ABSTRACT
A literary version of a treaty oath appears in the Aeneid, an epic poem on the founding of the Roman nation, written by the Roman poet Vergil (70–19 bce). Partly because of the Aeneid's many accounts of prayer and ritual, by late antiquity Vergil had acquired a considerable reputation for his expertise in Roman cult. In fact, in Macrobius’ Saturnalia, a work largely devoted to commentary on the Aeneid, one speaker refers to Vergil as pontifex maximus, the chief priest of state cult (1.24.16). Despite this reputation, the influence of the Homeric epics on the Aeneid is omnipresent even in matters of religion. In the case of prayers, Vergil's choice of language, and sometimes content as well, never represents an exact reproduction of Roman cultic prayer, but sometimes reflects Homeric practice and on other occasions his own poetic artistry. None of the prayers in the Aeneid should be viewed as expressions of Vergil's personal religiosity. 1
