Prayer to Hercules

Myscelus of Argos on trial. Hercules appeared to him in a dream and ordered him to leave his homeland; the law of Argos punished that with death, and now he stands before the judges because he obeyed the god.

The prayer is two lines long, and the epithet in it is longer than the request: the address takes a whole verse, the petition itself three words, fer, precor, opem. The proportion is normal for Roman prayer: first establish exactly whom you are addressing and by what right he can help, and only then say what you want.

Cui ius caeli bis sex fecere labores — "for whom twice six labours made a right to heaven". Ius is a legal word: the labours did not earn heaven, they created a title to it. Deification is described as the acquisition of a legal claim.

The choice is doubly apt: a man under judgement is defended by a god whose own place in heaven was won by service. Hercules answers — the voting pebbles turn from black to white.