=Prayer.=—­When the Roman prays, it is not to lift his soul and feel himself in communion with a god, but to ask of him a service.  He is concerned, then, first to find the god who can render it.  “It is as important,” says Varro, “to know what god can aid us in a special case as to know where the carpenter and baker live.”  Thus one must address Ceres if one wants rich harvests, Mercury to make a fortune, Neptune to have a happy voyage.  Then the suppliant dons the proper garments, for the gods love neatness; he brings an offering, for the gods love not that one should come with empty hands.  Then, erect, the head veiled, the worshipper invokes the god.  But he does not know the exact name of the god, for, say the Romans, “no one knows the true names of the gods.”  He says, then, for example, “Jupiter, greatest and best, or whatever is the name that thou preferrest....”  Then he proposes his request, taking care to use always the clearest expressions so that the god may make no mistake.  If a libation is offered, one says, “Receive the homage of this wine that I am pouring”; for the god might think that one would present other wine and keep this back.  The prayers, too, are long, verbose, and full of repetitions.

=Omens.=—­The Romans, like the Greeks, believe in omens.  The gods, they think, know the future, and they send signs that permit men to divine them.  Before undertaking any act, the Roman consults the gods.  The general about to engage in battle examines the entrails of victims; the magistrates before holding an assembly regards the passing birds (called “taking the auspices").  If the signs are favorable, the gods are thought to approve the enterprise; if not, they are against it.  The gods often send a sign that had not been requested.  Every unexpected phenomenon is the presage of an event.  A comet appeared before the death of Caesar and was thought to have announced it.

When the assembly of the people deliberates and it thunders, it is because Jupiter does not wish that anything shall be decided on that day and the assembly must dissolve.  The most insignificant fact may be interpreted as a sign—­a flash of lightning, a word overheard, a rat crossing the road, a diviner met on the way.  And so when Marcellus had determined on an enterprise, he had himself carried in a closed litter that he might be sure of not seeing anything which could impose itself on him as a portent.

These were not the superstitions of the populace; the republic supported six augurs charged with predicting the future.  It carefully preserved a collection of prophecies, the Sibylline Books.  It had sacred chickens guarded by priests.  No public act—­assembly, election, deliberation—­could be done without the taking of the auspices, that is to say, observation of the flight of birds.  In the year 195 it was learned that lightning had struck a temple of Jupiter and that it had hit a hair on the head of the statue of Hercules; a governor wrote that a chicken with three feet had been hatched; the senate assembled to discuss these portents.