[143]
A person, it is said,
while dreaming of coition, ejected gravel. In
this case I can see a relation between the dream and
[p. 531]
the result; for the vision presented to the sleeper
was such as to make it clear that what happened was
due to natural causes and not to the delusion.1
But by what law of nature did Simonides receive
that vision which forbade him to sail? or what was
the connexion between the laws of nature and the
dream of Alcibiades in which, according to history,
shortly before his death, he seemed to be enveloped
in the cloak of his mistress? Later, when his body
had been cast out and was lying unburied and
universally neglected, his mistress covered it with
her mantle. Then do you say that this dream was
united by some natural tie with the fate that befell
Alcibiades, or did chance cause both the apparition
and the subsequent event?
1 The translation adopts the interpretation of Hottinger, De div. p. 541. What is implied is that the dream was the effect and not the cause eiectionis calculorum.
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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