6.,µ.oµ.,/,av8' lntl.17Tl:tpwva.,hTpois.
May I never have such a character, father Zeus. May I apply myself to
simple paths of life so that when I die I 'may leave to my children no
blemished reputation. Men pray for gold; others for unlimited land. I
pray that I may die having found favour with the citizens, praising what
is praiseworthy and spreading blame among the wicked. 24
\Ve have to remember, of course, that we are dealing here
n with the opinions of an elite. Pindar and others are using lit-
erature and literary prayers as a vehicle to express certain moral
values. Although this kind of opinion is particularly striking in
Pindar, there are other archaic authors who have things to say
about prayer. Xenophanes, in a much discussed passage,
describes how one should behave at a symposium (fr. B i.
13 ff. West):
xp, Ot 'ltf'WTOVplv 8£6Vti,..vfi.&V
€v,ppovas:avSpai;
£l>ef,1]µ.o1s 1<a/Japoia,,\6yms,
arrfi.laaPTdSTE Kal El>faµJYOVS Tri olKma lMvaafJa.,
rrp-,jaarn1.
First, men of good heart should praise the god with well-omened hymns
and pure words, making libations and praying to be able to do what is
just.
This poem has excited a great deal of controversy. There is much
debate over how to construe the text. I do not propose to reiterate
this here. 25 At any event, it is clear that Xenophanes thought men
could and ought to pray for moral help from the gods. Is this the
earliest attestation of people praying for such a thing? Might this
be an example of a movement away from prayers for personal
success? If so, it would fit well with Xenophanes' strictures on the
14
Another example of a wish to please the deity comes in the prayer of
Aeschylus by Aristophanesin Ran. (886f.}. It echoes the sentiments of the chorus
of initiates at 393.
25
For a discussion of the problems, see A. W. H, Adkins, Poetic Craft in the
Early Gmk ElegistJ (Chicago, ,985), 1Soff.
2IO Prayer, Reason, and Piety
crude and impious anthropomorphism of his day (;u B 11-16
K). 26 Other Greek elegists display a clear concern for justice,2
but nothing quite parallels Xenophanes.
Heraclitus also had a certain amount to say about prayer (22 B
D-K). Describing prayer to statues, he says: Ka.lTofs o.ya.Aµ.a.a,
TOIJTEOtai £VXOVTllt, oKoiov Ei n,; 80µ.01111
AEC1X1jVEVOITO, oil TI y{yvwaK
8EolJ,;oil8'ifpwa,; oinve,; Ela, ('They pray to these statues, as thou
one were to talk to a house, entirely ignorant of the nature of go
and heroes'). He is not criticizing prayer as such, but mere
popular practice. Because some people think that the statu
actually are the gods, they entertain mistaken notions about div
nity. The most common theme among the later philosophe
discussing prayer is that mortals, being by nature less wise th
the gods, ought not to formulate specific requests because they
not know what is good for them.
This idea is at the heart of much of what Socrates had to s
about prayer. 28 In what follows, the name of Socrates will occ
many times. The reader must understand that I do not claim
have discovered the actual opinions of the historical Socrat
Plato and Xenophon supply us with the bulk of what we kno
about Socrates and it is clear that they seem to be describing
rather different men. In any given case, it must be borne in min
that what is presented to us as an opinion of Socrates may actu
ally be more an opinion of Plato or Xenophon.
A whole 'Platonic' dialogue, featuring Socrates, is dedicated t
the subject of prayer. This is the Alcibiades secundus. Unfortu
nately, there is too much debate over the authenticity of th'
dialogue for us to be able to put very much weight on its evi
dence. 29 Its substantive comments about prayer appear
26
See also the similar sentiments of Ion of Chios (fr. 26. 15 f. West).
27
Solon, fr. 11 Yl'est, tells men not to put down all their sufferings to the g
but rather to realfae that they suffer because of their own folly. This could
straight out of the Odyssey. Solon himself shows us how to pray (fr. 13 West) wh
he asks for o)./lov,86/o.v.•• &.ya017v ('happiness/wealth and good reputation', 3
and the ability to he sweet to friends and bitter to enemies. We see immedi
tha.t he is not a reformer of prayer. This is fairly traditional archaic morality.
could go back to Homer. · the hllllis of exhaustive computational analysis that it is difficult to be certain that
28
On the whole question of Socrates, Plato, and prayer, see P. A. Meij
'Philosophers, Intellectuals and Religion in Hella', in Versnel, 234-ff.
29
As long ago as Athenaeus (5o6c), doubts were expressed as to the Ph1to
authorship of this work. Athenuaeus thought it was by Xenophon. This may, .
course, be for no better reason that Ale. 2. 148c is very like Xen. iltfem. L J. 2. C
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 2II
echoing earlier texts. At 148c, Socrates praises the prudent Spar-
tans who pray only for TO KaAO.e1riTO~ ayo.Ooi:,; ('what is fair in
addition to what is good'). Why should one make such a vague
prayer? At qSb, it is explained that one might conceivably pray
for a thing which one thought was good but which in actual fact
m ' '
was bad. Therefore there is a great need for caution. The gods
know what is best. This is precisely the opinion of Xenophon's
Socrates, who (Mem. r. 3. 2.)
'T{VX£TO Si npo<;TOtk 8£ovr &n.\wr ·d,.yo.Oo. 8,8&11a1, 6JS TOUS OlioV;,c&.U1<1Ta
d81fras onoto.aya.8&.l<1T1·TOV;8' 11vxoµbo11;xpvalo11ij apyup,011ij nlpaw..Sa
• • \ \ ~ t •~, 0 f.,/. f> )' M Jl • > Q ' • '
f/ aAAO .,., 7'(<11' 7'0LOIJTWII 01/0EV <Jl""f'opov £1/0/.tl!,EII £VX£Uua, f/ £1 Kv,..uo.v1JfLO.)CT/111j
ci.llo n n'Jxow-ro TWV,fx,,v£pw;a8'1.\wv81TUJ/; ano/J,,ao&TO.
... prayed to the gods simply to give him good things, on the grounds
that they knew best what sort of things were good. As for those who
prayed for gold or silver or to be a tyrant or any other such thing, he
thought it was just as if they were praying about a game of dice or a battle
or some other thing whose outcome is plainly uncertain.
If one does anything other than pray for 'what is good', one may
get a nasty surprise. Only the gods know what is best for us. (cf.
Mem. r. 1. 19). From the Alcibiades secundus, we hear that most
Greeks ( 149c) sacrifice ulx&µ,wo,OTT' av Tl1XT1TllVTa, av T. o.yaOa.
av TE
KaKn ('praying for whatever it might be, whether good or bad'),
Socrates is also critical of attempts to persuade the divine
powers with gifts-the gods must surely look at our souls, not
our wallets (r49e, cf. Euthphr. 14e-15a). He praises (143a) the
prudent poet who devised the prayer: ZEv {Jau,Ani,Ta µ,o la8Aa.
li I' I ~ , , # ~~ \ ~ i 2 \ ' I I
• • • Kilt EIJXOl"EVOI<; KCll O.Vt"VKTOIS'aµµ., oioov, Ta 0€ OEIVll KCll EVXOµEYOIS'
dna.Mfnv KEAEt1E1
('King Zeus, give us what is good whether we
t~e remarks of G. Stallbaum in his introduction to this dialogue, Plalanis Opem
(Erfurt, 1834) and W. K. C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, iH {Cam.
bndge, 1978), 387, who also believes it to be spurious. A. E. Taylor, Plato; The
Alan and His Work' (London, 1900), 528 f., points out that it can be argued that
the dialogue is engaging with Stoic ideas, which would put it firmly in the 3rd
cent. Stylometric analysis is inconclusive (see Taylor, op. cit., 527f.). More
recently, G. R. Ledger, Re-Counting Plato (Oxford, r989), 167f. has argued on
the dialogue is non-Platonic. In the end, though. he prefers to reserve judgement.
30
. The idea that a thing is objectively bad, even if humans do not recognize this,
is part of Plato's idea of the Forms, independent transcendent instantiations of all
things on earth. The nature of any given thing could be determined absolutely by
reference to the Forms,
212 Prayer, Reason, and Piety Prayer, Reason, and Piety 213
pray for it or not; as for what is bad, he bids [the god] to avert ,w.i
r,-oAE< u,110,a.,
lv t/,{AOL'i
Kat ;., rroMµ,p KaA.,YsUWTT'jp/a;Kai 'ITAOUTO!/
KaAw,
even if [men} do pray for it'). a1'{avoµtvou.
In spite of this rather lofty view, we remember, from the end I begin by worshipping the gods, but I try to bring it about that it should
the Phaedo (u8), that Socrates' last words were T'fl :4aICA1/'II' be proper for me to obtain, when I pray for them, heaJth and bodily
li<t,EO..op,EV
aAEKTpvova ('We owe a cock to Asdepius'). This fr strength and honour in the city and goodwill among my friends and fine
the mouth of the man who disliked the popular view of piety salvation in war and weaJth that increases finely.
an lµ.-1ropun}TEM ('mercantile art', Euthphr. 14e). However, wh
Isocrates has a similar thing to say, this time with regard to
Socrates wants to do away with is not the whole business
oratory. At Or. 15. 246, he inveighs against a group of men:
offerings themselves but rather the vulgar notion that the g
can be bought off to fall in with human plans. 31 Socrates' ac OLTWES, p,O.KaplCovat µ,b, Ka.l C71AOUUI TOl!S:KaAw; XP?iGlJa,Tq>AO)'CflSuva.µJvaur,
teaching about prayer is quite a forceful reaction against preva· lrrmµ.wa1 Sti TWVvEw-rEpwv-roi, Tuxeiv -ra.6TT'J, -ni•n147i,{JouJ.oµ,&01,.Ka.lTai,
ing practice. 1,LEVlkoi, oilll<ii,fonv Jans- ailK w n'J[a.tTo 1-uU1a-ra. µlv a.J-rd, 3ul'a.a8at Mynv,
We also find in these intellectual discussions the slightly di rl 3l µ,17,Tolls,'ITa.ioasKa.lTolls olK<ilou,a.il-roti·-rotls8i wov'!IKa.l,J,1Aoao,J,C,,.
Tou-ro
l<tl'TEp')l&.ua.afJo.i
-rrupwµ.wov;, ;; 1tap&.'TWI'fJEwva.ilTol {Ja6Amrra,Aa.fkiv, oo8tv
ferent idea that prayer ought not to be used by the idle as
crutch. The earliest statement of this is in Democritus (68
,f,aa1TWV3<i01'7'WV '11'paTTnv,cU,\' Elllon p,tv wr l[a.-rrt1TT'j/,4EIIWV
Kal 1t<i,f,£V(U(tU-
µlvw11'11'p0€11TC/tOVVTl1.IKO.TIJ.)'EAa.v
a.lh'wv, 071'01"0.IISi- TVXWGt,_ufiTa.{Ja,\611ns c:,,
234 D-K). He says: 1TEp1 Su11aµtvwvTOV, Aoyavs 'lrOIOUl'TO.t.
'lrAftol'EKTEil'
vyuclvv a}xfia, 1TO.plr.
(h,wv a.l-rlaYT!U
li.vlJpw-rro,,
-njv St -ra6TT'jr 86va.µ.111
lv lall'T" They count as happy and envy those who are fine speakers, but they
exavn, O~Kraaa1v· li.Kpaul11 St Tdva.v-r,a-rrp11auoVT£S cul-rol'lrpo86nu T7is-;,y,,c upbraid those of the young who aspfre to this honour. There is nobody
-rfiaiv l1rdiu,uCva1v
y{vana.1. who would not pray to the gods that he himself should be competent at
speaking, or if not himself, then his children and relatives. As for those
Men ask for health from the gods in their prayers. They do not know t
who seek to achieve by work and philosophical study that which they
they have the capacity for this within them. Through incontinence th
themselves want to acquire from the gods, they say that they are doing
do the opposite and themselves betray their health through their desi
everything wrong. Sometimes they pretend to laugh at them as dupes
Democritus is not, of course, criticizing the prayer for health and victims, but whenever they feel like it they turn round and inveigh
the ordinary man in the street who, through no fault of his o against them as skilled at making money.
has been struck down by a serious malady, but rather he When Demosthenes is railing against Philip in the Second
targeting the sort of people who want good health whilst beha Olynthiac, he says (2. 22f.):
ing in a manner directly opposed to that most likely to produce i
The idea that there are certain things which should fall fair !l'o.\u yap1TAElovsa,f,opµ.lr.;<ilrT6 -r,)11 -rra.p&. 'TWI'8<iwv<ii1va,a.v lxov op,;,Jµ,iv
within the scope of man is picked up by Xenophon's Socrates. lvo!)c,a;~ hlvq>, &M: olp,a.t,Ka.817µ,E{/' a08i.v 'lrOIOIWTES," a·
oilK bt a.0-rovdpyaUV'T'
tl-rrlpa.UToti-rt !l'O<Eiv,/J,1]
0 1'8t rois ,J,{).oi;l'ITff<t7TEtl' -rl JIE6,) -rois 8Eois.
Mem. I. I. 9, he declares that one should only consult oracl
about things whose outcome is genuinely unknowable, rath I see that you have far more claims on the good will of the gods than he
than in cases where one is simply too idle to seek the truth fo does. But, it seems to me that we sit here idly. It is not possible for
oneself. The idea is applied more specifically to prayer at Oec. I r somebody who is himself idle to tell his friends to do anything for him,
let alone the gods.
8. lschornachus declares:
Clearly there is likely to be an element of self-glorification in
oiJ-rw3,) fyw &pxo,ua.,µ.i.v TOV$" lhov, 8tcpa.1t1t6wv,
TT<ilpWµa.1
3i 'rl'C/t£1V
ws ..
what lsocrates says. It takes hard work to become a rhetorician.
(JJµv;iJp,01 a}xoµEVCf!Kal tly11tla.sTuyxav,;w Kai (IWP,T'J'i
adJµaTar ,m1 T1µi;s
Similarly, Demosthenes is not politically unbiased. All the same,
0
JI Plato inveighs time and again against this popular impiety, e.g. Leg. ne assumes that he criticizes Philip in terms which he was
905d, 9(16b, 909b. confident would strike a chord with his audience at the assembly.
214 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
It looks as though Isocrates and Demosthenes share with Xe~,
phon and Democritus an idea that prayer is not to be used
cheap substitute for persona] effort. It is also likely that
notion that the gods help those who help themselves is an anc'
and popular one, the sort of thing that a man in a courtro
assembly might agree with, unlike Socrates' rather hard teac
that we should leave it to the gods to decide what is best.
Finally, we shall look at some surprisingly traditional comm
on prayer in the otherwise very intellectually innovative Hi
cratic corpus. In the main, Hippocratic writers do not mention
gods un1ess it is to disparage superstitious notions about their
in illness. 32 The treatise De morbo sacro ('On the Sacred Dis
famously attributes epilepsy not to divine agency but to path
gical processes in the brain. It strongly criticizes the use of in
tations and purifications as methods of treatment. This is
because the writer thought the gods did not exist-rather beca
he thought that ro
()'"fov ('the divine') is not such as to yield
magical practices of this kind (Morb. sacr. 3, 4).
However, the author of the treatise called On Regimen 4, or•
Dreams' (see Ch. 7 n. 1I), has an unusually great deal to say ab
gods. To begin with (4. 87), he states that some dreams are di
whereas others are messages from the soul about the state of
body. He seems to subscribe to the idea that the gods send dr
to men--common enough in Greece. It is striking that he thi
others are endogenous, arising from the individual soul. He
~ > ()'
approves o f prayer. A I I
. t 4. 87, h e says, Kat ro JJ,f:11I ()
EVXEOa, aya ov
is good to pray'). 33 He goes on to say, 8ci 8E Kai atlrov av,\,\a
vovra roils-0rnils-bn1<aAEfo8at('It is necessary to take the matte
hand oneself and to summon the gods in addition').3'• Treatm
32 Thete is in all the MSS of Prognnstic.r a reference to the possible pre.sell
.-, l'/fto• ('a divine element') in illness, It is deleted by Kfihlewein. In eh.
Decent., the author appears to regard the gods aS the cause of cures and says
the doctor is only the means. On the whole question or religion in the Hippo
corpus, see 0. Temkin, Hippocmtes in a World of Pagam and Christians (
more, 1991), esp. 18! ff.
This is Jones's emendation (Loeb edn., vol. iv). The vulgate reads ~ilx«
13
1tp,mov .:o.lMT)• is fitting anil exceedingly good'), Them
l<rr<v ltya./Jov('Prayer
script M (Paris, 1 nh cent.) has eilx~o/Jo.,6.r,,co..l
ltya9.lv ('One should pray for
is actually good'}. Whatever we read, he is clearly prescribing prayer.
34 In the 1oth-cent. manuscript known u 9 (earliest witness), the -us of rotJr
8m~5 hill! been erased. This attempt to remove the plural marker is doubtless
of someone who wanted to expunge this reference to the plurality of pagan
Prayer, Reason, and Piety 215
is clearly a co-operation between man and god. In line with his
interesting belief that certain dreams are caused by the actions of
the heavenly bodies on the patient, be prescribes prayer to var-
ious traditional deities at the very end of 4. 89. What is really
peculiar, though, is that he even prescribes prayer for those
dreams where no heavenly bodies are thought to be involved.
He describes all sorts of dreams which point to some kind of
imbalance in the humours and prescribes prayer to Earth,
Hermes, and the Heroes. This is extremely curious and puts
this writer very much out on a limb. He recognizes that medicine
is his main tool but cannot rid himself of the religious, some
would have said superstitious, mentality that wanted to calJ on
the help of the gods in certain cases. 35
From the material we have surveyed in this chapter, what can we
conclude about Greek attitudes to divinity? We have seen that,
from the earliest times, characters in works of Greek literature
were in the habit of upbraiding their gods if they thought they
were failing to live up to proper standards of behaviour, by
neglecting the claims of reciproca1 obligation or by failing to
show sufficient wisdom in their dealings with humankind. It is
quite possible that the prayers themselves are in essence a literary
phenomenon; that is to say, an author may find it convenient to
use a prayer as a dramatic means of making a criticism of the
gods. However, we have seen from earlier chapters how much
importance the Greeks attached to the workings of x6.pts. There-
fore, if a literary character complains that a god has neglected the
claims of xapts (e.g. Agamemnon in the Iliad), we can appreciate
that his concern does indeed reflect something of real life. Per-
haps not all Greeks were as brave as Agamemnon and so would
not have dared openly to criticize Zeus in their prayers. All the
same, the actual grounds of Agamemnon's criticism wou1d have
been comprehensible to them and entirely congruent with their
own real concerns.
However, when we come to those prayers where the gods are
told that they ought to display more aoif,{a ('wisdom') or ovvlais
('intelligence'), we are on very different ground. One imagines
15
On all of this, see H. Dill.er, Kleine Schriften :iur antiken Medi:zin (ed. G.
Baader and H, Grensemann), An Medica, 2/3 (Berlin, l!>73), 7off.
216 Prayer, Reason, and Piety
that the average person probably did expect the gods to exc
human beings in these qualities just as they exceeded them
strength, longevity, height, weight, and beauty. 36 We have s
though, that this type of complaint is especially common
prayers in Euripides. His characters even go as far as sugges '
that the gods or Zeus alone ought to have ordered human
differently, implying that they or he had created it in the fi
place. 37 This looks to me very much like a reflection of m
narrowly intellectual concerns. We know, for example, that t
Greeks of Homer's day did not think that the gods had creat
the world. However, by the end of the fifth century, we find
there had evolved an idea that the gods did create men and
world and that a divine providence (1rp&vom) is at work in
world. 38 This, of course, represents a radical swing away fr01
traditional ideas.
One can see that such an evolution in thought might w
explain the difference in the prayers we have been examining
this chapter. Whilst we began with examples of men criticizi
gods for not living up to human expectations, we finish up in
world where Socrates teaches that one ought not to make speci .
requests at all. The gods know what is best for us and so
should leave it to them to provide it. That this refineme
belongs to an intellectual elite rather than being espoused
the masses is clear enough from the votive dedications. We
tinue to find, even after the intellectual ferment of the fi
century, dedications made by those who were grateful for tbi
curing of their gout or whatever other complaints assail
them. The message of Socrates had largely fallen on deaf ears.
J<i See J.-P.Vemant, Mortals and Immortals (Princeton, 1991), esp. eh. 1.
37 Eur. HF 655ff.; Med. 516ff.; Hipp. 616ff.
38 On this see W. Theiler, Zur Geschichte der teleologi.schenNaturbetmchtrmg
auf Ari,toteles (Leipzig, 1924); R. C. T. Parker, 'The Origins of Pronoills
Mystery', in Apodosis; Em1;•1 Pre,rmted to Dr. W.
3
iv.
Cruickshank (Londo
1992); Nilsson, GR i . 764; Burkert, 3 19.
APPENDIX 1
Literary and Epigraphic Attestations of
Some Common Words in Greek Prayers
As was explained in Chapter 1, it is instructive to compare literary and
epigraphic attestations of words commonly used in prayer. It ought not
to be assumed that I take epigraphic attestations of particular words as
proof that they belonged to some discrete and universally recognized
body of Greek prayer~words. Some inscriptions are conscious imitations
of literary models and the language they use may have been highly
atypical. For example, an undated hexametric Lydian funerary epigram
from Iulianos (SEG x:xix. 1202) may well be modelled on Achilles'
address to Patroclus at If. 23. 19. Whilst it was clearly an act performed
by a real person, it may have been sui genern and it may be that others did
not address the dead in this way. On the other hand, some inscriptions
that refer to d(.w,{J1v are in hexameter verse (e.g. CEG 326, 36o, 426; SEG
xxvi. 1293) and may derive from Homer Od. 3. 58. This does not,
however, mean that they ought to be discounted. We have quite a lot
of them and they attest perfectly normal expectations of reciprocity. We
certainly must note that they may derive from Homer and belong to a
special register but they are not to be dismissed as more literary than
'real'. Plenty of today's faithful may echo in their private prayers the
language of printed liturgies. That does not make their private prayer
formulae any less 'real'. Furthermore, the absence of epigraphic attesta-
tion of a word does not mean that the use of that word is necessarily a
literary fiction. We saw in Chapter 1 how a word of urgent entreaty like
{1(£-r.:uw is more likely to belong to prayers spoken in an emergency than
to inscriptions carved at leisure. In each case, the reader must judge for
himself. The list makes no pretensions to being exhaustive. Its main
purpose is to provide a convenient digest of parallels for reference.
All this, of course, raises a question about the value of the evidence of
texts in verse. It is hard to prove beyond doubt that a particular form was
chosen for reasons other than that it scans. One is reluctant, however, to
reduce things to that level. One can overstate the extent to which ancient
verse writers were constrained by metre in their choice of words. For
example, Mr will scan very nicely in almost any context. But the present,
Bl8ou, is plainly equally convenient in an iambic metre or a hexameter
218 Appendix 1 Some Common Words in Greek Prayers 219
(Od. 3. 58). The fact that it is uncommon in Homer must therefore
depend on something other than the metre. In the table which follows, Word Literary Epigraphic
literary and epigraphic attestations of particular words are given side by
i.A£0.tpE Od. 5. 450
side. On the literary side, it will be apparent from the name of the author
lAi'TJflOV Ar. Vesp. 393
and text whether a text is in verse or not. On the epigraphic side, all the
E"A8l ll. 2J. 770; Sappho, fr. t. 5,
texts are in verse except for the one which is marked (at Uw>.11)-
25; Eur. El. 680; Hee. 536;
Word Literary Epigraphic Cyc. 602; HF 494; Dr. 1300;
Ar. Eq. 559
d.ya8a Ar. Themi. 310; Eccl. 781, IG i3.1012 Jfw>.11 Din. 2. Hi; Aeschin. 2, 87 81G 3 167. 50 (prose)
1067; Eur. Hel. 754; Dern. EJ,UV7/S' Aesch. Supp. 686; Em·. Ale. JG ii 2. 4831 (adverb)
20. r61; Arist. EN 1129b3 791; IT 1086; Supp. 631; Ar.
ltKOIJE Soph. El. 643 Lys. 204
-
0.KDIJU(W Dd. 6. 325; Aesch. Cho. 459, tv,f,pollES'/
•aS' Aesch. Pers. 627; Ar. Thesm. CEG 377
SOO 1148
&>.>.a. For introductory and CEG8n, 3 11KEU Ar. Themi. 1148
transitional uses, see l8oiJ Aesch. Cho. 247
Denniston, Greek Particles, ,8, Ar. Lys. 1269
pp. 15f. For special use in and
<KETEtiw Eur. Ion 454; Ar. Ran. 299;
Homer, see above, Ch. 8, parts Thesm. 1159; Aeschin. 2.
init. 180, 3. 120; Dern. 59. 85
&llo IG i 3 • 728 l;coV Eur. Or. 1231; Rhes. 228
h.µ.o1fJ71v Od. 3. 58 CEG 326, 36o ZA1181 Od. 3. 380
&vfl'J..v Ar. Eccl. 17 CEG 69o /(j_KA1J81 Il. 10. 284
&vn8l8ov CEG 863; JG i3.7u, KAtiE Soph. El. 1376; Aesch. Cho.
791 157
«PTJ[Clll Aesch. Sept. u7; Eur. Cye. KAiJ81 ll. I. 37, 451, 5. IIS, IO. 278, SEG xxix. 1202
351; [Sappho, fr. 17. u] 16. 514, 23. 770; Od. 2. 262,
')'EIIOV Aesch. Cho. 2, 19; Ar. Nub. CEG467. 2 3. 55, 4. 762, 5. 445, 6. 324, 9,
1481 528; Aesch. Cho. 139, 332
8Jfat Ar. Pax 977f.; Lys. 204; CEG 345,367 Maaop.o.t Od. 3. 98, 21. 278; Soph. QC
Vefp. 876; Eur. fr. 912. 5 N 2; t56o
Hee. 535; IA 1572 ,w,jaa, Il. 15. 375; Od. 3. IOI
8EiJpo Ar. Lys. 1263, 1269; Eq. 559; µll'r/a8iji,a, Isoc. 14. 60
Ran. 397; Eecl. 882 µ&A£ Ar. Lys. 1263, 1297
8{8ov Od. 3. 58; Hymn. Hom. 15. 9 CEG 326,426 µOA('TOII Ar. Thesm. u55
Sos- II. 5. II8, 6. 307, IQ. 281, I6. CEG 359, 36o, 396 'ITpUI/UV71~ Eur. Hee. 538
524, 17. 646;· Od. 6. 327, 9. 1rpo#z,111'J8, Soph. Ant. 1149
530; Aesch. Cho. 140, 480, 1rp&,f,pwv II. 14. 357;Aesch. Supp. 216; JG ii2.4533. rn
490; Soph. El. 64('i, 656; Eur. Cho. w63; Soph. El. 1380;
El. 675f.; Hee. 540; IA 1_n5; Ar. Av. 930
Phoen. 85, 1367, 1374 a6yyvw8t PMG 543. 27
86vaaa, Il. r6. 515 ;x.,
auyyvwµ,1711 Ar. Nub. 1479
220 Appendix 1

Word Literary Epigraphic

APPENDIX 2
y£1,011Aesch. Cho. 2, 19
06JL1-Laxos-
04'❖· Ar. Ran. 388 CEG 761; JG i3.872, Aspect in Greek Prayers
ii 2 • 4321
awoov Od. 4. 765; Ar. Vesp. 393
ef,a,v€
lTJs- Eur. Hipp. 528
1/,lwTJ
(h Aesch. Pen 666; Soph. Aj.
697; Eur. Rhes. 370; Bacch. F. W. Mozley pointed out that, in the Septuagint and New Testament,
1017; Ar. Eq. 591; Thesm. od is addressed almost always with aorist imperatives. 1 In ancient
11,43 Greek prayers, the aorist has not yet become the tense of choice for
q,oAaaa,; Il. IO. 291 rayers but it it is already very much more common than the present.
xaip<' Il. I0. 462; Od. 24. 402 CEG 822. 3 This is curious since, in contemporary texts where mortals address other
J(d.pw II. 23. 650; Ar. Thesm. 1231 JG i3, 7II, 791, 1014; ortals, they use the present and the aorist imperatives in approximately
CEG 321a qua! measure. 2 Many scholars have attempted to make sense of this
-------------------------------1■ rious state of affairs. Kieckers suggested that there was something
· trinsic to the nature of prayer which made the aorist a specially appro-
riate tense to use. 3 Kretschmer argued that the present would be the
xpected tense in prayers because any action performed by a god would
aturally be conceived of as durative. 4 Both these views involve the a
riori assumption that there is something special about prayer and that
is requires one sort of imperative rather than another. Poutsma objected
at it was necessary to look at the proportions of present and aorist stems
·n individual authors because the preoccupations of a given author could
istort the figures in such a way as to make simple counting of imperatives
cross authors misleading. Pindar apparently uses far more present
mperatives than aorists. 5 Beschewliew argued that the only difference
etween these forms was one of aspect and that we do not need to look for
pecial explanations based on the nature of prayer itself. 6
1
E W. Mozley, 'Notes on the Biblical Use of the Present and Aorist lmpera-
' JThS 4 (1903), 1.79ff.
W. F. Bakker, The Greek Impemtive: An Jm,estigation into the Aspectual
,Jferences Betwl!l!n the Present and the Aorist Imperatives in Greek Pmyer from
omer i,p to the Present Day (Amsterd!llll, t966), u. Hereafter Bakker.
1
E. Kieckets, 'Zum Gebrauch des lmperativus Aoristi und Praesentis', IF i4
1~09), 1off.
4
P. Kretschmer, 'Der griechische Imperativus Activi auf -aov; Glotta, to (r920),
12 ff.
5
A. Poutsma, 'Over de tempora van de imperativus en de coniunctivus horta-
ivus-prohibitivus in het Grieks', Verh. d. Kon. Ak. v. Wet. te Amsterdam, Afd.
tk., ~R Z7 1. (191.8).
" \\'. Beschewliew, Kritik der bisherigen Ansichlen fiher den Gebmuch des lmper-
tit:s und Optativs im griet:hischett Gebet (Diss. Wunburg, r925). See also the
bridged version, 'Der Gebrauch des Imperativs aoristi und praesentif! im alt-
riechischen Gebet', Ann. de /'Univ. de Sofia, Fae. histor.-phil. 23/4 (t927), 27ff.
222 Appendix 2
The most detailed study of imperatives in prayers was undertaken
W. F. Bakker. 7 He says that two questions have to be answered: (r)'
is it that, in prayers directed to the gods in Ancient Greek, the ao
imperative is used more frequently than the present imperative?'; an
'How is it that in the Koine and in the subsequent stages of the G
language the present imperative is even less used in prayers than be
so that the aorist imperative is practically the only imperative form
in use?' 8 I do not choose to tackle the second question here. The u
aspect in the Koine and later Greek is a complex matter. Bakker
drawn his own conclusions about this and work on the subject c
tinues. 9
It is with Bakker's views on a$pect that I wish to deal in this appen
We have to start by defining exactly what is meant by that term. As
can be defined as 'different ways of viewing the internal temporal
stituency of a situation'. to This is different from tense, because t
specifies the time when an action took place with reference to some o
time, usually the present. The distinction between French 'ii lisait'
'ii lut' is not, as traditionally claimed, one of time (i.e. tense), since b
refer to past time. The difference is one of aspect. In the former case,
is plunged into the middle of a continuing process. In the latter,
process is seen as over and done with. The traditional view of
aspectual distinction between the present and aorist stem in Greek h
that the present stem denotes continuing (durative) action whereas
aorist denotes single, punctual actions. 11 An example of the present·
rous yovfis rlµa (Isoc. t. 16). This means 'honour your parents'-in,
continuing way. One might contrast the present imperative 1rlivTa nU.
My" (Lysias 1. 18) with the aorist El1r01 (Plato, Apolol!}• 24d). The fo
7
Seen. 2 above. 8
Bakker, 16-17.
9
Bakker, 85, argues that the present imperative is only used in the Koine w
both parties are fully informed of the situation on account of which the ac
ordered has to be performed. There are parallels to this in the use of the R
imperfective imperative; see J. Forsyth, A Grammar of Aspect: Usage and Me
in the Rwtian Verb (Cambridge, 1970), 199. See also B. M. Fanning, Verbal A
in New Testammt Greek (Oxford, 1990); K. L. McKay, A New Syntax of the
in New Te$tament Greek (New York, 1994).
10
On aspect in general, see J. Lyons, Introduction to Theoretical Lin
(Cambridge, 1968), 313 ff.; B. Comrie, Aspect (Cambridge, 1976), 3. For the
material see A. Rijksbaron, The Syntax and Semantics of the Verb in Cl
Greek (Amsterdam, 1994), -4J.ff. Particularly important is Y. Duhoux, Le Ver
tmcien: Elements de mo,Phofogie et de syntaxe historique {Louvain, t992), 237ff.
He gives very useful statistics for the distribution of present and aorist imperati
in prayers as opposed to ordinary speech between humans, showing that the ao
is used in prayers So% of the time, the present only 20%. In ordinary speech,
present is rather commoner than the aorist.
11
Goodwin, Greek Grammar,§ 1272.
Aspect in Greek Prayers 223
means 'tell the whole truth' in the sense of 'go on and tell in detail'. The
latter means 'state', in a word. Furthermore, we find in the same passage
of Xenophon's Cyropaedia (4. 5, 47) the present, {sc. Tou; iw1rous)IKEtvois
6ll'ion and the aorist, ~µiv alirou; BOTE.
The former appears to mean 'offer
the horses to them' and the latter 'give the horses to us'. 12 It is the
internal temporal extension of the action that differs, it seems.
Bakker adopts a wholly different viewpoint with regard to aU this and
actually redefines the nature of the opposition between present and
aorist: 13
The speaker who uses the present imperative sees a connection
between the existing situation (as he sees it!) and the action ordered.
This means that, on account of the situation, he wants somebody to start
performing an action at once. But we should always remember that this
'at once' is not, or need not be identical with the 'now' of objective
reality, but is determined only by the subjective 'here and now' the
14
speaker has in mind. In this 'here and now' the existing situation
and the action ordered coincide. So it might be said that from this point
of view (the 'here and now') the speaker views the action ordered in its
perspective as part of living reality.
The speaker who uses an aorist imperative does not see a connection,
does not take up a position in time (the 'here and now'). He does not
visualize the action as part of living reality, but sees it as a mere fact, an
abstraction. Here it becomes apparent that those scholars who explain the
difference between the present imperative and the aorist imperative as a
difference between wap,fraa,, ['extension'] and OWTEMdwa,,['comple-
tion'], or between line and point, or whatever it may be, see only some
of the features that constitute the difference between the two stems or
even contrive to see the difference in accidental circumstances. The chief
contrast consists in the presence or absence of the element of connection.
This is what emerges from Bakker's analysis of Greek imperatives in
contexts other than prayers. 15 When he looks at the distribution between
present and aorist in prayers, he concludes that there are three sorts of
11 T'
. hese examples are taken from H. Weir-Smyth, Greek Gmm11111r (Cam-
hr\1&e, Mass:, 1920),_§ 1864. 13 Bakker, 6s.
15
The logic of this sentence is obscure to me,
. The subject of asrect is obviously an enormously complicated one. It is
0
utside the scope of this work to deal with its many problems. Furthermore I
;m not concernin~ myself with imperatives used in normal human discou~.
Ahe_y have been dlSCUssed recently by C. M. J. Sicking, 'The Distribution of
0
nst and Present Tense Foi:ms in Greek, Especially in the Imperative', Glatta,
!;'h(l99i), _14-43, 154-70. I believe, however, that infinitives in prayers are II some-
ar special case and need to be treated separately.
224 Appendix 2
situation, each of which conditions differently the choice of present'
aorist stem.
16
(i) First, there are situations of 'actual distress' . Here, the
imperative is used, according to Bakker, because 'A human being
is in such straitened circumstances that he cannot do much about
does not usually try to create an understanding between himself a
deity. He does not say: "These are the circumstances I am in; the
thing possible now is that you help me. Otherwise ... ", hut instead
"Help me, o Lord" .... [the aorist imperative] does not ask for an
that has to be started "right now", but for an absolute fact, which is
connected with the "here and now".' He nevertheless goes on to say
1 that the hortative present is appropriate in some prayers because there is
the present imperative can be used in very urgent, emotional crises.
concludes that 'The present imperatives which occur in emotional
plications do not ask for a divine favour which must last for a c
length of time or for a repetition of actions. They all ask for one con
18
action in one particular situation of distress.'
(ii) Secondly, there are wishes. Here, according to Bakker, the aori
most frequent because 'the emotion and tension encountered so often
the prayers [of actual distress] are here completely or almost compl
missing' . 19 However, within this category, one occasionally finds
present stems, which Bakker calls the 'hortative' present. This, a
ently, is the kind of present used when the party being addressed is,
that very minute actual l y expectmg . anyway. 20
· to pe rf orm t h e action
Muse in JI. r. I gets a present imperative, because it is her job to sing
she is, as it were, waiting in the wings and needs only a signal to come
Similarly, people in Demosthenic lawcourt speeches who are about
read out evidence are addressed in the same way (ley~, 'speak' (pres.
This is what they are expecting to do. The aorist would be inapprop ·
because it refers to desires for the future as abstract facts, as ev
independent of the circumstances of the moment, and not as an ac
21
action which has to be started 'right now' .
(iii) Thirdly, there are general wishes. The present is the common
stem here. This is because the wishes 'do not apply to one spe
situation, but to more than one ... (to] a repetition of actions ... [
22
a state that must last forever or for a certain length of time' .
16 Balcker, 100. 17
Ibid. 103 ff.
18
Ibid. rn7.
19
Ibid. rn7.
20 Ibid. 111 ff. English classicists brought up on Wilding's Greek for Begi,
may find this use of the word 'hottative' a little idiosyncratic because all impe
tives are 'exhortations' to do something. It will have to be borne21 in mind
Biller is using it in a rather special sense. Bakker,
22 · Ibid. l 16.
Aspect in Greek Prayers 225
This analysis seems to be not a little self-contradictory. In category (i),
that of actual distress, I fail to see how it can be maintained that the
action ordered by the aorist is not meant to begjn 'here and now'.
Furthermore, it is claimed that the present may be used if the distress
is particularly acute. How are we to tell what forms of distress are more
acute than others? The aorist piiaa, ('rescue' (aor.)) of Jl. 17. 645 looks to
me every bit as urgent, if not more so, as the ·mSp,{£( 'provide' (pres.)) of
Eur. Ale. 222f. (which is in any case preceded by the aorist lfrup£). There
are also problems with Bakker's so-called 'hortative' present. Even if we
allow that the present stem has an urgent meaning in crises and a
'hortative' one at other times, there are still problems. Bakker maintains
23
an understanding between worshipper and god of the do-ut-des type.
Yet Chryses, who is in just such a relationship with his god, uses an
aorist (tm"P7J"I/Vov,'fulfil': ll. I. 455). Bakker says that the aorist is, in fact,
much more frequent than the present in such do-ut-des contexts. So the
notion of a 'hortative' present is surely useless in explaining present
imperatives in prayers of the do-ut-des type. 24 Again, Bakker presents
us with a picture of a present imperative which is used sometimes
because of its immediate association with the 'here and now', i.e. in
distress and exhortations, and at other times because it expresses
temporal extension or repetition, i.e. in 'general wishes'. At the
same time, we are told that the aorist is appropriate for some wishes
(category (ii)) but not for others, the 'general wishes' of category
(iii). Such an approach would lead to the absurd conclusion that
oAfJov .•• Mn ('give [aor.] me happiness', Solon, fr. f3. 3 West)
and 8tl'fou... 5).fJov('give [pres.] me happiness', Hymn. Hom. 15. 9)
belong in different classes of wish. I think a more old-fashioned explana-
tion will serve,
In speaking of the appropriateness of the present to denote repeated
actions or continuing states in category (iii), Bakker is adopting the
traditional aspectual view of the present which he explicitly rejects in
other situations (e.g. in category (i), where he maintains that the present
has a unique relation to the 'here and now' not shared by the aorist). 25
• We can see at once that it makes no sense to speak of the aorist imperative
having no relation to the 'here and now'.
In fact, nothing Bakker says convinces me that we ought, with regard
to imperatives in prayers, to abandon the traditional view of a punctual
aorist and a durative present. However, we need to bear in mind that the
choice between present and aorist may not have been a wholly free one.
\~resaw in Chapter 8 that the word t<Avfhwas used only in prayer, never in
23 24 25
Bakker, 113-l 4. Ibid. 114 n . .µ. Ibid. 106-7.
226 Appendix 2
ordinary human discourse. It is an ancient and venerable fossil. T
aorist, then, may have been chosen for reasons other than the desire
portray the action of listening as punctual. Furthermore,_as Duhoux
argued, there may be a sense in which the punctual aorist co~e
itself to the cautious worshipper as more restrained and polite t
durative present. 26 Take, for example, the prayer oli/3011 • • • ll&T~
(Solon fr. 13. 3 West). The happiness may last for ever but the g1
is a single event. The speaker who uses the aorist is thus defining v
dearly the individual nature of the transaction. Th~ utte~ance 818?11
o).{Jo11implies that the petitioner hopes that he will en!oy contm
happiness for a long time to come. This sort of present 1s often£
in contexts where the idea of xdp,,; is made explicit, e.g. Od. 3. 58. Ath
dp.oifJ"1v
says to Poseidon, 8,8ovxo.pt•.c1uo.11 / •.. dyc;m\e;~s tKaT&p.fJ'f/'i
~•g
[pres.] a gracious return for the glorious hecatomb'). The same th1
found in inscriptions, e.g. CEG 326, which dates from 7oo-67S BC
contains the formula 8,llo1,capiF,:TTo.11 dp.oiP{a11]
('give [pres.] a gra
return'). 28 CEG 313 (c.480-460 BC) contains the formula hois xdpw d~
('return the favour for them'). A certain degree of presumpnon
involved. One has given the god a finite quid pro quo but the expe~ta
is of recurring benefits. I doubt that it is the intrinsically connn
nature of xdp1,;itself which determines the choice of the present be
it is also possible to find the aorist in such contexts, e.g. CEG 360,
xaptfioav dp.a,Fa11Duhoux's theory, then, rests on a fairly traditi~nal
of aspect but it goes on from there to suggest that the predomman
aorists in prayer may be explained in terms of a wish on the part of
worshippers not to seem greedy. . .
To summarize, I see no reason why a preponderance of aorist ~
tives in prayer should require a radical redefinition of our view
aspect. 29
26
Duhoux, Le Verbe grec, z39.
27
Athene may be a goddess, but she is di~guised as a human and one ass
that her prayer is meant to be seen as a possible human prayer.
28 K. Strunk ('Der hootische lmperativ .sl<'!o,',Gfotta, 39 (1961),
shown that 8I8o, is a present imperative. .
29
I am particularly grateful to Prof. Anna Davies for her detailed and hel
criticism ol an earlier draft of this Appendix.
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947 87--8
ZIEGLER, K., De precationum apud Graecosformis (Diss. Breslau, 1905 52 46 1002 67
ZrnHEN, L., 'Opfer', RE xviii (1942), 579-627, Antiphon Fragments
I. 16-19 172-3 504 117
6· 45 168
Aristophanes Bacchylides
Acharnenses 16. 67 zo5
 Index Locorum Index Locorum 237
236
Electro Phoenissae I. 37 134
Callimachus
415-16 39 86-7 201-2 I. 447,4 165
Hymns
629 173 586-7 64 I. 450-8 174
2.69-71 107
631 173 Troades I, 450 185
3. 7 107
128 469-71 201 I. 225
Carmina Popularia 679-80 455
179 884, IOI
472-4
PMG 849 149 690-I I. 49
889 103
PMG 871 47, 149, 151 784-5 173 1. 500-4 57
Fragments
Clemens Alexandrinus 799-804 173 2. 371-2 6
351 179-80
Stromateis 805 203 2. 410-18 r66
645 67
4. 26(171. l) 186 971 202-3 2. 412 IZ, 134
781. j()-00 36
Hecuba 912 102, 123 3. 276-8 79-80
534-40 142-3 3. 298 108
Democritus
Helena 3. 35r 12
68 B 234 212 Eustathius
754-5 7 5. n5-20 29
Demosthenes Prooem. comm. Pind.
969-71 35 j. 115-16 66
2. 22 213 31 49
1097-8 35 6. 301 179
18. I 10
1441-2 202 6. 304 74
18. 141 109, 179
Hemclidae Heliodorus 6. 305-12 175
18. 200 183
869-70 39 3, 5 181 6. 305-9 27
19. 130 72
Hercules Furens Heraclitus 6. 305 145
40. fO 170-1
346 202 22 B5 2IO 6. 476-Sr 12
Diodorus Siculus Herodotus
183 4()(r6 127 7. 193--6 185
j. 34. 5 I. 87. I 31
176 494 145 7. 202 145
20. 50. 6 I. 132 72
655-9 202 7- 203-5 208
Dionysius Thrax 2. 3. 2 It3
46 820-1 64 8. 236-44 133, 197
451. 6 2. 181. 4 186-7
Hippolytus 9. 357 109
4- 189. 3 180
99 162 9. 567 71
Euripides 6. 86y. 2 66
IOl 162 IO. 278-94 29
Alcestis 6. rII. 2 14
u5-20 171
7. 178 10 12. 163-4 197
221-6 35 162
n6 Herondas 13. 631-3 196
222 225
n7-19 67 4. 11-12 143 15. 36910 175
714 75, 92
120 203 4- 41 r67 n. 27 t5. 372--6 29
995-rno3 u8-19
Iphigenia Aulidensis Hesiod 16. 233-48 12
1002-4 163
u86 8 Opera et Dies 16. 523-4 145
1u8 125-6
1570-5 142-3 338-4r 157 17. 645 225
Andromache
67
Iphigenia Taurica Hippocrates 23. 76910 185
54-5
!082-4 36, 65 De morbo sacro 24- 3o6-13 12
Bacchae
102 1400 67 3. 4 214 Odyssey
275-6
181 Medea Regimen 3- 54 73
Il33
83 172 4. 87 2t4 3. 98-101 28
1348 203
1173-6 179 Horner 3- 444-63 166
Cyclops
201 Orestes Iliad 3- 450 178
60-1
201 12 30-3 128 I. 37-42 16, 29 4· 328-3 I 28
354-5
 Index Locorum Index Locorum 239
238
227 172 Euthyphro Electra
4. 762-6 28--9, 170
26o 169 I4C 7, 46 634-5 12
4. 767 178-9
460 169 Leges 638-9 187
5. 444-50 58, 63
66o 169 7ooab 44 657 187
5. 444 185
Epitrepontes Sota 45 1374-5 162
6. 321-7 162
358 172 801e 45 1382-3 201
6. 324-7 30 172 Oedipus Coloneus
424 887e 157
6. 325-6 197 172 162
548 909b 125 130-3
IO. 492 121 172
907 Phaedo 489 187-8
10. 527-40 121
Kolax 118 212 Oedipus Tyrannus
IL 29-33 12! IIO
fr. l Philebus 164-5 33
II. 46-'7 121 Menander Rhetor 12 102, 104 165-8 65
13. 356-6o 159 48
333 Politicus 895-905 200
13. 357-6o 50 48
343 290cd 8 1291 76
r7. 240-2 29, 30 IOI
438 Respublica Philoctetes
2I. 364-5 108 IOI
445 468d9 46 779-81 9
22. 408-12 179
6o7a,1. 46 1019 6
Homeric Hymns Orphica Timaeus Trachiniae
2. 494 49 Hymn to Liknites 21a3 46 205 181
9 47 46. 8 143 27c 8 1266-g 198
15. 9 225
Plutarch
19 r-5 Momlia
Pausanias Theognis
8. 37. 9 n2-13 7oof. 80
342 198
Isaeus Phllodemus Pericles
373-82 199
8. 15-16 165-6 De musica 8. 4 IO
Theophrastus
8. 16 14 4 49 Polybius Historia Plantarum
Isocrates Pindar I 5- t. 6 193 7, 3. 3 So
7. 10 42 Nemean Odes Proclus
9. 8. 7 8J
15. 246 213 8. 35-40 209 In Timaeum 9. 8. 8 So
9. 28 2o8 65£. 148-9 w<optd,aeflda,;
Leonidas Olympian Odes fr. 12 55
Palantine Anthology 7. 68 I8I
Sappho Thucydides
6. 321-3 50 Pythian Odes 2. 4- 2 180 n. 54
208 fr. I 65
Lucian t. 29 2. 47. 4 56
fr. 2 48
Demosthems encomium Fragment 6. 32 176
207 Simonides
49 193 r5S
PMG 543 68
Lysias Plato
Solon Xenophanes
2. 39 31 Alcibiades secumlus
2II-l2 fr. 13 225 21 B r. 13-15 209
6. 51 174 143a
2U Sophocles 21 8 I 1-16 210
148c
2ll
Ajax Xenophon
Marcus Aurelius 149c
Cratylut 508 76 Anabasis
5. 7 149 A11tigane I. 8. 18 181
Menander Comicus 4ooe
II4 65-7 67 3. 2. 9 182
Dyscolut 404cd
 Index Locorum lnde.'< Locorum 241
240

182-3 857 14, 41 SEG OLD TESTAMENT

4. 3. 19
53 xxi. 1528 14
5. 2. 14 181 IOJl
.. 2 xxv. 298 53
6. j. 27 181 ll Genesis
569 15 xxxiii. 675 109
7- 8. t-6 98 17: 1-14 18
668 14-15 xxxvi. 750 174
Cyropaedia
950 15 SIG 3
3. 3. 58 183
173 I 219. 20 147 Exodus
4. 1. 2 42 n75
II94 14 20: 7 99
Hellenica
42 4348 169 33: 13 2i
4- 3. 14
4372 14 34: 9 21
Memorabilia LATIN AUTHORS
I. 3. 2 211 4403 14
2. 2. 13 14 4473. 22 64
Leviticus
4486 109 Apuleius
2. 2. 14 67-8 24: 16 99
4588 14, 169 ]l;/etamorphoses
Oeconomicus
I I. 2 100-1
ll. 8 212-13
Respublica Lacedaemoniorum Numbers
Linear B 11: 15 21
13. 2, 3 Ij8 109-10 Catullus
KN: Fp I+ 31
61 34. 21-2 IOI
PY: Ep 704. 5
Cicero
LSAM Deuteronomy
AND 167
Brutus
GREEK INSCRJPTIONS 24 4; 9 19
217 88
PAPYRI LSCG 4: 32--9 19
Ad Familiares
18A 170 7: 18-19 19
5, 2. ro 145
CEG 69 166 8: 2 19
226 II7 167 n. 27 9: 25--9 19
313
41, 53, 226 II9 167 n. 27 Horace
326
42 129 167 n. 27 Carmina
334 2 Samuel
226 3. 21 IOI
36o 23: 5 19
169 Carmen saeculare
863 ML 15-16 IOI
30 77 Epistulae
DT Psalms
112 l. 13· 3 145 t7: I-'7 19
271
DTA PGM 26: 1-7 20
65 87 III Macrobius 89: 3 19
66 87 496-575 138 3- 9. 10 100 89: 28--9 19
98 88 IV IIO: 4 19
102 88 368-72 130 Pliny
397 131
Natura/is Historia
398 91, II2
JG H). 120 So ANET
iJ 630 139
40. 65 14 V
91 Servius pp. 394-6 22
728 204 415
VII ad Aen. p. 394 23
776 40 2- 351
596-609 112 100 p. 399 23
791 41
 Index Locoru111

INDIC MATERIAL Rig-Veda

7, 56. 15 GENERAL INDEX
!L 32. 6
Mahabharata
'Younger Avesta'
3. 281. 96 Agamemnon 126-7 gods, criticism of 196-205
Yast 5- 76-8 Akkadian prayer 24 Golem 99
Alcestis u8-r9 group participation 173-8
Alcibiades 77-8
aorist 221-6 Hades 122-3
Apis n9-20 hands 188-g5
hearing, verbs of 134-6
basil So hearth 165
Bouz:ygian curses n, 80 heroes u6-31
Hittite prayer 22-4
chthonic powers 79-80, 82, 90, I 13, homecoming r 59-6I
u6, 141 hymns 43-55, 105-6
coming, verbs of 136-44
commination 70 imperatives 150-1
Common Prayer 156, 159 Inda-European 2, 22, 59, r35, 146-7
Cnidus 88 Indo-Iranian 24-6
Croesus 13 infinitive, imperatival 151-4
cumin So Isaiah I
curses 7D-95, I 55, t71, 174 Islam 156

dead, cult of 116-3 I Jahweh r, 99

defixiones 82-95 Judaism 1
Demeter u3, 121
Despoina I I2 kneeling 190-4
see also Persephone Kore I 13-14
Dirae Teiae 77
Linear B 6o-1
Earth 79-80, u6 Lycurgus, King 158
Egyptian prayer 24
emergency, prayer in 29-30 magic 90-115, 136-44
epithets 51-3 mandrake 80-1
memory rzo
faulty prayer 20.5 morning prayer 158
forgiveness 66-g mystery cults u3-14
formulae 129, 132-55, 217-20
names, power of 96-115
genuflection 191-3 necromancy 121-6
gestures 188-95 nouthetetic prayer 200--1
gladwyn St
gnostics 111 Old Testament 18-22
244 General Index
optative 150-1, 172 Talmud 20
Osiris 113 Teos 77 INDEX OF GREEK WORDS
Tetragrammaton 99
paean 50, 1ll2.-3 thanksgiving 39-55 aya,\µa 49 Ka-rEVXEa8a,166
parody 3r-3 tricolon 128, 145-6 d,\a,\d'w 18t K€XO.p1aµ.£VOII 3 I-2
paterfamilias 30, 166, 168, 172-3 Triptolemus So n. 3 1 ,i,\,\d 132-3 K,\ii/J, 134-6, I47-8
Persephone 90, u3-14, 12.2, 126, J,\,\01 fJu,l J08-u
aµ,afJ{a 202
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141 unanswered prayer 2.05-'7
see also Despoina underworld 121-2 U/J,E/J,1T1'0'ij 20) µ.,ilMyµ.a-ra 120
prayer, defined 5'"""9 unknown god 107-8 aµ,o,~7141, 226 µ,ta8&s 82, 120
priest 166-8 dvdµV7Ja•s31-2 µ6AE,see ~,\(U
private vs. public 164-8 ,MJ'wv 36
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reciprocity 12-13, 16-38
aspect 154, 221-6
mood 150-4, 172
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fw,;11,s- 202

remembrance 16-38 awpot 82 8,\oio 6

person 154-5
Rumpelstilzchen 96
tense 1.54, 22r-6 8,801 41-2 ,Uo,\vy17
178-81

vocatives 133-4 8u11aaa,208 Ilw.d.v 182-3

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vows 17, 30-1 1rawvxtfiw 157
sacrifice 7-8 £<1T01'E I 6-38
sanctuaries 161-4
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silent prayer 184-8 /:,\8/: 136-44
fnmvw 42
7TpoaKvvriu,s 157, 191-4
slaves 171-3
standing 190-4 Zeus: J[op1cl'w 130-1 aa~oi 183
statues 161-4 Basileus 98 i[op,d,w 130-1
Chthonios 123 -r1µ1113, 37, SI
Sumerian prayer 24 £1TOS59 II. 9
"l"iS" rjjfiE 17?-8, 184
Sun 157-8 Herkeios 165 £0 146, 163-4
supplication 56-69, 188-9.5 Meilichios 98, 190-1 EvayyJ,\1a42 iiµvos 43-50
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6 {mip 14-15, 168
uloi 183
Evfdµa,os dvifh,KE 41
£V,f,TJpdaI 84 xa£p,; 16o, 163-4, 191
(uxoµ,a, 59-64, 71-6 xdp,, 12-13, 15, 37, 40-r, 93
xapia-r-r/p,a 42
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IJEo/ aMo, 108-11
X<iipas&vanlvnv 189, 194-5
9uu{a 49
XEipas dvJxea8a, 195
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