BOOK I.

...admits the viewer, it is believed to be made of horn, whose nature is such that, when thinned out, it is transparent to the sight. When, however, it dulls and repels the gaze from the truth, it is thought to be ivory; the substance of ivory is so naturally dense that, no matter how thinly it is shaved down, it cannot be penetrated by the sight as it attempts to look through to what lies beyond.

Having discussed the types and modes to which the Dream of Scipio is referred, let us now attempt to reveal the core meaning and the purpose of the dream itself—which the Greeks call the skopos original: σκοπὸν—before the specific words are examined. We should assert that the purpose of the present work pertains to this: as we already suggested at the beginning of this discourse, it is to teach us that the souls of those who have served the Republic The Roman state (Respublica). well are returned to heaven after their bodies, and there enjoy an eternity of happiness. For it was this specific occasion that prompted Scipio himself to narrate the dream, which he testified he had kept hidden in silence for a long time. For when Laelius Gaius Laelius, a close friend of Scipio Aemilianus and a character in Cicero’s dialogues. complained that no statues of Nasica Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio, who led the senate against Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BCE. had been placed in public as a reward for killing the tyrant, Scipio replied, among other things, with these words: "But although for the wise, the very consciousness of excellent deeds is the most ample reward for virtue; nevertheless, that divine virtue does not desire statues held fast by lead, nor triumphs with withering laurels, but certain more stable and more ever-fresh original: viridiora, literally 'greener' or more vigorous. kinds of rewards."

"What, however, are those rewards?" asked Laelius. Then Scipio said, "Allow me" (since we have now been on holiday for three days, etc.), by which words he came to the narration of the dream, teaching that those more stable and ever-fresh kinds of rewards were what he himself had seen in heaven, preserved for the good rulers of Republics, just as is shown in these words of his: "But so that you may be more eager, Africanus, to protect the..."