H’en her the lightning spared not; down she fell. Bearing the royal babes in her.descent, Leaving her footmarks on the pedestal.!
2 + 1 Great interest is attached to this passage by antiquaries, from the fact of there being a bronze statue still at Rome of a wolf suckling two children, with manifest marks of lightning on it, which is believed to be the very statue here mentioned by Cicero, and also in his third ‘Oration against Catiline, c. viil.; it is described by Virgil too:—...Fecerat et viridi foetam Mavortis in.antro Procubuisse lupam; geminos huic ubera circum | ae [Ludere ON DIVINATION,: ‘151 And who, unfolding records of old time, Has found no words of sad prediction, In the dark pages of Etruscan books?— All men, all writings, all events.combined, To warn the citizens of freeborn race Ludere pendentes pueros, et lambere-matrem Impavidos; illam teretil cervice arieowet The cave-of Mars was ene d with mossy greens; There by the wolf were laid the martial twins; Intrepid, on her swelling dugs they hung, The foster-dam loll’d out her fawning tongue;_ They suck’d secure, while bending back her head, She jick’d their tender limbs, and form’d them.as they fed. Dryden, Ain. viii. 835.
The statue in its rektateth state is beautifully described by Byron:— LXXXVIII. And thou the thunder-stricken nurse of Rome, She-wolf! whose brazen imaged. dugs ‘impart The milk of conquest yet within the dome, Where, as a monument of antique art, Thou standest, mother of the mighty heart, Which the great founder suck’d from thy wild teat, Scorch’d ‘by the Roman. Jove’s ethereal dart, And thy limbs ‘black with lightning,—dost, thou yet © Guard thy immortal cubs, nor thy fond charge forget? LXXXIX. Thou dost—but all thy foster-babes are dead, The men of iron; and the world’ hath rear’d Cities from out their sepulchres.— Childe Harold, book i iv.
It may not be out of place there, to set before the reader the beautiful — description, in the first Georgic, of the prodigies which happened at Rome on the death of Ceesar:— _~ Denique quid vesper serus ‘vehat, haiilialiadle Ventus agat nubes, quid cogitet humidus Auster, © Sol tibi signa dabit: Solem quis dicere falsum Audeat? ille etiam ceecos instare tumultus Seepe monet, fraudemque, et aperta'tumescere bella; Ille etiam extincto miseratus Czesare Romam — Cum caput obscura, nitidum ferrugine texit Impiaque eternam timuerunt seecula noctem, Tempore quanquam illo tellus quoque et eequora pouti, Obsccenique canes, importuneeque volucres Signa dabant: quoties Cyclopum effervere in auras Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus Aitnam, Flammarumque globos liquefactaque volvere saxa. Armorum sonitus toto Germania colo _ Audiit; insolitis tremuerunt motibus Alpes. od [Vox 152 ON DIVINATION, To dread impending wars of civil strife, And wicked bloodshed; when the laws should fall In one dark rain, trampled and o’erthrown: Then men were warn'd to save their holy shrines, The statues of the gods, their city and lands, Vox quoque per lucos vulgo exaudita recentes Ingens, et simulacra modis pallentia miris Visa sub obscurum noctis; pecudesque locutze, Infandum! sistunt amnes terreeque dehiscunt Et meestum illacrymat templis ebur, seraque sudant: Proluit insano contorquens vertice sylvas Fluviorum Rex Eridanus; camposque per omnes Cum stabulis armenta trahit; nec tempore eodem Tristibus aut extis fibree apparere minaces Aut puteis manare cruor cessavit, et alte Per noctem resonare lupis ululantibus urbes; Non alias ccelo ceciderunt plura sereno Fulgura, nec diri toties arsere cometee; Ergo, ete.— Virgil, Georg. i, 488.
Which is translated by Dryden:— The Sun reveals the secrets of the sky, And who dares give the source of light the lie? The change of empires he oft declares, Fierce tumults, hidden treasons, open wars; He first the fate of Caesar did foretell, And pitied Rome when Rome in Cesar fell: In iron clouds conceal’d the public light, And impious mortals fear’d eternal night.
Nor was the fact foretold by him alone, Nature herself stood forth and seconded the Sun, Earth, air, and seas with prodigies were sign’d, And birds obscene and howling dogs divin’d. What rocks did Aitna’s bellowing mouth expire From her torn entrails, and what floods of fire! What clanks were heard in German skies afar, Of arms and armies rushing to the war!
Dire earthquakes rent the solid Alps below, And from their summits shook th’ eternal snow; Pale spectres in the close of night were seen, And voices heard of more than mortal men.
In silent groves dumb sheep and oxen spoke; And streams ran backward, and their beds forsook;_ The yawning earth disclosed th’ abyss of hell, The weeping statues did the wars foretell, And holy sweat from brazen idols fell.
Then rising in his might the king of floods Rush’d through the forests, tore the lofty woods; And rolling onward with a sweepy sway, | Bore houses, herds, and labouring hinds away.
ON DIVINATION. 153 From slaughter and destruction, and preserve Their ancient customs unimpair’d and free. And this kind hint of safety was subjoin’d, That when a splendid statue of great Jove, i In godlike beauty, on its base was raised, With eyes directed to Sol’s eastern gate; Then both the senate and the people’s bands, Duly forewarn’d, should see the secret plots Of wicked men, ‘and disappoint their spite. This statue, slowly form’d and long delay’d, At length by you, when consul, has been placed Upon its holy pedestal;—’tis now That the great sceptred Jupiter has graced His column, on a well-appointed hour; And at the self-same moment faction’s crimes Blood sprang from wells; wolves howl’d in towns by night; And boding victims did the priests affright.
Such peals of thunder never pour’d from high, Nor forky lightnings flash’d from such a sullen sky: Red meteors ran across the ethereal space; Stars disappear’d, and comets took their place.
Which Shakspeare has imitated with reference to the same event:— Cal. Ceesar, I never stood on ceremonies, Yet now they fright me: there is one within, Besides the things that we have heard and seen, Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch: A lioness hath whelped i in the streets, And graves have yawn’d and yielded up their dead. Fierce, fiery warriors fight upon the clouds, In ranks and squadrons and right form of war, Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol: The noise of battle hurtled in the air; Horses did neigh, and dying men did groan; And ghosts did shriek and squeak about the streets. O Cesar, these things are beyond all use, And I do fear them...When beggars die there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes, Ces, What say the augurers?
Serv. They would not have you to stir forth to-day. Plucking the entrails of an offering forth, _ They could not find a heart within the beast, 1 This refers to the column meant to serve as a pedestal for the statue of Jupiter, mentioned in the second book of this treatise, and also in the second oration against Catiline, as having been ordered in the consulship of Torquatus and Cotta, but not ease opti till the year of Cicero’s consulship, i154 ON DIVINATION, Were by the loyal Gauls reveal’d and-shown To the astonish’d multitude and senate.
XIII. Well then did ancient men, whose monuments You keep among you,—they who will maintain Virtue and moderation; by these arts Ruling the lands and people subject to them: Well, too, your holy sires, whose spotless faith, And piety, and deep sagacity Have far surpass’d the men of other lands, ‘Worshipp’d in every:age the mighty Gods. They with sagacious care these things foresaw, Spending in virtuous studies all their leisure, And in the shady Academic groves, And fair Lyceum; where they well:pour’d forth The treasures of their pure and learned hearts. And, like them, you have.been by virtue placed, ‘To save your country, in'the imminent breach; Still with philosophy you soothe your cares, With prudent care dividing all your hours Between the Muses:and your country’s claims.
Will you then be able to persuade your mind to speak against the arguments which |.adduce on the subject of divination, you being a man who have performed such exploits as you have done, and who ‘have so admirably com- posed those verses which I have just recited? What—do you ask me, Carneades, why these things ‘take place in this manner, or by what art it is possible for them to be brought about? I confess that I do mot know; but that they do happen, I assert that you yourself are:a witness. Yes, they happen by chance, you say. Is it so? Can anything be done by chance which has in itself all the features of reality? Four dice when thrown may by chance come up sixes. Do you think that if you were to throw four hundred dice it would be possible for them all: to come up sixes by any chance in the world? Paints scattered at random on a canvass may by chance represent ‘the features of a human face; but do you think that you could by any.chance scat- tering of colours represent the beauty of the ‘Coan Venus?? Suppose a pig by burrowing in the ground with his snout were to make the letter A, would you ion that account think it possible that the. animal should by.chance write out the Andromache of Ennius? Carneades used to tell a story: that 1 This refers tothe eélebrated picture of Venus auebldyomene, painted by Apelles, who was a native of Cos. — ON DIVINATION.! 155 '-jn cutting stones in the stone-quarries at Chios, there was once discovered a natural head of a Pan. I dare say there ‘may have been a figure not wholly unlike such a head, but still certainly it was not such that you could fancy it wrought -by Scopas.! For this is the nature of things, that chance can never imitate reality to perfection. wi XIV. But, you will say, things which have been predicted sometimes fail to happen. ‘What act is not liable to this observation? I mean of those acts which proceed on con- jecture, and are founded on opinion. Is not medicine to be considered a real art? And yet how often is it deceived! Need I say more? Are not pilots of ships often deceived? Did not the army of ‘the Greeks, and the captains of all that numerous fleet, depart from Troy, as Pacuvius says— So glad at their departure, that they gazed.
In idle mirth upon the wanton fish, | | And never ceased from laughing at their gambols; Meanwhile at sunset the vast sea grows rough, The darkness lowers, black night and clouds surround them., Did, however, the shipwreck of so many illustrious generals and sovereigns prove that there was no such art as naviga- tion? Or is the science of generals good for nothing because a most illustrious general was lately put to flight, after the total loss of his army? Or are we to say that there is no room for the display of sound principles of politics, or wis- dom in the administration of affairs of state, because Cneeus Pompeius was often deceived, and even Cato and you your- self have been deceived in more instances than one? ‘The same rule applies to the answers of soothsayers, and to all divination which rests on opinion: for it depends wholly on conjecture, and has no means of advancing further. And that perhaps sometimes deceives us, but. still it more fre- quently directs us to the truth. For it is traced back to all eternity. And as in the infinite duration of time, things have happened in an almost countless number of ways with the self-same indications preceding each occurrence, an art has 1 Scopas was.a Parian, flourishing about.360 s.c. He was one of the.
greatest architects and sculptors of antiquity, and is mentioned as such ‘by Horace, who says:— | | ia Divite me scilicet artium —__ Quas ant Parrhasius protulit aut Scopas, Hic saxo, liquidis ille coloribus === sit | Solers nunc hominem ponere nune Deum.—O4d. iv. 9. 6.
* 156 ON DIVINATION.
‘been concocted and reduced to rules from a frequent observation and notice of the same circumstances.
XV. But your auspices, how clear—how sure they are! which at this time are known nothing of by the Roman augurs, (excuse me for saying this so plainly,) though they are main- tained by the Cilicians, Pamphylians, Pisidians, and Lycians. For why should I mention that man connected with us in ties of hospitality, that most illustrious and excellent man, king Deiotarus? He never does anything whatever without taking the auspices. And it happened once that he had started on a journey which he had arranged and determined some time before; but, being warned by the flight of an eagle, he returned back again, and the very next night the house in which he would have been lodging if he had per- sisted in his journey, fell to the ground. And he was so moved by this occurrence, that, as he himself used to tell me, he often turned back in the same way in a journey, even when he had advanced many days on it. And what is most remarkable in his conduct is, that after he had been deprived by Cesar of his tetrarchy, his kingdom, and his property, he still asserted that he did not repent of obeying those auspices which had promised success to him when he was setting out to join Pompey; for he considered that the authority of the senate, and the liberty of the Roman people, and the dignity of the empire had been upheld by his arms; and that those birds had taken good care of his honour and real interests, inasmuch as they had been his counsellors in adhering to the claims of good faith and duty; for that character was a thing dearer to him than his possessions. And in saying this he seems to me to form a very just estimate. For our magis- trates at times use compulsion, For it is quite impossible, if a cake is thrown down before a chicken, but what some crumbs must fall out of his mouth when he feeds. And as you have it set down in your books that a tripudiwm takes place if any of the food falls on the ground, so you also call this compulsory augury which I have spoken of tripudium solistimum.' And so, as that wise Cato complains, owing to 1“Trinudium, from terripavium (see Cic. Div. ii. 34), a stamping on the ground. In divination, tripudium, or tripudium solistimum, when the birds (pulli) ate so greedily that the food fell from their mouths, and so rebounded on the ground, which was regarded as a good omen.” —fiddle and Arnold, Lat, Dict, ON DIVINATION. | 157 the negligence of the college, many auguries and many auspices have been wholly lost and abandoned. 3 XVI. Formerly there was, I may almost say, no atlair of importance, not even if it only related to private business, which was transacted without taking the auspices. And this. is proved even now by the Auspices Nuptiarum, who, though the custom has fallen into disuse, still preserve the name. For just as we now consult the entrails of victims, though even that very practice is observed less now than it used to be, so in ancient times, before all transactions of importance, men used to consult birds; and, therefore, from want of paying proper regard to ill omens, we often run into alarming and destructive dangers:—as Publius Claudius, the son of Appius Ceecus, and his colleague Lucius Junius, lost a fine fleet, because they had put to sea-in defiance of the omens, And, indeed, something of the same kind befel Agamemnon; for he, when the Grecians had begun To murmur loudly, and with open scorn T’ asperse the skill of th’ holy soothsayers, Bade the crew bend the sails and put to sea, Choosing the people’s voice before the omens, But why need we look for old examples of this? We have ourselves seen what happened to Marcus Crassus, because he neglected the notice which was given to him that the omens were unfavourable. On which occasion, Appius, your col- league, a good augur, as I have often heard you say, branded, when he was censor, an excellent man and a most illustrious citizen, Caius Ateius, without sufficient consideration, because he had cooperated in falsifying the auspices. However, let that pass. It may have been the duty of the censor to do so, if he thought that the auspices were falsified. But it certainly was not the duty of an augur to set down in the books that this was the cause of a fearful calamity befalling the Roman people. For even if that was the cause of the calamity, still the fault was not in the man who announced. the state of the auspices, but in him who disregarded the announcement. For that the announcement was a correct one, as the same augur and cerfsor bears witness, was proved. by the event; for if the announcement had been false, it. could not possibly have caused any calamity at all, In truth, 158. ON DIVINATION.
158. ON DIVINATION.
prognostics of calamity, like other auspices, and omens, and tokens, do not produce causes why anything should happen, but merely give notice of what will happen unless. you pro- vide against it. It was not, therefore, the announcement: of unfavourable omens, made by Ateius, which was the cause of calamity; all that he did was, by declaring to him what signs had been seen, to warn him what would happen if he did not take precautions against it. Accordingly, either that announcement had no effect at all, or else if, as) Appius thinks, it had an effect, the effect was this, that guilt was attached, not to the man who gave the warning, but to him who did not attend to it.
XVII. What shall I say more? From whence have you received that. staff (atwus) of yours, which is the most. cele- brated ensign of your augurship? That is the staff with which Romulus parted out the several districts, when he founded the city. And that staff of Romulus, (that is to say, a stick curved and slightly bent forward at the top, which has derived its name from its resemblance to the trumpet (litwus) used in sounding signals,) having been laid up in the meeting-house of the Salii, which was in the Pala- tine-hill, when that house was burnt to the ground, was found unhurt. What more need I say? Who of the ancient authors is there who does not relate what an arrangement of the districts of the city was made, many years after the time of Romulus, in the reign of Tarquinius Priscus, by Attius Navius, who employed his staff in this manner? And it is said that he, when a boy, was forced through poverty to act as a swineherd; and one day, having lost one of his pigs, he made a vow that if he recovered it, he would give the god the finest grape which there was in the whole vineyard. Accordingly, when he had found the pig, he placed himself in the middle of the vineyard, with his eyes directed towards _ the south; and after he had divided the vineyard into four divisions, and had been directed by the birds to disregard three of the portions, in the fourth division, which remained, he found a grape of most wonderful size, as we find recorded in our books. And when this fact became known, all the: neighbours used to consult him on all their affairs, until he gained a great name and reputation; in consequence of which king Priscus sent for him.. 7?
' And when he had come to the king, he, wishing to make: proof of his skill in augury, told him that herwas thinking of something, and.asked him whether it could possibly be done. He, having taken an augury, answered that it could. But Tarquin. said that he had been thinking that it was possible that a whetstone might be cut through by a razor. On this Attius bade him try; and accordingly a whetstone was brought into the assembly, and, in the sight of king and’ people, cut through with a razor. And in consequence of — this, it happened that Tarquinius' always consulted Attius | Navius as an augur, and that the people also were: used to refer their private affairs to him. <Aind we are told that that whetstone and that razor were buried in the comitium, and that the puteal was built over it.
Let us deny everything’; let us burn our annals; let us say that all these statements: are false; let us, in short, confess everything rather than that the Gods regard. the affairs of mankind. What? do not even your writings about Tiberius Gracchus sanction the theories of augurs and haruspices? For when he had unintentionally erected a tent to take the auspices informally, because he had crossed the pomcerium without taking the auspices, he held there the comitia for the election of the consuls. (The matter is one of notoriety, and committed to writing by you yourself.) However, Tiberius Gracchus, who was himself an augur, ratified the authority of the auspices by a confession of his error, and added great authority to the system of the harus-: pices; who; having at the recent comitia been introduced into the senate, asserted that the person who proposed the candi- dates to the comitia had no right to ‘do-so.
XVIII. I therefore agree with those authors who have asserted that there are two kinds of divination; one par- | taking of art, and the other wholly devoid of it. For art is visible in those persons who pursue anything new by conjec— ture, and have learnt to judge of what is old by observation. But those men, on the other hand, are devoid of art, who give way to presentiments of future events, not proceeding by reason or conjecture, nor on the observation and considera- tion of particular signs, but yielding to some excitement of mind, or to some unknown influence subject to no precise | rules or restraint, (as is often the case with men who dream,.
160 * ON: DIVINATION, and sometimes with those who. deliver predictions in a frenzied manner,) as Bacis’ of Boeotia, Epimenides? the Cretan, and the Erythrean Sibyl. And under this head we ouglit. also to rank oracles; not those which are drawn by lot, but those which are uttered under the influence of some divine instinct and inspiration. Although even lots are not to be despised where they are sanctioned by the authority of antiquity, like those which we are told used to rise out of the earth; which, however, are drawn in such a manner as to be apposite to the subject under consideration, which, indeed, is a thing that I conceive to be very possible by divine management. The interpreters of all of which appear to me to come very near to the divining power of those whose interpreters they are (just as those grammarians do who are. the interpreters of poets). What proof of sagacity is it, then, to wish to disparage things sanctioned by antiquity, by vile calumnies? I admit that I cannot discover the cause. Perhaps it lies hid, involved in the obscurity of nature. For God has not intended me to understand these matters, but only to use them. I will use them, then; nor will I be persuaded to think, either that all Etruria is mad on the subject of the entrails of victims, or that the same nation is all wrong about lightnings, or that it interprets prodigies fallaciously, when it has often happened that sub- terranean noises and crashes, often that earthquakes, have predicted, with terrible truth, many of the evils which have befallen our own republic and other states.
Why should I say more? ‘The fact of a mule having brought forth is much ridiculed by some people; but because this parturition did take place in the case of an animal of. natural barrenness, was there not an incredible crop of evils predicted by the soothsayers? Need I go further? Did not. Tiberius Gracchus, the son of Publius Gracchus, who had been twice consul and censor, and who was also an augur of the 1 Bacis was believed to have lived and prophesied at Heleon, in Beotia, being inspired by the nymphs of the Corycian cave. Some of his prophecies are given us by Herodotus, viii. 20, 77; ix. 43.. (See also Aristophanes, Eq. 123; Pax, 1009.)
2 Epimenides was a poet and prophet of Crete, who lived about. 590 s.c. He was sent for by the Athenians to purify Athens when it was visited by a plague, in consequence of the sacrilege of Cylon, He is said to haye lived to a great age.
ON DIVINATION, 161 highest skill and reputation, and a wise man, and a most virtuous citizen,—did not he (as Caius Gracchus, his son, has left recorded in his writings), when two snakes were caught in his house, convoke the soothsayers? And the answer which they gave him was, that if he let the male escape, his wife would die in a short time; but if he let the female escape, he would die himself: on which he thought it more becoming to encounter an early death himself, than to expose the youthful daughter of Publius Africanus to it. Accordingly, he released the female snake, and died himself a few days afterwards. XIX. Let us, after this, Jaugh at the soothsayers; let us call them useless and triflers, and despise those men whose principles the wisest men, and subsequent events and occur- rences, have often proved. Let us despise also the Baby- lonians, and those who on mount Caucasus observe the stars of heaven, and follow all their revolutions in regular number and motion. Let us, say I, condemn all those people for folly, or vanity, or impudence, who, as they themselves assert, have exact records for four hundred and seventy thousand years carefully noted down, and let us decide that they are telling lies, and have no regard as to what the judgment of future ages concerning them will be. Come, then, you vain and deceitful barbarians, has the history of the Greeks likewise spoken falsely? Who is ignorant of the answer (that I may speak at present of natural divination) which the Pythian Apollo gave to Creesus, to the Athenians, the Lacedzemonians, the Tegeans, the Argives, and the Corinthians? Chrysippus has collected a countless list of oracles—not one without a witness and authority of sufficient weight; but as they are known to you, I will pass them over. ‘This one | will mention and defend. Would that oracle at Delphi have ever been so celebrated and illustrious, and so loaded with such splendid gifts from all nations and kings, if all ages had not had experience of the truth of its predic- tions? At present, you will say, it has no such reputation. Granted, then, that it has a lower reputation now, because the truth of oracles is less notorious; still I affirm that it would not have had such a reputation then, if it had not been distinguished for extraordinary accuracy. But it is possible that that power in the earth, which excited the mind of the Pythian priestess by divine inspiration, may have DE NAT. ETC. M 162 ON DIVINATION, disappeared through old age, just as we know that some rivers have dried up, or become changed and diverted into another channel. However,-let it be owing to whatever you please; for it is a great question: only let this fact remain —which cannot be denied, unless we will overthrow all his- tory—that that oracle told the truth for many ages.
XX. However, let us pass over the oracles; let us come to dreams. And Chrysippus discussing them, after collecting many minute instances, does the same that Antipater does when he investigates this subject, and those dreams which were explained according to the interpretation of Antipho, which indeed prove the acuteness of the interpreter, but still are not examples of such importance as to have been worthy of being brought forward.
The mother of Dionysius—of that Dionysius, I mean, who was the tyrant of Syracuse, as it is recorded by Philistus, a man of learning and diligence, and who was a contem- porary of the tyrant—when she was pregnant with this very Dionysius, dreamt that she had become the mother of a little Satyr. The interpreters of prodigies, who at that time were in Sicily called Galeotee, gave her for answer when she con- sulted them about it, (according to the story told by Philistus,) that the child whom she was about to bring forth would be the most illustrious man of Greece, with very lasting good fortune. Am I recalling you to the fables of the Greek poets and those of our country? For the Vestal Virgin, in Ennius, says— } . The agitated dame with trembling limbs Brings in a lamp, and with unbridled tears, Starting from broken sleep, pours forth these words:— O.daughter of the fair Eurydice, You whom my father loved, see strength and life Desert my limbs, and leave me helpless all. I thought I saw a man of handsome form Seize me, and bear me through the willow groves, Along the river banks and places yet unknown, And then alone,—I tell you true, my sister,— I seem’d to wander, and with tardy steps To seek to trace you, but my efforts fail’d; While no clear path did guide my doubtful feet. And then, I thought, my father thus address’d me, With evil-boding voice:—Alas! my daughter, What numerous woes by you must be endured; . Though fortune shall in after times arise.
- ON DIVINATION. 163 From out, of the waters of this river here.
Thus, sister, spake my father, and then vanish’d; Nor, though much wish’d for, did he once return, In vain, with many tears, I raised my hands Up to the azure vault of the highest heaven, And with caressing voice invoked his name, Or seem’d to do so. And ’twas long ere sleep, Freighted with such sad dreams, did quit my breast.
XXI. Now these accounts, though they perhaps may be the mere inventions of the poets, still are not inconsistent with the general character of dreams. We may grant that that is a fictitious one by which Priam is represented to have been disturbed:— Queen Hecuba dream’d—an ominous dream of fate— That she did bear no human child of flesh, But a fierce blazing torch: Priam, alarm’d, Ponder’d with anxious fear the fatal dream; And sought the gods with smoking sacrifice. Then the diviner’s aid he did entreat, With many a prayer to the prophetic god, If haply he might learn the dream’s intent. Thus spake Apollo with all-knowing mind:— ‘* The queen shall have a son, who, if he grow To man’s estate, shall set all Troy in flames— The ruin of his city and his land.”
Let us grant, then, that these dreams are, as I have said, merely poetic fictions, and let us add the dream of Aineas, which Numerius Fabius Pictor relates in his Annals, as one of the same kind; in which Aineas is represented as foreseeing, in his trance, all his future exploits and adventures.
XXII. But let us come nearer home. What kind of dream was that of Tarquin the Proud, which the poet Accius, in his Tragedy of Brutus, puts into the mouth of Tarquin himself?— Sleep closed my weary eyelids, when a shepherd Brought me two rams. The one I sacrificed; The other rushing at me with wild force.
Hurl’d me upon the ground. Prostrate I gazed Upon the heavens, when a new prodigy Dazzled my eyes. The flashing orb of day Took a new course, diverging to the right, With all his kindling beams strangely transversed. Of this dream the diviners gave the following interpretation— Dreams are in general reflex images __ | Of things that men in waking hours have known; i But sometimes dreams of loftier character; 164 ON DIVINATION, Rise in the tranctd soul, inspired by Jove, Prophetic of the iuture. Then beware Of him, whom thou dost think as stupid as The ram thou dreamest of. For in his breast Dwells manliest wisdom. He may yet expel Thee from thy kingdom. Mark the prophecy: That change in the sun’s course thou didst behold,. Betoken’d revolution in the state, And as the sun did turn from left to right, we predict So shall that revolution meet success.
XXIII. Let us again return to foreign events. Heraclides of Pontus, an intelligent man, who was one of Plato’s disciples and followers, writes that the mother of Phalaris fancied that she saw in a dream the statues of the gods whom Phalaris had consecrated in his house. Among them it appeared to her that Mercury held a cup in his right hand, from which he poured blood, which as soon as it touched the earth gushed forth like a fresh fountain, and filled the house with streaming gore. ‘The dream of the mother was too fatally realized by the cruelty of the son. |