previous next
[4] And since they thought that the human mind, when in an irrational and unconscious state, and moving by its own free and untrammelled impulse, was inspired in two ways, the one by frenzy and the other by dreams, and since they believed that the divination of frenzy was contained chiefly in the Sibylline verses, they decreed that ten1 men should be chosen from the State to interpret those verses. In this same category also were the frenzied prophecies of soothsayers and seers, which our ancestors frequently thought worthy of belief—like the prophecies of Cornelius Culleolus, during the Octavian War.2 Nor, indeed, were the more significant dreams, if they seemed to concern the administration of public affairs, disregarded by our Supreme Council. Why, even within my own memory, Lucius Julius, who was consul with Publius Rutilius, by a vote of the Senate rebuilt the temple of Juno, the Saviour,3 in accordance with a dream of Caecilia, daughter of Balearicus.4

1 This number was changed to fifteen in the time of Sulla.

2 The Octavian War occurred in 87 B.C., between Octavius and Sulla on the one side and Cinna and Marius on the other.

3 This was in 105 B.C. when Cicero was one year old.

4 Q. Caecilius Metellus Balearicus, consul 123 B.C.

Cicero: De Senectute De Amicitia De Divinatione. With An English Translation. William Armistead Falconer. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1923.

The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Introduction (William Armistead Falconer, 1923)
load focus Latin (William Armistead Falconer, 1923)
load focus Latin (C. F. W. Müller, 1915)
hide References (20 total)
  • Cross-references to this page (14):
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AFFI´NES
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), AUGUR
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), COMIT´IA
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), DIONY´SIA
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), EXE´RCITUS
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), HARU´SPICES
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), PRODI´GIUM
    • A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), SIBYLLI´NI LIBRI
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), DODO´NA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ETRU´RIA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), PRIVERNUM
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), ROMA
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), TELMESSUS
    • Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography (1854), VEII
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (6):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: