Prayer to Hercules

A private votive inscription: Lucius Aufidius, son of Decimus, brings Hercules a tithe — and brings it "a second time". Tithes to Hercules were ordinary Roman practice: a trader or a farmer would vow the god a tenth of his profit. The word iterum is the whole story: the first vow worked, and the man came back.

The most interesting thing is the break in the middle. The text opens in the third person, like a record — "Lucius Aufidius gave" — and halfway through shifts to the second: "at the same time he asks you: you are the Holy god". A votive inscription is both a document and a prayer, and here one can be watched turning into the other.

The stone is damaged and almost everything is the editor's restoration; he marks the reading tou[tam] itself as doubtful.