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Prayers to Mother Earth

7 prayers

Terra Mater is the Earth addressed as a parent rather than as a surface. She appears in the Secular Games, where the state asked her for the fertility of everything at once, and in the Orphic hymn that calls her the mother of gods and of mortals equally.

What is asked
Fontes · Sources
  • Anonymous · CIL4
  • Anonymous · Carmina Latina Epigraphica1
  • Juvenal · Satires1
  • Virgil · Aeneid1
Orationes · The texts
  1. 001

    Prayer to Mother Earth

    Anonymous · CIL · VI.9204

    Mother Earth, indeed to You I pray, settle lightly on these bones, as she knew that piety is the reward of she who merits it, and whoever sincerely stands out in performing her own pious duties may be carried on that happy path to the Gods above.

    RomanPetition
  2. 002

    Prayer to Faunus and Mother Earth

    Virgil · Aeneid · 12.777-779

    Faunus, have pity, I pray, and you, opulent Earth, hold fast this weapon, if always I have honored your worship in good faith.

    RomanPetition
  3. 003

    Prayer to Mother Earth and the Manes

    Anonymous · Carmina Latina Epigraphica · II.1029.5-6

    Now, Manes, I call you to witness, on these bones I leave behind, may the earth put atop them lie gently.

    RomanPetition
  4. 004

    Prayer to Mother Earth

    Anonymous · CIL · III.1760

    To You I pray, Mother Earth, may You settle lightly on her remains, she who knew the reward of piety and merits it.

    RomanPetition
  5. 005

    Prayer to Mother Earth and the Manes

    Anonymous · CIL · CIL III 3989

    Therefore I pray to you Gods of the Underworld, into whose arms I am compelled headlong by the Gods above, that you admit me into your realm with the least amount of torment.

    RomanPetition
  6. 006

    Prayer to Mother Earth

    Anonymous · CIL · VIII.9473

    Fertile Terra, I pray, You may settle lightly on these remains, not harshly on the cremated remains of this infant.

    RomanPetition
  7. 007

    Prayer to Mother Earth

    Juvenal · Satires · 7.207-208

    Grant, O Gods, that the earth may lie soft and light upon the shades of our forefathers, may the sweet scented crocus and perpetual spring bloom over their ashes.

    RomanPetition
Invoked alongside
the Manes2Faunus1
← All gods