Cicero - The Dream of Scipio

As a Plato lover, coming across the book “Cicero – The Republic and The Laws” is similar to an Elvis lover finding an album by a favorite vocalist trying to cover the King. Immediately the question arises – why? It cannot be done, just like there is only one Elvis, there is, was and always will be only one Plato. And then not only are they attempting to cover the master’s work, the new guy is going for the greatest hits! Well, for Plato fans, “The Laws” probably ranks down there in the territory of “Love Me Tender,” Elvis’ 46th best-seller. But to title a work “The Republic” is like pulling on the sequined tux and going on stage to belt out “Unchained Melody” like Elvis in Vegas, which is not only the King’s best performance, it’s the best song ever recorded, in the same way that Plato’s “Republic” is unmatchable, ?the foundational text of all political thought.

Then again, Cicero is the Roman Demosthenes, the man whose very name has become an adjective signifying the most exalted rhetoric, used to describe a speaker unexcelled in melodiousness, clarity, and forcefulness. If anyone has a shot at covering Plato, it is Marcus Tullius Cicero. In the Laws at 1-15, we read of Cicero’s dedication to Plato, while Atticus responding to a question about his expectations from Marcus (Cicero).

If you want to know what I expect, it seems logical that since you have written about the best constitution you should also write about its laws. For that, I notice, is what Plato did – your idol and favorite, whom you revere above all others.

Cicero published “The Republic” in Rome in 51 BC, more than three centuries after the original was released in Athens, and it is included along with “The Laws” in the Oxford World’s Classics version “Cicero – The Republic and The Laws”, translated by Niall Rudd, Emeritus Professor of Latin at Bristol University, with an Introduction by Jonathan Powell, Professor of Latin, University of London. Both professors elucidate the text with copious Notes. Following Plato’s model, Cicero presents the works as dialogs between famous men in realistic settings. Sadly, Cicero’s “Republic” has come down to us in very fragmentary form, so that readers are frequently frustrated by the notice “leaves are missing” in the text. Happily, the closing of the work, which gained free-standing fame on its own from the Middle Ages on, “The Dream of Scipio” survives largely intact.

Plato’s “Republic” ends mysteriously with an exploration of the afterlife called the “Myth of Er,” and since the “Dream of Scipio” is spoken by Scipio Africanus the Younger retelling a visit in his sleep from his grandfather Scipio Africanus the Elder, it is natural to expect Cicero took Plato’s myth as his model. These two men are great Roman heroes, the elder defeated Hannibal at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC to end the Second Punic War, the younger finally destroyed Carthage to finish the Third Punic War in 146 BC. But the Introduction informs us that the material discussed follows Plato’s themes in the “Timaeus” and “Phaedo.” In the former dialog, Plato describes the origin and order of the universe as the work of a divine Craftsman, whose Intellect is a model for the universe as well as the soul. In the latter dialog, Plato describes Socrates’ last hours in prison before unflinchingly accepting the hemlock, a work in which Socrates offers four “proofs” for the immortality of the soul. Romans were well aware of these works, especially “The Phaedo” which was called “On the Soul” or “Plato’s Book of the Soul” and the book that Plutarch reports that Cato the Younger read in preparation for his suicide.

Scipio introduces his dream by describing his visit as a young military officer to Masinissa, the Numidian prince and ally of the Romans in the war with Carthage. After feasting and much talk by his host of his famous grandfather, he goes to sleep and is very frightened when his ancestor appears to him. The old man calms him and then Cicero sets the otherworldly scene in Africanus’ words: “he showed me Carthage from a high place, which was clear and shining in the radiance of starlight.“

As the retelling continues from 6.15 onward, Africanus shares a feeling that anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing their departed parents might find familiar.

But look, here is your father. Paulus is coming to meet you. When I saw him, I burst into tears. But he put his arms around me, kissed me, and told me to stop crying.

??????????????? Cicero recounts Africanus meeting his dead father and grandfather where they present him with a cosmic view of the universe. He asks them why he should ever leave this heavenly place now that he has attained it, their answer reflects the views of Socrates that our lives are the possessions of the gods, not ours to dispose of.

Human beings were born on condition that they should look after that sphere called earth, which you see in the middle of the celestial space. A soul was given to them out of those eternal fires, which you call stars and planets.… You must not depart from human life, until you receive the command from him, who has given you that soul; Otherwise you will be judged to have deserted the earthly post assigned to you by God.

Scipio’s grandfather then explains that having fulfilled their duties to their parents, relative and country, they now dwell in “heaven” which is a physical space that the dreamer is looking at before him. “Released from their bodies, they dwell in that place, which you see – a place which you have learned from the Greeks to call the Milky Way.“

Scipio tells us that as he “beheld the whole universe” in a passage that is reminiscent of Carl Sagan’s discourse on the “Pale Blue Dot”: “Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.” His grandfather leads him to a vision remarkably similar to Sagan’s depiction.

Continuing this celestial description, Scipio details what he saw in his dream, in a very clear depiction of the ancients’ understanding of Earth, what we call our Solar System, and the cosmos that contains it all. All the planets are stars, and he begins with “the smallest star” which is the Moon, which he knows only reflects rather than emits light. Cicero voice is so close Sagan’s that perhaps we can assume our great astronomer was familiar with Scipio’s Dream. I think we can be sure Sagan read Plato. Scipio details what he learned to his listeners.

The smallest star which was furthest from heaven, and nearest us to earth, was shining with a light not its own. The spheres of the stars easily exceeded the earth in size. Now the earth itself seems so small to me that I felt ashamed of our empire, whose extent was no more than a dot on its surface.

The elder Africanus speaks to his sleeping grandson, raising his attention beyond worldly matters, moving his focus beyond the home planet.

Everything is joined together by nine circles, or rather spheres. One of them (the outermost) is that of heaven, which surrounds all the others. It is itself the supreme divinity, holding apart and keeping in all the rest.

Drawing his vision to the planets, the grandfather describes the ancients’ geocentric understanding of the components of the solar system visible without the aid of telescopes, reflecting the ancients’ understanding of the orbiting planets. By “backwards” below, he is accurately describing the apparent counter-clockwise planetary movement of planets against the stars.

Below it are seven spheres, which revolve backwards in a contrary motion to that of heaven.“ … Saturn … Jupiter … Mars, “more or less in the middle is occupied by the sun“ … Venus … Mercury.

Finally descending to the earthly realm, at the center of it all, within the “The lowest sphere is that in which the moon revolves, lit by the rays of the sun.” This description ends with something that sounds like Newton's gravity on Earth, or perhaps more grandly Einstein's spacetime.

Below that everything is subject to death and decay, except the souls which the gods, in their generosity, have granted to the race of men.… The earth, the inmost last of the nine spheres, does not move; it is the lowest sphere, and all heavy things fall onto it by virtue of their own weight.

This is the view of the cosmos comes down to us from Plato and Aristotle, which persisted through the Middle Ages into the Renaissance. And then came Copernicus who, through his own direct observations of the sky and the motions of the planets, and whose ideas were confirmed by Galileo with his telescope, that Earth and all the planets revolve around the Sun.

Scipio reports that his grandfather instructs him to keep his mind on this cosmic vision, and not be distracted by worldly matters and personal fame. Here Cicero surprises us with an understanding of global geography, as he provides a fairly accurate of what we call the Polar ("Frigida" on the map, Temperate ("Temperata") and Tropic ("Perusta" which means "tanned" in Latin, Cicero called "burnt") regions of our planet. The ancients believed the northern and southern hemispheres were separated by an impassable body of water that encircled the earth, called Ocean.

The Earth is inhabited in just a few confined areas. In between those inhabited places, which resemble blots, there are huge expenses of empty territory.... You notice, too, that the earth is also in a circle, and surrounded by things like belts. The two farthest apart from each other, which lie in each direction right beneath the poles of the sky, are, as you see, frozen, solid. The belt in the middle (the largest one) is burnt by the heat of the sun. two belts are habitable; the one to the south, where, from your point of view, people, walk upside down, is in no way related to your race; as for the one which lies open to the north wind – the one where you live – notice how tiny a part of it concerns you.… It is like a small island surrounded by the sea, which you on Earth, call the Atlantic, the great Sea, or the Ocean.

As this amazing dream comes to an end, Cicero proves himsel a worthy acolyte of the transcendent Plato. Bidding farewell to his grandfather, Scipio says “But if, as you say, there is a kind of path for noble patriots leading to the gate of heaven, then, in view of the great reward you have set before me, I shall now press on with a much keener awareness.” His grandfather Scipio replies at the end of 6.26.

“By all means, press on,” he replied, "and bear in mind that you are not mortal, but only that body of yours. You are not the person presented by your physical appearance. A man’s true self is mind, not that form, which can be pointed out by a finger. Remember you are a god, if a god is one who possesses life, sensation, memory, and foresight, and who controls, regulates, and moves the body over which he is set, as truly as the supreme God rules the universe. And just as the God who moves the universe, which is to some extent mortal, is eternal, so the soul which moves the frail body is eternal, too.“

At 6.28, Cicero speaks of an idea reminiscent of Aristotle’s “Unmoved mover” and again invokes immortality of the mind, or the soul, the concept that Socrates returned to repeatedly on his last day as depicted in Plato’s Phaedo.

If the mind is the one and only entity that moves itself, surely it has never been born, and will never die.

After his final advice on living according to the highest principles at the end of the “Dream of Scipio,” the spirit Scipio Africanus finishes, and the waking Scipio Africanus the Younger closes his tale.

He departed, and I awoke from sleep.