MARCUS TULLIUS CICE-

RO’S DREAM

OF SCIPIO,

FROM THE SIXTH BOOK

ON THE REPUBLIC.

A decorative woodcut initial 'C' depicting a reclining figure in a classical garment within a landscape of foliage and trees.
WHEN I had come into Africa Referring to the start of the Third Punic War in 149 BC, serving as a Military Tribune Military Tribune: a high-ranking officer in a Roman legion, often from the aristocratic class (as you know) to the Fourth Legion under the Consul Manius Manilius original: "Anitio Manilio cos."; a common Roman way of dating by the names of the presiding consuls: nothing was more important to me than to meet Masinissa, a King most friendly to our family for just reasons Masinissa was a Numidian king and a crucial ally of Scipio Africanus the Elder during the Second Punic War. When I came to him, the old man embraced me and wept; and after a little while, he looked up to heaven and said: "I give thanks to you, supreme Sun, and to you, the rest of the heavenly beings original: "cœlites", that before I depart from this life, I behold in my kingdom and within these walls Publius Cornelius Scipio The narrator, Scipio Aemilianus, who was the adoptive grandson of the Great Africanus, by whose very name I myself am refreshed: so never does the memory of that best and most invincible man The elder Scipio Africanus depart from my mind." Then I questioned him about his kingdom, and he me about our Republic original: "Rep."; and with many words exchanged on both sides, that day was spent by us. Later, however, having been received with royal hospitality, we prolonged our conversation far into the night, while the old man spoke of nothing except Africanus, and remembered not only all his deeds, but even his sayings. Then, when we departed for bed, a deeper sleep than usual embraced me, as I was both tired from the journey and had stayed awake late into the night. Here Scipio prepares the reader for the shift from reality to the supernatural dream state (I believe indeed because of what we had been talking about; for it usually happens that our thoughts and conversations produce something in sleep like that which Ennius An early Roman poet writes concerning Homer The Greek poet; Ennius famously claimed Homer's ghost appeared to him in a dream, about whom he was obviously very often thinking and speaking while awake), Africanus showed himself to me in that form which [was known to me] from [his image...] Referring to the wax funeral masks or busts of ancestors kept in Roman homes