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Prayers to Neptune

7 prayers

Neptune is prayed to before the voyage and thanked after it. The pattern is fixed: a vow made in a storm, a tablet or a set of clothes hung in the temple on return. Horace's ode on the shipwrecked and Arion's hymn from the dolphin's back both work inside it.

What is asked
Fontes · Sources
  • Anonymous · Defixio / curse tablet1
  • Arnobius · Adversus Nationes1
  • Ovid · Metamorphoses1
  • Plautus · Rudens1
  • Plautus · Trinummus1
  • Silius Italicus · Punica1
  • Statius · Silvae1
Orationes · The texts
  1. 001

    Prayer to Neptune

    Anonymous · Defixio / curse tablet · AE 1997.977, Hamble, Britannia

    Lord Neptune, I commend to You the fellow who pounced upon what rightfully belongs to Muconus and therefore I remit to You the six silver coins along with the one who stole them. May You ensnare this thief who violated me in this way; may You attack him and consume his blood, Lord Neptune.

    RomanPetition
  2. 002

    Prayer to Neptune

    Arnobius · Adversus Nationes · III.43

    Come, Dii Penates, come Apollo and Neptune and all You Gods, and by Your powers may You mercifully turn aside this ill disease that violently twists, scorches and burns our city with fever.

    RomanPetitionProtection
  3. 003

    Prayer to Neptune

    Ovid · Metamorphoses · 8.595-598

    O Neptune, who reigns over the realm of wandering waves, Bearer of the Trident, come to our aid, I pray, and undo her father's savagery. Neptune, grant her a safe haven, or else allow her to become a place herself, to live forever as one of Your nymphs.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  4. 004

    Prayer to Neptune

    Plautus · Rudens · 906-910

    Thanks be to Neptune my patron, who dwells in the fish-teeming salt sea, for speeding me homeward from his sacred abode, well laden and in a good hour.

    RomanGratitude
  5. 005

    Prayer to Neptune

    Plautus · Trinummus · 819-830

    O Neptunus, brother of Jove and Nereus, heartily and gladly I give you praise and grateful thanks. And to you, Neptunus, before all other gods I offer and accord you the highest thanks. I give you praise, for you know how to treat men fairly; this befits the gods.

    RomanGratitudePraise
  6. 006

    Prayer to Neptune

    Silius Italicus · Punica · 15.159-162

    Neptune, divine Lord of the Trident, on whose high seas we begin to cross, if my preparations are made justly, grant our fleet to sail safely, Father, and do not scorn to aid our labors. The war I now draw across the sea is a just war.

    RomanPetition
  7. 007

    Prayer to Neptune

    Statius · Silvae · 3.2.1-12

    O Neptune, grand and rare is the pledge we make to You, and in what we commend into the depths of the sea. Father of the mighty Deep, grant that the benign stars, the Spartan brothers, Castor and Pollux, sit upon the horns of the yard arm. Let your light illuminate sea and sky. Drive off your sister Helen's stormy star, I pray, and expel it from all the heavens.

    RomanPetitionDedication
Invoked alongside
Apollo1the Penates1
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