Prayer Formulae and Ritualistic Language in Cicero’s De Domo

Dustin W. Dixon (Northwestern University)

After Cicero returned from his exile from Rome, he immediately set out to restore his political identity. A crucial step of his re-enfranchisement was securing the return of his Palatine domus, which had been confiscated and consecrated to Libertas by Clodius. Because of this consecration, the college of pontiffs had to decide whether the property could be restored to him without offense to the state religion. Cicero’s side of the case is preserved in De Domo Sua ad Pontifices Oratio. In the speech, Cicero places himself in a paradoxical situation: while  he claims to be the defender of “every temple” (De Domo 7), he asks the priests to remove a shrine of Libertas for his own personal gain. Because of this paradox and the importance of religion to the case, Cicero adopts a unique form of address. I suggest that Cicero appeals to piety and upholds his self-appointed title of defender of religion by addressing the pontiffs as gods and adopting formulae and ritualistic language found in Roman hymns.

In order to understand why Cicero would address the pontiffs in this fashion, I examine the symbolism Cicero develops throughout the speech. McIntosh (2003) suggests that, in De Domo, both Cicero and his domus have symbolic counterparts: Clodius and the statue of Libertas respectively. Cicero portrays Clodius and the statue as impious to reinforce the opposition with his own piety. Developing this symbolism even further, Cicero adopts prayer formulae—specifically hymnic formulae—and ritualistic language in his address to the pontiffs.
There are three elements common to Roman hymns: an invocation, praise of the deity, and a request. The praise section of some hymns can be broken down into three subunits: mentioning the deity’s ancestry, listing the deity’s various epithets, and naming benefits already received from the deity. I identify each of these elements in Cicero’s De Domo and analyze each of these elements in comparison to Catullus 34, a hymn to Diana. Although this poem may have been a literary exercise rather than a genuine ritual moment, it contains each of these formulaic elements.

Cicero also adopts specialized ritualistic language in his speech, specifically in his verbs of supplication. The most noticeable of these is his distinction of quaeso and quaero. Cicero also supplicates the pontiffs with the same verbs used in his prayer to the gods found near the end of De Domo. Thus with his adoption of prayer formulae and ritualistic language throughout his speech, Cicero not only demonstrates his piety, but also raises the pontiffs to a divine level.