[46]
23. "But come now and let us return to
foreign instances. Heraclides Ponticus, a man of
learning, and both a pupil and a disciple of Plato's,
relates a dream of the mother of Phalaris. She
fell asleep and dreamed that, while looking at the
consecrated images of the gods set up in her house,
she saw the statue of Mercury pouring blood from
a bowl which it held in its right hand and that the
blood, as it touched the ground, welled up and
completely filled the house. The truth of the dream
was subsequently established by the inhuman cruelty
of her son.
"Why need I bring forth from Dinon's Persian
annals the dreams of that famous prince, Cyrus,
and their interpretations by the magi? But take
this instance: Once upon a time Cyrus dreamed
that the sun was at his feet. Three times, so Dinon
writes, he vainly tried to grasp it and each time it
turned away, escaped him, and finally disappeared.
He was told by the magi, who are classed as wise and
learned men among the Persians, that his grasping
for the sun three times portended that he would reign
for thirty years.1 And thus it happened; for he lived
to his seventieth year, having begun to reign at forty.
1 This is the length of his reign as usually given, but some give it as thirty-one years. Cf. Herod. i. 214; Sulpic. Sev, H.S. ii. 9.
Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.
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