1 Earliest Rome

9.1 Late republican dynasts
perpetual happiness. There is nothing on earth more acceptable to the supreme god who
rules the whole world than are the gatherings and assemblies of people joined together by
law, known as cities; it is from heaven that the rulers and preservers of the cities come,
and it is to heaven that they eventually return.'
By now I was thoroughly frightened not so much by the fear of death as by the
thought of treachery in my own family; 2
all the same I asked Africanus whether he
himself and my father Paullus 3
and the others we regard as dead were really still alive. 'Yes
they are,' he replied, 'and freed from their chains, from that prison-house - the body; for
what you call life is in fact death. But don't you see? here comes your father Paullus.'
On seeing my father, I burst into a flood of tears; but he embraced and kissed me and
told me to stop weeping. (15) As soon as I could manage to do so and speak again, I said:
'Most revered and excellent father. Since this life of yours is the true life, as Africanus has
just been telling me, why am I lingering here on earth? why don't I come and join you
there, with all haste?' 'No, no,' he said, 'unless the god, whose templum is everything you
can see, 4
has freed you from the bonds of your body, there can be no admission for you
here. The human race was generated on purpose to inhabit the globe called earth, that
you can see hi the middle of this templum, and they were provided with souls from those
eternal fires called stars and constellations. These consist of globes or spheres, animated
by the divine intelligence, and moving at wonderful speed round their circuits or orbits.
So, you, Publius, and all the righteous must allow your soul to stay in the body's custody;
nor must you abandon the life of humans without the orders of the god who conferred it
on you, or else you will be evading the duty laid on humans by god. (16) Act like Scipio,
your grandfather, or like me, your father: cultivate justice and piety, qualities we owe to
parents and kinsmen, but even more to the fatherland. That is the life that leads to
heaven and to the company of those who have lived out their lives, been released from
their bodies and now dwell in the area you can see there, which you Romans (following
the Greeks) call the Milky Way; for there was a splendid circle of light shining out
amongst all the other fires.'
1. In this section both the speaker and the addressee (the narraror of the dream) are - con­
fusingly for us - referred to as Scipio Africanus; though in modern writing the addressee
is always known as Scipio Aemilianus. Aemilianus was Africanus' grandson, through his
adopted father (see n.3). Both men (having won vicrories in Africa) took rhe honorific
name 'Africanus' and both use the name for one another.
2. The possibility of treachery within the family had been raised by the speaker, just before
this passage; it refers to the notorious mystery about the assassination of Aemilianus, that
took place shortly after the dramatic date of the dialogue.
3. Paullus is Aemilianus' natural father - L. Aemilius Paullus conqueror of Perseus of
Macedon (see 5.8a), who had died in about 160 B.C.
4. For the religious/legal meaning of templum, see above 4.4. Here the whole universe is
treated as the templum, the sacred space, of the universal god Cicero is describing.
221