ABSTRACT
The treatise of Cato the Elder (234–149 bc) on farming (De Agri Cultura: c. 160 bc) contains several prayers (132, 134, 139, 141); the two presented here hold greatest interest as examples both of Roman prayers and Roman religion. Cato's treatise represents our earliest preserved example of continuous literary prose. His entire outlook was hyper-conservative, favouring social solidarity and traditional values; this outlook appears frequently in the fragments of his voluminous speeches, monographs and history (Origines). Even in the conservative context of Roman agriculture, Cato stands out; especially in the work's preface and first two chapters he takes a relentlessly traditional position, accepting no excuses from the farm's manager for vagaries of weather interfering with productivity, and concluding that everything not useful, whether human or animal or material, should be sold: ‘best that the farm owner be a seller, not a buyer.’
