Selected Letters by Marcus Tullius Cicero

Author:Marcus Tullius Cicero
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Liberty Fund, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-07T23:00:00+00:00

XII

TO SUETONIUS TRANQUILLUS

YOU tell me in your letter that you are extremely alarmed by a dream; apprehending that it forebodes some ill success to you in the case you have undertaken to defend; and, therefore, desire that I would get it adjourned for a few days, or, at least, to the next. This will be no easy matter, but I will try:

. . . . “For dreams descend from Jove.”

Meanwhile, it is very material for you to recollect whether your dreams generally represent things as they afterwards fall out, or quite the reverse. But if I may judge of yours by one that happened to myself, this dream that alarms you seems to portend that you will acquit yourself with great success. I had promised to stand counsel for Junius Pastor; when I fancied in my sleep that my mother-in-law came to me, and, throwing herself at my feet, earnestly entreated me not to plead. I was at that time a very young man; the case was to be argued in the four centumviral courts; my adversaries were some of the most important personages in Rome, and particular favourites of Caesar; any of which circumstances were sufficient, after such an inauspicious dream, to have discouraged me. Notwithstanding this, I engaged in the cause, reflecting that,

“Without a sign, his sword the brave man draws,

And asks no omen but his country’s cause.”

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