Event

Speaker: Eric Orlin, Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies, University of Puget Sound

Title: "The Carmen Saeculare: Prayer and Performance"

Abstract: In this paper, I will consider Horace’s Carmen Saeculare as a prayer and a performance, and not merely as a song or a poem or as a part of the Augustan literary tradition as it has often been treated. All prayers are in some form speech-acts, performing a communication with the divinity as its primary audience, but Horace’s hymn was explicitly designed to be performed in front of a human audience. Considering the text from this perspective and comparing it to prayers in other traditions, such as Ezra, both allows us a better understanding of Roman prayer and clarifies several unusual features of Horace’s work.

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