197.  Greek Prayers.—­Greek prayers are usually very pragmatic.  “Who,” asks Cicero, who can speak for both Greeks and Romans in this particular, “ever thanked the gods that he was a good man?  Men are thankful for riches, honor, safety....  We beg of the sovran God [only] what makes us safe, sound, rich and prosperous."[*] Phormion is simply a very average, healthy, handsome young Athenian.  While he prays he stretches his hands on high, as is fitting to a deity of Olympus.[+] His petition runs much as follows:—­

“Athena, Queen of the Aegis, by whatever name thou lovest best,[&] give ear.

“Inasmuch as thou dids’t heed my vow, and grant me fair glory at Mantinea, bear witness I have been not ungrateful.  I have offered to thee a white sheep, spotless and undefiled.  And now I have it in my mind to attempt the pentathlon at the next Isthmia at Corinth.  Grant me victory even in that; and not one sheep but five, all as good as this to-day, shall smoke upon thine altar.  Grant also unto me, my kinsmen and all my friends, health, riches and fair renown.”

[*]Cicero, “De Nat.  Deor,” ii. 36.

[+]In praying to a deity of the lower world the hands would be held down.  A Greek almost never knelt, even in prayer.  He would have counted it degrading.

[&]This formula would be put in, lest some favorite epithet of the divinity be omitted.

A pagan prayer surely; and there is a still more pagan epilogue.  Phormion has an enemy, who is not forgotten.

“And oh! gracious, sovran Athena, blast my enemy Xenon, who strove to trip me foully in the foot race.  May his wife be childless or bear him only monsters; may his whole house perish; may all his wealth take flight; may his friends forsake him; may war soon cut him off, or may he die amid impoverished, dishonored old age.  If this my sacrifice has found favor in thy sight, may all these evils come upon him unceasingly.  And so will I adore the and sacrifice unto thee all my life."[*]

[*]Often a curse would become a real substitute for a prayer; e.g. at Athens, against a rascally and traitorous general, a solemn public curse would be pronounced at evening by all the priests and priestesses of the city, each shaking in the air a red cloth in token of the bloody death to which the offender was devoted.

The curse then is a most proper part of a Greek prayer!  Phormion is not conscious of blasphemy.  He merely follows invariable custom.

It is useless to expect “Christian sentiments” in the fourth century B.C., yet perhaps an age should be judged not by its average, but by its best.  Athenians can utter nobler prayers than those of the type of Phormion.  Xenophon makes his model young householder Ishomenus pray nobly “that I may enjoy health and strength of body, the respect of my fellow citizens, honorable safety in times of war, and wealth honestly increased."[*]