| Religion in ancient Rome |
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In ancient Roman religion, a supplicatio is a day of public prayer during times of crisis or a thanksgiving for receipt of aid.[1] During days of public prayer, Roman men, women, and children traveled in procession to religious sites around the city praying for divine aid. Supplications might also be ordered in response to prodigies (prodigia); participants wore wreaths, carried laurel twigs, and attended sacrifices at temple precincts throughout the city.[2]
Supplicatio as a form of religious expression is distinct in meaning from the general English definition of supplication as an act of beseeching following a military defeat or surrender, for which the Latin word submissio was more commonly used.[3]
- ^ Frances Hickson Hahn, "Performing the Sacred: Prayers and Hymns," pp. 238, 247, and John Scheid, "Sacrifices for Gods and Ancestors," p. 270, both in A Companion to Roman Religion (Blackwell, 2007).
- ^ Veit Rosenberger, in "Religious Actors in Daily Life: Practices and Related Beliefs," in A Companion to Roman Religion, p. 296.
- ^ F. S. Naiden, "Supplication on Roman Coins," American Journal of Numismatics 15 (2003) 41–43.