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Prayers to Vesta

8 prayers

Vesta had no image, and the prayers reflect it: they address a fire, not a figure. What survives is domestic and calendrical — the offering at the hearth before a meal, the Vestalia of June, and Ovid's report that the goddess is nothing other than the living flame.

What is asked
Fontes · Sources
  • Ovid · Fasti3
  • Cicero · De Domo sua ad Pontifices1
  • Dionysius of Halicarnassus · Roman Antiquities1
  • Valerius Maximus · Facta et Dicta Memorabilia1
  • Velleius Paterculus · Historiae Romanae1
  • Virgil · Georgics1
Orationes · The texts
  1. 001

    Prayer to Jupiter

    Ovid · Fasti · 4.827-832

    As I found this city, be present, Jupiter, Father Mars, and Mother Vesta, and all gods who it is pious to summon, join together to attend. Grant that my work may rise with Your auspices. Grant that it may for many years hold dominion on earth, and assert its power over the east and west.

    RomanPetitionInvocation
  2. 002

    The Vestal Aemilia's prayer

    Dionysius of Halicarnassus · Roman Antiquities · II.68.3-5

    O Vesta, guardian of the Romans' city, if, during the space of nearly thirty years, I have performed the sacred offices to thee in a holy and proper manner, keeping a pure mind and a chaste body, do thou manifest thyself in my defence and assist me and do not suffer thy priestess to die the most miserable of all deaths; but if I have been guilty of any impious deed, let my punishment expiate the guilt of the city.

    RomanPetitionOath
  3. 003

    Prayer to Vesta

    Cicero · De Domo sua ad Pontifices · 144-145

    Mother Vesta, I pray to You, whose most chaste Vestales I have defended against pillage and desecration by demented men; for their eternal flame I could not allow to pass, extinguished in the blood of citizens, or Your pure flame be intermingled with a conflagration sweeping the entire city. I call You as witness, I place myself and my family in Your hands, in these struggles I devoted myself and my life, while consul and before, without regard for my own interests, or for profit, but strove in all my actions and thoughts with vigilance for the safety and health of all my fellow citizens. When by Your favor my home is restored to me, may I at long last be allowed to consider it demonstrated that this devotion of my life has met with the approval of the Gods.

    RomanPetitionOath
  4. 004

    The ordeal of the Vestal Tuccia

    Valerius Maximus · Facta et Dicta Memorabilia · 8.1.5

    O Vesta, if I have always brought pure hands to your secret services, make it so now that with this sieve I shall be able to draw water from the Tiber and bring it to Your temple.

    RomanPetitionOath
  5. 005

    Prayer to Jupiter Capitolinus

    Velleius Paterculus · Historiae Romanae · II.131

    Jupiter Capitolinus, Mars Gradivus called progenitor and aide of the Romans, Vesta, perpetual guardian of fire, and whatever divine powers in this greatness of Roman sovereignty, the largest empire on earth, exulted to the highest dignity, to You the public voice calls to witness and to pray: guard, preserve, and protect this state, this peace, this prince, and those who succeed to the Senate, by their long standing, determined worthy to consider the most grave matters among mortals.

    RomanPetitionProtection
  6. 006

    Prayer to the Penates and Vesta

    Virgil · Georgics · 1.498-501

    Gods of our Fathers, Indigetes, heroes native to this land, Romulus and Mother Vesta, who preserve Etruscan Tiber and Roman Palatine, in this at least do not prohibit, a young savior come to the aid of a generation decimated by war.

    RomanPetition
  7. 007

    Prayer to Vesta

    Ovid · Fasti · 3.425-428

    Vesta, watch over him whose hand tends the Holy Fire. Live well, fires. O live, I pray, undying flames.

    RomanPetition
  8. 008

    Prayer to Vesta

    Ovid · Fasti · 6.249-250

    Vesta favor me. To You now our voices lift in praise as by this rite it is allowed that we may approach You.

    RomanPetitionPraise
Invoked alongside
Jupiter1Jupiter Capitolinus1Mars1Mars Gradivus1the Penates1
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