Dream of Scipio

The Dream of Scipio (Latin, Somnium Scipionis), written by Cicero, is the sixth book of De re publica, and describes a fictional dream vision of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, set two years before he commanded at the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.

Upon his arrival in Africa, a guest at the court of Massinissa, Scipio Aemilianus is visited by his dead grandfather (by adoption), Scipio Africanus, hero of the Second Punic War. He finds himself looking down upon Carthage "from a high place full of stars, shining and splendid". His future is foretold by his grandfather, and great stress is placed upon the loyal duty of the Roman soldier, who will as a reward after death "inhabit... that circle that shines forth among the stars which you have learned from the Greeks to call the Milky Way". Nevertheless, Scipio Aemilianus sees that Rome is an insignificant part of the earth, which is itself dwarfed by the stars. The planetary spheres are enumerated with references to Pythagorean thought and the idea of the Music of the Spheres. Then the climatic belts of the earth are observed, from the snow fields to the deserts, and there is discussion of the nature of the Divine, the soul and virtue, from the Stoic point of view.

The literary and philosophical influence of the Somnium was great. Macrobius commented on it in his Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, which in turn was an important source for medieval dream theory.

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