Commentary on the Dream of Scipio and the Saturnalia

T H E D R E A M

...to relatives, then it is greatest toward the fatherland. That life is the path to heaven, and to this gathering of those who have already lived and who, released from the bonds of the body, inhabit that place which you see.

It was a circle shining with the most brilliant whiteness among the stars, which you (as you learned from the Greeks) call the Milky Way original: "orbem Lacteum". As I gazed upon everything from that vantage point, all other things appeared magnificent and wonderful. Moreover, there were stars which we have never seen from this place [the Earth], and their sizes were such as we never suspected they could be. Among them, the smallest was that one furthest from the heaven and nearest to the Earth, which shone with a borrowed light original: "luce lucebat aliena". This refers to the Moon, which reflects the light of the Sun.. Furthermore, the spheres of the stars easily surpassed the Earth in size. Indeed, the Earth itself appeared so small to me that I felt ashamed of our empire, with which we touch only a mere point of its surface, as it were.

While I gazed more intently at the Earth, Africanus said, "I beg you, how long will your mind be fixed upon the ground? Do you not see the sacred precincts original: "templa". In the ancient Roman worldview, the entire sky was seen as a divine temple or a space marked out by the gods. into which you have come? All things are connected by nine circles, or rather spheres term: "globis". Cicero uses "orbes" and "globi" to describe the concentric shells of the geocentric universe.. One of these is the outermost celestial sphere, which encompasses all the others: the supreme God himself, confining and containing the rest. Within this sphere are fixed those eternal courses of the stars that revolve. Beneath this are seven spheres which turn backwards with a motion contrary to that of the heaven.

One of these spheres belongs to the planet which on Earth they call Saturn. Next is that radiance, prosperous and healthy for the human race, which is called Jupiter. Then comes the red one, terrible to the Earth, which you call Mars. Then, almost below the middle region, the Sun holds the place of leader, prince, and governor of the other lights; he is the mind and moderator of the universe original: "mens mundi et temperatio", of such magnitude that he illuminates and fills all things with his light. Him follow, as companions, the courses of Venus and Mercury. In the lowest sphere, the Moon revolves, lit by the rays of the Sun. Below this, there is now nothing that is not mortal...