Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Precatio

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Rich, Anthony (1849). The illustrated companion to the Latin dictionary, and Greek lexicon. p. vi. OCLC 894670115. https://archive.org/details/illustratedcompa00rich. 

PRECA'TIO. A praying, or offering of prayers (preces), to the divinities more especially. (Doederl. ii. 129. Liv. xxxi. 5. Compare xxxviii. 43. where a distinction between adoratio, precatio, and supplicatio, is pointedly made. The attitude of prayer adopted by the Greeks and early Romans was an erect posture, with both the arms extended upwards (ὑπτιάσματα χερῶν. Aesch. Prom. 1041. Tendoque supinas Ad caelum cum voce manus. Virg. Aen. iii. 176. Hor. Carm. iii. 23. 1.), and the hands brought near together with the palms wide open (pandere palmas, Lucret. v. 1199.), as exhibited by the preceding figure (Precatio/1.1), representing Anchises in the Vatican Virgil. But after the introduction of Christianity, and in general during the imperial period, the arms, instead of being brought together, were thrown wide apart in the attitude of prayer, though the posture still continued to be an erect one, as shown by the annexed figure (Precatio/1.2), from a painting in a Christian sepulchre near Rome. The same posture is exhibited on numerous Imperial medals with the inscription PIETAS upon them, and by a statue of Livia in the Vatican collection. Mus. Pio-Clem. ii. 47.

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  Precatio/1.1
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  Precatio/1.2