Prayer to Ceres

This prayer has no original, and not because none was found.

In chapter 134 of On Agriculture Cato prescribes, before the harvest, the offering to Ceres of a porca praecidanea, and with it a strues to Janus, a fertum to Jupiter, and wine to both. He gives the words: for Janus and for Jupiter. For Ceres he gives none.

The English on this card was produced by substitution: Cato's formula uti sies volens propitius mihi liberisque meis domo familiaeque meae is taken from the address to Janus (janus-002) and turned towards Ceres.

The substitution is not arbitrary. Cato's formula really is transferable — he himself proposes putting other names into it, and the cards carmenta-002 and carmenta-006 rest on the same fact. But the result remains a reconstruction, and the citation "Cato, De Agricultura 134" gives it the appearance of a quotation, which it is not.

The provenance field reads ancient; it should be read thus: the rite is ancient and is attested by Cato word for word, but the words spoken here are not addressed to Ceres in any manuscript.

Of all the cards without an original this is the most important: the absence of a text here is not a gap in the search but a property of the source.