public · Roman

Prayer to Jupiter

Then do you, O Jupiter, who were consecrated by Romulus with the same auspices as this City, whom we rightly call the stay of this city and empire, repel this man and his companions from your altars and from the other temples, from the houses and walls of the city, from the lives and fortunes of all the citizens; and overwhelm all the enemies of good men, the foes of the republic, the robbers of Italy, men bound together by a treaty and infamous alliance of crimes, dead and alive, with eternal punishments.

Commentarius · Commentary

The close of the First Catilinarian. The senate met that day in the temple of Jupiter Stator, and Cicero addresses the god within whose walls he is standing: not a rhetorical figure but an address to the owner of the room.

The most remarkable thing here is the grammar. Arcebis … mactabis, you will drive off, you will destroy: future indicative, not imperative and not subjunctive. Cicero asks for nothing — he informs the god what the god is going to do. Of all the prayers in this corpus, this is the only one built as a prediction, and the audacity is deliberate: at the end of his speech the orator assumes a voice the god is obliged to obey.

Qui isdem quibus haec urbs auspiciis a Romulo es constitutus — established by Romulus under the same auspices as the city. God and city were instituted by one rite on one day; whoever attacks the second attacks the first. The legal grounds for divine punishment are laid in advance.

Vivos mortuosque — living and dead. The punishment does not end at death, and Cicero specifies the point.

The vow by which this temple was founded is preserved in card jupiter-006.

Fons · Source

AuthorCicero

WorkIn Catilinam

Section1.33

Period1st c. BC

Occasionagainst Catiline conspiracy

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formpublic

DeitiesJupiter

FunctionsPetition · Protection

SphereCivic