ition, nay, of humble petition. We are not dealing
here with _vota_, to which I shall come in the next lecture, and in
which there is a kind of legal contract between the man and the god--the
former undertaking to do something pleasing to the deity, if the latter
shall have faithfully performed what is asked of him. These _vota_, so
abundant in historical times, are really responsible for the idea that
Roman prayer is simply a binding formula--a magical spell, let us say,
which in the hands of a city priesthood has become a quasi-legal
formula. But these prayers are not _vota_; they do not contain any
language which betrays the notion of binding the deity. They seem to me
to mark a process of transition between the age of spell and magic and
the age of prayer and religion; they retain some of the outward
characteristics of spell, but internally, _i.e._ in the spirit in which
they were intended, they have the real characteristics of prayer.[394]
The numina to whom they were addressed were powerful spirits, unknown,
unfamiliar, until their wishes were discovered by the organised
priesthood which handed down these forms of petition.

To return to Rome, and to the prayers in Cato's book, to which I
referred just now when discussing the word _macte_. Attempts have been
made to prove that these were originally written in metre;[395] and this
is quite possible. If so, it only means that they retained the outward
form of the primitive spell; it must not lead us on to fancy that the
sacrifice which accompanied the prayer was a magical act, or that the
whole process was believed to compel the deity. No doubt there was
believed to be efficacy in the exact repetition, as is shown by the
directions for piacular sacrifices in case of error of any kind.[396]
But the language is the language of prayer, not of compulsion, nor even
of bargaining: "Eius rei ergo te hoc porco piaculo immolando bonas
preces precor, ut sies volens propitius mihi, domo familiaeque
meis."[397] "Mars pater, te precor quaesoque uti sies volens propitius
mihi, domo," etc.[398] No amount of vain repetition or scruple can
deprive this language of its natural meaning. The god is powerful in his
own sphere of action, and man has no control over him; man is fully
recognised as liable to misfortune unless the god helps him; but he can
worship in full assurance of faith that his prayer will be answered, if
it be such as the authorities of the State have laid down as the