Surviving Roman vow inscriptions and the formal prayers preserved by writers such as Cato the Elder read with a precision that strikes modern readers as strikingly legal in tone, specifying the exact deity addressed by every relevant title and epithet, the exact favor requested, and the exact offering to be rendered once that favor was delivered, down to the animal's color, age and sex in a sacrificial vow.
Magistrates and generals routinely made vota on behalf of the Roman state before a military campaign or during a crisis, promising a temple, games or a fixed sacrifice contingent on victory or deliverance, and the fulfillment of a successful vow, the dedication of the promised temple or festival, was itself treated as a serious public obligation rather than an optional gesture of thanks, since a state that failed to render what its own general had promised risked exactly the kind of ritual fault that could unbalance the pax deorum going forward. This precision was not considered coldness but correctness: a vaguely worded vow, like a vaguely worded contract, was a liability, since ambiguity about what exactly had been promised could itself become a source of religious anxiety later.