De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream

by Marcus Tullius Cicero

I had these things to say to you about friendship; and I exhort you that you so give the foremost place to virtue without which friendship cannot be, that with the sole exception of virtue, you may think nothing to be preferred to friendship.

SCIPIO'S DREAM.

1. When I arrived in Africa, to serve, as you know, in the office of military Tribune of the fourth Legion, under Manius [Footnote: The praenomen Marcus is given to Manilius in the manuscript of the De Republics discovered by Angelo Mai; but Manius is the reading in all previous authorities as to this special fragment.] Manilius as consul, I desired nothing so much as to meet Masinissa [Footnote: King of Numidia,—a country nearly identical in extent with the present province of Algeria. Its name defines its people, being derived from [Greek: nomades], nomads. Its inhabitants were a wild, semi-savage cluster of tribes, black and white. Masinissa, though faithful to the Romans after he had convinced himself that theirs must be the ascendant star, was a crafty, treacherous, cruel prince, probably with enough of civilization to have acquired some of its vices, while he had not lost those of the savage.] the king, who for sufficient reasons [Footnote: The elder Africanus had confirmed him in the possession of his own Numidia, and had added to it the adjoining kingdom of Cirta.] stood in the most friendly relation to our family. When I came to him, the old man embraced me with tears, and shortly afterward looked up to heaven and said: "I thank thee, sovereign Sun, [Footnote: The Numidians worshipped the heavenly bodies.] and all of you lesser lights of heaven, that before I pass away from this life I behold in my kingdom and beneath this roof Publius Cornelius Scipio, whose very name renews my strength, so utterly inseparable from my thought is the memory of that best and most invincible of men who first bore it." Then I questioned him about his kingdom, and he asked me about our republic; and with the many things that we had to communicate to each other, the day wore away.

At a later hour, after an entertainment of royal magnificence, we prolonged our conversation far into the night, while the old man talked to me about nothing else but Africanus, rehearsing not only all that he had done, but all that he had said. When we parted to go to our rest, sleep took a stronger hold on me than usual, on account both of the fatigue of my journey and of the lateness of the hour. In my sleep, I suppose in consequence of our conversation (for generally our thoughts and utterances by day have in our sleep an effect like that which Ennius describes in his own case as to Homer, [Footnote: The first verse of the Annales of Ennius was:—

"In somnis mihi visus Homerus adesse poeta.">[

about whom in his waking hours he was perpetually thinking and talking), Africanus appeared to me, with an aspect that reminded me more of his bust than of his real face. I shuddered when I saw him. But he said: "Preserve your presence of mind, Scipio; be not afraid, and commit to memory what I shall say to you.

2. "Do you see that city, which was brought through me into subjection to the Roman people, but now renews its old hostility, and cannot remain quiet,"—and he showed me Carthage from a high place full of stars, shining and splendid,—"against which you, being little more than a common soldier, are coming to fight? In two years from now you as Consul will overthrow this city, and you will obtain of your own right the surname which up to this time you hold as inherited from me. When you shall have destroyed Carthage, shall have celebrated your triumph over it, shall have been Censor, and shall have traversed, as an ambassador, Egypt, Syria, Asia, and Greece, you will be chosen a second time Consul in your absence, and will put an end to one of the greatest of wars by extirpating Numantia. But when you shall be borne to the Capitol in your triumphal chariot after this war, you will find the State disturbed by the machinations of my grandson. [Footnote: Tiberius Gracchus, whose mother, Cornelia, was the daughter of the elder Africanus.]

"In this emergency, Africanus, it will behoove you to show your country the light of your energy, genius, and wisdom. But I see at that time, as it were, a double way of destiny. For when your age shall have followed the sun for eight times seven revolutions, and these two numbers [Footnote: The Pythagoreans regarded seven as the number representing light, and eight as representing love. Seven was also a perfect number, as corresponding to the number of celestial orbits (including the sun, the moon, and the five known planets), the number of days in the quarter of the moon's revolution, and the number of the gates of sense (so to speak), mouth, eyes, ears, and nostrils. Eight was a perfect number, as being first after unity on the list of cubes; and Plato in the Timaeus speaks of eight celestial revolutions—including that of the earth—as unequal in duration and velocity, but as forming, in some unexplained way, a cycle synchronous with the year.]—each perfect, though for different reasons—shall have completed for you in the course of nature the destined period, to you alone and to your name the whole city will turn; on you the Senate will look, on you all good citizens, on you the allies, on you the Latini. You will be the one man on whom the safety of the city will rest; and, to say no more, you, as Dictator, must re-establish the State, if you escape the impious hands of your kindred." [Footnote: See De Amicitia § 3, note.] Here, when Laelius had cried out, and the rest of the company had breathed deep sighs, Scipio, smiling pleasantly upon them, said, "I beg you not to rouse me from sleep and break up my vision. Hear the remainder of it."

3. "But that you, Africanus, may be the more prompt in the defence of the State, know that for all who shall have preserved, succored, enlarged their country, there is a certain and determined place in heaven where they enjoy eternal happiness; for to the Supreme God who governs this whole universe nothing is more pleasing than those companies and unions of men that are called cities. Of these the rulers and preservers, going hence, return hither."

Here I, although I had been alarmed, not indeed so much by the fear of death as by that of the treachery of my own kindred, yet asked whether Paulus, my father, and others whom we supposed to be dead were living. "Yes, indeed," he replied, "those who have fled from the bonds of the body, like runners from the goal, live; while what is called your life is death. But do you see your father Paulus coming to you?" When I saw him, I shed a flood of tears; but he, embracing and kissing me, forbade my weeping.