A Budget of Ancient Dreams
After this excursion into the early years of Rome, it is well to come hack to more historical characters. Cicero has set on record a prevision of his own in sleep, which happened to him soon after his banishment from the city. He had put np at a country house near Abinum, and, falling into a deep slumber, dreamed that he was wandering through pathless and desert places. Here he was met by his fellow- townsman, Marius, who was arrayed as consul, and attended by a train of lictors. Marius asked him why he looked so sad and wandered with such uncertain footsteps; and on hearing the cause expressed great concern; but presently grasped his hand, and directed one of the lictors to lead Cicero to a temple he had himself built in his lifetime, informing the banished man that there was hope of better days in store for him there. It was in this temple that the decree of the Senate was passed for the recall of Cicero.
Not so happy was the glimpse into futurity accorded to C. Gracchus. He had not yet entered upon the tribuneship in which, following in the steps of his elder brother Tiberius, he undertook the championship of the people against the aristocracy, when the image of Tiberius appeared to him in a dream, telling him that he would certainly meet with a bloody end like his own, and be thrown headlong from the Capitol. This dream was heard by many persons at Rome before C Gracchus met with his destined end, and has been vouched for by the cotemporary historian Caelius, a very careful writer.
The next dream with which I purpose to present the reader has less authority to recommend it, owing to a discrepancy between the account given by Valerius Maximus, who ascribes it to Cassius of Parma, and that of other writers, as Plutarch and Florus. who substitute the name of Brutus. I follow the authority of Valerius Maximus, both because he lived much nearer the time of the alleged occurrence, and because, Brutus being the more celebrated person, the dream is more likely to have got attached wrongly to his name. Of Cassius of Parma little is known to us, except what we gather from Horace, namely, that some poetical works of his were held in high esteem. In the battle of Actium he fought on the side of Mark Antony, and after the rout of his party fled for refuge to Athens. Scarcely had toil and anxiety given place to slumber when he was terrified by the appearance at his bedside of a huge, dark man, with shaggy beard and wild hair; and on asking the stranger who he was, he received the answer, “Thine evil genius.’’ Starting from sleep in terror, he called his slaves, and asked if they had seen any one enter or leave the chamber. They replied that no one had come near the place; so he retired to rest again, but was disturbed by the same apparition. This second visitation was too much for his nerves, and he passed the rest of the night with the lamp lit and his slaves in the room. Very soon afterwards he was put to death by the order of Augustus.
The last case which Valerius has to record among his own countrymen presents an instance of more definite prevision. A show of gladiators was being exhibited at Syracuse, and a Roman knight, named Aterius Rufus, dreamed that he was stabbed to death by a “retiarius.” On the next day he related his dream to those who sat near him at the spectacle. Presently two gladiators were introduced into the arena quite close to the place he occupied. One of them was of the kind called “mirmillo;” the other a “retiarius,” so named because it was part of his mode of fighting to entangle his adversary in a net On catching sight of the face of the latter the dreamer wished to retire immediately, declaring that he was the very man at whose hands he had seen himself butchered. His friends laughed the matter off, and the man, to bis cost, was induced to stay, for the retiarius drove his adversary dose to the spot where the knight was sitting, and in the heat of the combat missed his blow at the mirmillo, but transfixed Aterius, who died immediately.
So muck for dream prophecy among the Romans. It now remains to bring forward a few instances of the same thing among other ancient nations. Hannibal’s dream foreshadowing the devastation of Italy has been related at length by more than one writer. But we cannot account it a clear case of prevision. For what subject would be more likely to be uppermost in his mind?
Whether the dream of Alexander the Great is to be regarded as more satisfactory depends on our accepting or rejecting the prevalent report that he was poisoned by Cassander, the son of his general Antipater. At all events he dreamed such was his end. But when, shortly afterwards, Cassander was introduced to him, and he heard he was the son of Antipater, he merely quoted a Greek verse in disparagement of dreams, the generosity of his nature not allowing him to suspect the son of a faithful servant on such airy grounds.
The poet Simonides had more fortunate experience of dreams. Once on a voyage he thrust in his ship to shore, and finding a corpse lying on the sand, piously gave it burial. That night its late inmate appeared to him in a dream, and recommended him not to put out to sea next day. Simonides trusted the dream in preference to his ship; and all who did set sail were overtaken by a storm and drowned in his sight. Simonides in gratitude gave his preserver a more enduring monument in verse than the one he had erected to him on the desert shore.
When Dionysius, the famous despot of Syracuse, was still in a private station, a noble lady of Himera, another Sicilian city, had one night a remarkable dream, which she related to many persons the next day. She imagined herself to be conducted by a guide through heaven; and under the feet of Zues, as he sat on his throne, she was shown a strong man with swarthy, freckled visage lying bound with chains of iron as the thunderbolts are pictured to be. Asking her guide who the youth was, she was told he was the evil destiny of Italy and Sicily, and when released from his chains would be the ruin of many cities. Afterwards, when Dionysius was entering Himera, among the crowd that poured out to meet him was this lady, who, the moment she caught sight of his face declared he was the very man she had seen in her dream The story reached the tyrant’s ears, and the dreamer was brought to an untimely end. The mother of the same Dionysius, shortly before his birth, dreamed that she was delivered of a small satyr; and the dream-interpreters pronounced this to mean that her son would be the most illustrious and the most powerful of the Greek race. This case, it will be seen, is not strictly one of prevision; the prevision, if there was any, was put into it by the interpreters.
The history of Syracuse is connected with another semi- prophetic dream. When the Carthaginian general Hamilcar was blockading it, he was cheered by a vision which assured him he would dine in the city the next day. He did, it was * true; but it was as a captive, not as a conqueror.
Alcibiades dreamed that he saw himself wrapped in his mistress’ cloak; and before long he was lying dead, with no other covering on his corpse.
Such instances as this and the foregoing might, not without reason, be ascribed to a fanciful credulity. But the following dream, if true, places beyond a doubt the power of the human spirit in sleep to transcend its ordinary faculties of perception. “Yes, if true,” the skeptic will scornfully exclaim; and we are bound to confess that we have it only as one among many anecdotes recorded by our author, Valerius Maximus, and by Cicero, in his “Treatise on Divination.” But at the present day many instances, no less distinct and remarkable of apprehension of distant and anticipation of future events by means of dreaming, are recorded on evidence which it is impossible to dispute. The probability, therefore, lies in favor of the truth of a story which is paralleled by undoubted facts, even if the evidence on which it rests is not such as to satisfy a critical investigator. But let us get to our dream, with which I shall conclude this paper.
Two bosom friends, Arcadians, who were traveling together came to Megara, where one put up for the night at the house of an acquaintance, while the other betook himself to an inn. While the former lay asleep, his comrade appeared to him begging his assistance against the designs of the landlord, and saying that, by coming quickly, he might save him from imminent peril. The dreamer started from his sleep, and with the instinct of friendship, got on the way to the inn, when the absurdity of the situation proved too much for him, an! he went back to bed. Scarcely, however, had sleep <... continues on page 3-195 >
Editor's notes
- ↑ A Budget of Ancient Dreams by Stock, George, St.,B.A.(Oxon), Spiritual Scientist, v. 2, No. 10, May 13, 1875, pp. 116-7. From the London Spiritualist
Sources
Spiritual Scientist, v. 2, No. 10, May 13, 1875, pp. 116-7