The Dream of Scipio

Introduction

The Dream of Scipio is the close of the sixth book of Cicero's On the Republic. Most of that work is lost, but this passage survived whole because the late antique scholar Macrobius wrote a commentary on it. The younger Scipio dreams that his dead grandfather, the elder Scipio who defeated Hannibal, carries him up into the heavens, shows him the tiny earth from the Milky Way, and teaches him how brief human glory is, and that souls who have served their country faithfully will live for ever among the stars. One of the most moving ancient visions of the cosmos and the soul, it deeply shaped medieval literature and thought.