public · Roman

Prayer to Jupiter

Hear, o Jupiter; hear me, too, Pater Patratus of the people of Alba! As these provisions have been written in good faith and publicly read from beginning to end from these tablets, and inasmuch as they have today been most clearly understood, so the People of Rome will not be the first to withdraw from these treaty provisions. If, in their public council, they were to do so, with false and malicious intent break this treaty, then, Dispater, on that day, may You bring ruin on the People of Rome, even as today I shall strike this swine.

Commentarius · Commentary

Livy reconstructs the words with which a fetial priest sealed the treaty between Rome and Alba. It is the oldest Roman formula of international law: the priest reads the terms from wax tablets, calls Jupiter to witness, and strikes a pig with a flint knife.

The ending is remarkable. "Then may Diespiter strike the Roman people as I strike this pig here today; and strike so much the harder as you are stronger and mightier." The oath does not ask for protection — it hands the god a weapon against the swearer's own people and then sets its calibration. The pig is not a sacrifice but a demonstration: look, this is how it is done, and do the same, in the proportion by which you exceed me.

Livy writes in the first century BC about the regal period, and there is no way to test whether he preserved a genuine formula or composed one. The language, however, is markedly older than his own.

Fons · Source

AuthorLivy

WorkAb Urbe Condita

Section1.24.7-9

PeriodRegal period (recorded by Livy)

Occasiontreaty between Rome and Alba — fetial rite

Classificatio · Taxonomy

CultureRoman

Formpublic

DeitiesJupiter

FunctionsOath

SphereCivic