Prayer to Hercules

The close of Propertius' long elegy on the Ara Maxima — the one in which Hercules, parched with thirst, forces his way towards the grove of the Good Goddess, is refused by her priestess, and in revenge bars women from his altar for ever.

The most curious thing here is the name. Propertius reports that Tatius' Cures called Hercules Sancus, identifying him with the Italic Semo Sancus. The identification is learned, disputed, and in this direct a form occurs almost only here; for Roman religion it is valuable as evidence that a foreign god was fitted into the local pantheon through a correspondence of functions, not of names.

Cui iam favet aspera Iuno — "whom harsh Juno now favours". The single word iam contains a whole biography: the stepmother who fought him all his life was reconciled after his deification.

And the request is literary: "be willing, Sancus, to be present and favourable in my book". The poet summons the god not to an altar but to a page.