ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF DREAM-CLASSIFICATION

BY
A. H. M. KESSELS
I
One of man's least
explainable experiences
is his dream-life.
This is
certainly
the case with
people
of a modest cultural back-
ground,
for whom the rational
explanation
of
things
has
only just
started. This
quest
for a rational
explanation
did not start in the
same
age
for all known
phenomena.
It was
only
in classical
antiquity
that serious efforts were first made to
provide
a rationale for most
of them. This is
certainly
true of the
problem
of the dream.
It should be borne in mind that it is a
great
achievement when
man
begins
to realize that between the dream-world and the
waking-world
exists a
very
fundamental difference. What this
difference
really
is,
and how it can be
established,
is of course
another
question,
that is
beyond
the
scope
of this
investigation.
It
may only
be remarked in
passing
that even in
antiquity
one
meets awareness of the
problem
that
strictly speaking
there is no
real criterion to
distinguish
between these two worlds
1).
Of course from the above it cannot be concluded that
'originally'
there was a situation in which
primitive
man did not mark
any
difference whatsoever between dream-life and
waking-life.
Still
it is true that the same value was
assigned
to the
things experienced
in dreams and the
things
that
happened
in
waking-life.
In
any
case man
regarded
the dream as a real
event,
which was in fact as
'true' as
ordinary events 2),
even to such an extent that
people
1)
Cf. Plato Theaet.
158
b-c. For a modern treatment of the
problem
from
a
philosophical point
of view cf. N.
Malcolm,
Dreaming (London 1962).
2)
Cf.
J.
Hundt,
Der
Traumglaube
bei Homer
(Greifswald 1935), passim;
H.
J.
Rose,
Primitive Culture in Greece
(London 1925), 152 ;
L.
Lvy-Bruhl,
L'exprience mystique
et les
symboles
chez les
primitifs (Paris 1938), 98 ff.,
who
gives
a
general
treatment of the
primitive
attitude to
dreams;
cf. also
La mentalit
primitive (Paris 1922), 94
ff.
by
the same author. L. Binsw
anger
390
were able to show some visible
proofs
for the
reality
of the dream-
experience.
So at least Pindar in his
13th Olympian
Ode
(63-78)
wants us to understand the tale of
Bellerophon,
who in a dream
was
presented
with a 'horse's charm'. After his dream he
actually
found on
awaking
the bit
lying
near him as a visible
proof
of the
dream's
reality i) .
Quite early
in
history
man started
trying
to
interpret
his dreams.
He did not ask himself in the first
place
how a dream came
about,
for this was and remained
unexplainable
and was therefore ascribed
to the influence of the
gods.
The
question
asked was="What can I
do with it ?". The
interpretation
in
practice
turned out to be an
effort to find a clue as to the
possible
relation of the dream with the
future fate of the
person
concerned. This
appears
to have
happened
already
in
Babylonian
times.
People
then did not bother much
about the how and
why
of
dreams;
they
were satisfied with an
interpretation
which had some
practical
value.
In
Greece, too,
for
quite
a
long
time dreams were looked
upon
as
a divine
sign concerning
man's
future,
notwithstanding
several
efforts at rational
explanation by e.g.
Heraclitus, Democritus,
Plato, Aristotle,
and
Hippocrates.
One has
only
to remember
how the incubation sanctuaries flourished.
In
Greece, therefore,
there existed two methods of
approach
to the
phenomenon
of the dream
2).
One was a
philosophico-
Traum und Existenz
(= Ausgew. Vovtydge
und
Aufsdtze,
I,
74-97) speaks
about "die
urspriingliche enge Zusammengeh6rigkeit
von Gcffhl und Bild"
(p. 82)
and refers to the dream of
Penelope
about the
geese.
On
Aeschylus'
Persae
igi-i96
he remarks
(p. 87) :
"Man sieht diesem Bild als solchem nicht
an,
ob es einem Traum oder einem Geschehen in der dusserenwelt
entstammt;
so verwischt sind bei den Griechen die Grenzen zwischen dem innern Er-
lebnisraum,
dem dusseren Geschehensraum und dem kultischen Raum".
1)
For other instances cf. Paus.
10, 38, 13
and the
inscriptions
from the
incubation
sanctuaries,
Verg.
Aen.
8,
42
and 81 ff.
(Aeneas
finds a white
sow as a
proof
of the
validity
of the
dream).
Prof. Waszink reminded me of
the
proem
of Hesiod's
Theogony (22 ff.),
where Hesiod relates how he recieved
his from the Muses.
However,
it must remain uncertain whether
he
actually
met the Muses in a dream. There is no trace of this in the
Theogony
itself,
but later
writers,
e.g.
Callimachus,
followed Hesiod's
story
and
clearly
made it into a dream.
2) Accordingly
D. del
Corno,
Ricerche sull' onirocritica
greca,
Rend.
Ist. Lombard.
96
(1962), 334-366,
draws a distinction between
'onirologia'
and 'oniromantica'.
391
psychological approach,
the other a more
practical
one
1).
These
two remained
existing
side
by
side all
through antiquity,
the first
one
chiefly among
the more
enlightened
circles,
the other one
being
effective in broader
layers
of the
population,
even with some
influence on the so-called
enlightened
minds.
Dreams were divided into different
categories
and classes. I shall
review these divisions and classifications and
try
to establish
what connections can or cannot be traced between them.
II
Let us start with the
only professional dream-interpreter
from
antiquity
whose work on dreams has come down to us as a
whole,
namely
Artemidorus Daldianus
2).
It is
commonly
stated that he was a
philosopher
of Stoic
origin 3).
I
must, however,
raise
objections
to this
description.
In fact
only
the
Suda calls him a
philosopher,
and not even a Stoic one at that.
Artemidorus was
merely
a
very practical
man,
an actual dream-
interpreter,
who wrote down the cases of
dream-interpretation
in which he was involved
every day.
It would
go
too far to call such
a man a
philosopher.
Scholars seem to have been misled
by
the fact that there are
many
Stoic elements in the theoretical
parts
of his work. But
this is
only
natural,
as the Stoics were
greatly
attracted
by
divina-
tion in
general
and
dream-interpretation
in
particular.
However,
the theoretical
parts
are far
outweighed by
sometimes rather
boring
enumerations of all sorts of dreams. This indicates that
those theories did not
really
have Artemidorus' interest. In the
1)
Under this
practical approach
I count also the medical
application
and
interpretation
of
dreams,
if
only
for the sake of convenience. Of course there
is a difference between the
way
of
interpretation
of
e.g.
Artemidorus and the
medical
one,
but the
latter, too,
had a
predominantly practical
character.
2)
The man
really
was born in
Ephesus.
But he wanted to use this
cognomen
to do honour to his mother's native
city,
as
Ephesus
was
already
famous
enough
because of so
many
of her citizens. This
cog-
nomen
may
also
distinguish
him from his
namesake,
the
geographical
writer,
who also came from
Ephesus.
3)
Cf. O. Sthlin-W.
Schmid,
Geschichte der
griechischen
Literatur
(Mn-
chen
1924),
II
2,
805,
note
1 ;
A.
Lesky,
Geschichte der
griechischen
Literatur
(Bern 1963), 898 ;
W.
Sontheimer,
Kleine
Pauly (Stuttgart 1964),
I,
617-8.
392
course of this article I
hope
to show
another,
and to
my
mind
rather
compelling,
reason
why
Artemidorus cannot be
regarded
as a Stoic
philosopher.
The first remarkable
aspect
of his work is the fact that Arte-
midorus draws a
sharp
distinction between the non-
predictive
dream,
and
'G'veLpoq,
the dream that has a
particular
meaning
for one's
future 1).
For him of course
only
the
6veipoi
are
of value. He divides them into which find their
fulfilment in
just
the
way they
are
seen,
and which
represent
the future in a more obscure
way.
His whole work there-
fore deals almost
exclusively
with these two
types,
of which the
are
naturally
more often discussed. So it is not
very
surprising
that he mentions the other
types only incidentally.
These observations
refute,
I
think,
the view
proposed by Behr2),
that Artemidorus
adopted
the division made
by
Plato in his
Republic 3). According
to
Behr,
Plato had 'a two-fold
system',
for
he knew both
predictive
and
non-predictive
dreams
4).
Now the division of dreams into these two
categories (as
far as
Greece is
concerned)
is at least as old as
Homer,
who
gives
a
mythical explanation
of them in the
Odyssey 5).
Furthermore Plato
was not
primarily
concerned about
giving
a
systematic
treatment of
the essence and
origin
of the dream.
Besides,
what we know about
Plato's
conceptions
of this
phenomenon,
derives
only
from some
scattered remarks we find
throughout
his
works,
of which the
passage
in the
Republic certainly
is the most
important
one. It was
Aristotle who was the first to
give
a
systematic
treatment of this
subject
from a
philosophical point
of view.
In
Republic 571
Plato sets out to describe the
tyrant.
The
problem
1) Although
Artemidorus seems to have
forgotten
this distinction in two
places: 236, 9
and
267, 3
Pack. This
may
indicate that such a distinction was
not made in
spoken language,
and also that Artemidorus here has fallen
back on this current use of
language.
He himself in fact
explicitly says
that
and were the technical denominations
(cf. 238, 20-239, 14
Pack).
2)
C. A.
Behr,
Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales
(Amsterdam 1968),
174, note
10.
3) 571 c-572
b.
4)
Behr,
op.
cit.,
173.
5)
Od.
19, 560
ff.
393
is how such a man can
develop
out of the
capacities
which are
part
of
every
human
being,
and whether he lives
happily
or not. To
this effect Plato has to examine the nature of man's desires. In
every
human
being
there are
terrible,
wild and unnatural desires
that
express
themselves
only
in dreams
(v
'U'nvoLq
1).
If we leave alone the term 'classification' used
by
Behr,
we should
expect
from Plato not a two-fold but a three-fold
system,
with a
glance
at his
tripartition
of the soul. And in fact Plato seems to
know three kinds of
dreams,
originated respectively by
each of the
three
parts
of the soul
(Rep. 571 c-572 b).
Of
course,
only
the
dreams that were due to the
working
of the
xoyia<ix6v
were relevant
to Plato. It
might
be
argued
that,
as far as relevance is
concerned,
there were indeed two
categories
of dreams. But this is not the
criterion from which we are to
judge
a
dream-classification,
for in
that case
practically
all classifications would turn out to be based
on
only
two
categories
of
dreams,
viz. relevant and non-relevant
dreams.
Moreover,
if Plato
really developed
a strict
system,
he
would not have used the terms
6veipoq
and ;v7tVWV
(beside
some
others)
so
undiscriminatingly.
In addition there are some
points
of
difference between Plato's remarks on dreams in the
Republic
(571 f.)
and those in the Timaeus
(71
d
ff.).
It is
safer, therefore,
not
to credit Plato with
any
coherent
system
of dream-classification.
Another,
and to
my
mind even more
compelling,
reason to
keep
Plato's remarks and Artemidorus'
system separated (a
reason
which Behr fails to
see)
will
appear
in the course of this article.
Now Artemidorus has a division of dreams into two
categories
which are
again
subdivided into
5
classes in all. As has
already
been
said,
he knows the
category
of
6veipoi,
which he subdivides
into
'O'vetpoL,
and and the
category
of
subdivided into and
2).
As even Behr
admits,
this five-fold division was a
system actually
in existence at the time of Artemidorus.
However,
this classifi-
1) Rep. 572
b. In Plato's remarks one
may
find a
precursor
of Freud's
theory
of the
censor ;
cf. 1.
Dambska,
Le
problme
des
songes
dans la
philo-
sophie
des anciens
Grecs,
Rev. Philos.
15I (1961), II-24, espec. 14.
2)
Artem.
179, 13-18
Pack.
394
cation has not been created
by
Artemidorus
himself,
but
originates
from a much earlier time. Indeed the had
already
been
the
subject
of treatises written
by
Artemon from
Miletus,
De-
metrius of Phalerum and Geminus of
Tyre.
For doubtless we
may
equate
the
crUV1"(xY(X[
and
6?P?Eia
sent
by Sarapis 1)
with the
so-called as well as the 6E>V of which Arte-
midorus
gives
a treatment in the 22nd
chapter
of his fourth book.
Besides Artemidorus notices that this same Artemon as well as
Phoebus from Antioch had written about the
2).
Moreover we know that
6pmym
was used in connection with dreams
as
early
as the third
century B. C. 3). Perhaps
itself
may
not be found in
early papyri,
but
certainly
is used
of dreams
giving
indications about the
future,
both in
papyri
and other
early
texts
4).
1)
Artem.
323,
21 Pack. Cf.
Wilcken,
U.P.Z. 1
20,
27 ;
1
18,
30;
D. del
Corno,
Graecorum de re onirocritica
scriptorum reliquiae (Milan 1969),
110.
2)
Artem.
6,
14-16
Pack. Cf. D. del
Corno,
op.
cit.
112,
note
7,
who
suggests
that Artemon
may
have been the author of this classification
(cf.
ibidem,
175,
note
27).
This
hypothesis
must remain
uncertain,
especially
as the terms and were used
long
before Arte-
mon's
days (ist
cent.
A.D.)
in connection with
dreams;
cf. A.
Wikenhauser,
Die
Traumgesichie
des Neuen
Testaments,
Antike u.
Christentum, Ergn-
zungsband
I
(Mnster 1939), 332-333;
for cf. Arist. E.N. 1102 b
10 ;
P.N.
458
b 18 and
463
a
29.
3)
Cf.
Pap. Goodsp.
Cairo
3, 5.
In Wilcken's U.P.Z. 1
78, 37
we find it
used in the second
century
B. C. Besides there are
quite
a few
places
in the
Septuagint
where is attested in this sense.
4)
I.G. XII
2,
108
however,
is of an
uncertain date. in connection with incubation
appears
in the
third
century
B.C.,
cf.
Pap.
Cair. Zen.
59, 034 (dated 257 B.C.)
lines
4-5:
(cf.
P. M.
Fraser,
Two Studies on the Cult
of Sarapis, Opuscula
Atheniensia
III
(Lund 1960), 1-54);
I.G. XI
4, 1299 (about
200
B.C.),
line
13:
Pap.
Par.
3209,
end:
This seems to corroborate Th. Lefort's
theory
about
the
practice
of
incubation,
especially
in the sanctuaries of
Asclepius,
which
he has
developed
as a
supplement
to Deubner's work
(cf.
Le Muse
Belge
10, 1906, 21-38
and
101-126).
He considers the oldest form of incubation to be
the
practice
of
sleeping
on a
holy ground (by
the
sick)
in the belief of re-
cieving
cure
during sleep.
This was modified later on
(after
the
4th
cent.
B.C.)
into the
practice
of
sleeping
in
temples
with the end of
recieving
methods of
healing
or other commands from the
gods:
then would
be
very appropriate.
For other instances of the verb cf. Mt.
2,
12 and
22;
Aristid.
50, 5
Keil;
Jos.
Ant. XI
327.
395
Two centuries after Artemidorus we come across the same
classification in the work of Macrobius
1).
He
gives
the
following
translations of the Greek terms:
ov?cPo?
=
somnium,
6pmym
=
visio,
=
oyaculum,
v4<viov
=
insomnium,
and
=
visum. At this last
equation
he notes that this in fact is Cicero's
translation
2).
The classifications of Artemidorus and Macrobius
show such a
degree
of
agreement 3)
that it is
quite
certain that
they
both
directly
or
indirectly
made use of the same source.
As we have
already
noticed,
Artemidorus divided the
ov?cPoc
into
and
aa?yopcxoi.
Of this distinction no trace can be
found in Macrobius. But it
really
is remarkable that Macrobius'
definition of visio
(visio
est autem curn id
quis
videt,
quod
eodem modo
quo apparuerat, eveniet)
bears much resemblance to Artemidorus'
conceptions
about the
6veipoq
However,
a de-
finition of
6pmym
=
visio Artemidorus has not
given.
No less did
he define what
exactly
should be understood
by
But
Macrobius does
give
a definition : et est oraculum
quidem
cum in
somnis
parens
vel
aliqua
sancta
gyavisve persona
seu sacerdos vel
etiam deus
aperte
eventurum
quid
aut non
eventurum,
faciendum
vitandumve denuntiat
5).
In Artemidorus we find a
parallel
in his
remarks on the
persons
that
appear
in dreams and whose
messages
ought
to deserve some credence
6 ) .
So we can
percieve
some
points
of difference in their classifi-
cation-systems.
Now it has to be noticed that the division of
6veipoi
into
aa?Yopcxo?
and is not attested
anywhere
else. Moreover it is
only
in Artemidorus' dream-book that
is used in the sense of 'to be
interpreted
as
seen' 7). All
this
1)
Comm. in Somn.
Scip. 1 3, 2
ff.
2)
1
3,
2
quod
Cicero,
quotiens opus
hoc nomine
fuit,
visum
vocavit. Cf. Cic. Acad. I
40;
II
18 ;
II
88,
and
J.
S. Reid's
commentary, pp.
233
and
283.
3)
For further
points
of
agreement
between Macrobius and Artemidorus
about the
interpretation
of dreams cf. C.
Blum,
Studies in the Dream-Book
of Artemidorus (Uppsala 1936), 53-56.
4)
Macr. Comm. I
3, 9,
cf. Artem.
4, 23
and
241, 2-3
Pack.
5) Macr. Comm. 13, 8.
6)
Artem.
195, 3-196,
18 Pack.
7)
However,
the Suda s.v. mentions this
division,
and it is
adopted by
Eustathius ad Hom. Od.
19, 558
in his
interpretation
of Pene-
396
makes it
acceptable
that this was Artemidorus' own invention.
Because his class of
6vetpoL apparently
coincided with
the usual
meaning
of
6pmym,
this distinction has not been main-
tained after him. With he did almost the same
thing.
Having
no use for its definition in his work he disconnected it from
this sort of dreams and fitted it into his work
again
at a different
place 1).
For it was rather obvious that dreams as defined
by
did in fact
happen
in Artemidorus'
practice
as a
dream-interpreter,
and were in need of
interpretation.
For indeed
such
appearances
of
gods
and other
important persons
in dreams
will doubtless not have been restricted to such dreams as occurred
in incubation sanctuaries.
They certainly
formed
part
of the
general
cultural
pattern
of those times
2).
'
III
As
might
be
expected,
the above is not the
only
classification-
system
of dreams that existed in
antiquity.
That is
why
we now
have to take a closer look at the
system
of
Cicero,
who
adopted
it
from Posidonius. Cicero mentions this
system
in his treatise about
divination: sed tribus modis censet
(sc. Posidonius)
deoyum
adpulsu
homines somniaye : uno
quod ?yovideat
animus
ipse per
sese,
quippe
qui
deorum
cognatione
teneatuy,
alteyo
quod plenus
aey sit inmoy-
talium in
quibus tamquam insignitae
notae veyitatis
appareant,
teytio
quod ipsi
di cum doymientibus
conloquantuy 3).
Posidonius'
system
has
equally
been
adopted by
Philo
Judaeus,
of
course with some
adaptations,
because Philo wanted to
explain
the
dreams he found in the Old Testament
by
means of this
system.
This classification is to be found in his treatise
Tcep'L
-rou
6zo7tz!L'!'ou
elvmi
TouS
ovdpou 4).
lope's
dream. Both writers derive their
knowledge
of this division from Ar-
temidorus
(at
least,
I cannot think of
anyone else),
which shows that Ar-
temidorus had a
good
deal of
authority
even in the tenth or twelfth
century.
1) Cf.
the
preceding
note.
2)
Cf. E. R.
Dodds,
The Greeks and the Irrational
(Berkeley 1951), chapt. 4.
3)
Div. 1
64.
4)
It is
possible
that Posidonius ascribed a
godlike
character to all
pre-
dictive
dreams,
but not to all dreams
indiscriminately.
Cicero
(Div.
1
64)
not
without
good
reason uses the words deorum
adpulsu, just
as Philo writes
397
Cicero's first
category corresponds
with Philo's third one:
Cicero's second
category
we find
again
in Philo in a somewhat
altered form:
8z'!'zpov
&'
d80,
v
0

vou
'!'wv lxmv
elvmi xml
7rPoywt?6xEw
Tt
!LZV'!')V 2),
and
also To 8:
8z'!'zpov
Tcw oacw
<TUYXt.?OU?.SV?<;
XOH
6EO<pOp7jTOU
7tOLl
<pomyopeew 3).
That this in fact does
go
back to the
same
origin
as Cicero's second
category
has
already
been shown
by
Blum
4).
Cicero's third
category
Philo defines as follows: Twv
Time and
again
efforts have been made to reconcile the five-fold
system
of
Artemidorus/Macrobius
with Posidonius' three-fold
one').
It has to be admitted that the five-fold
system
also com-
prises
the two classes of
non-predictive
dreams,
and
gav-
,rcxa[tv,7(xl
and if we leave these
out,
a three-fold
system
is what re-
mains. But can it be
proved
that these two three-fold
systems
have the same
origin ?
a
1) II 1.
2)
I 2.
3) II 2.
4) Op.
cit.,
66 ff. His further
conclusions, however,
are
objectionable
and
in
my opinion
inexact,
as I
hope
to demonstrate in the course of
my argu-
ment.
5) I 1.
6)
II 2.
7)
A notable
exception
seems to be L. Deubner's De incubatione
capita
quattuor (Leipzig 1900).
In this work the various relations between the
systems
of dream-classification found in
Artemidorus, Macrobius,
Nice-
phorus Gregoras, John
of
Salisbury,
and the
pseudo-Augustinian
work De
Spiritu
et Anima are discussed. Deubner does not mention Posidonius'
system anywhere
in connection with Artemidorus' classification.
398
Blum
1) thought
that there was indeed a
strong
resemblance
between the two
systems.
He started from Philo
II 3,
where we are
told that dreams
directly
sent
by
the
gods
can be
compared
with
He then
supposes
that these are
wholly
identical
with the oracula of
Macrobius,
and to this end
quotes
Macrobius'
definition cum in somnis
payens ....
vel deus
aperte
eventurum
quid
aut non eventurum.... denuntiat
2), putting
much
emphasis
on the
word
aperte.
For
xpqayol ampeiq,
however,
one could as well take
into consideration the theorematical dreams of Artemidorus or
Macrobius' visio.
Philo,
incidentally, speaks
about not
about the verbal
messages
that Macrobius seems to have meant
by
denuntiat. Therefore
6cpsCS only
indicates that such dreams
are clear at once
3).
Dreams that are caused
by
the soul's own
power,
i.e. Cicero's
first
category,
and which need the art of a
dream-interpreter,
are
put by
Blum on an
equal footing
with the somnia of Macrobius
4).
This does not
necessarily
have to
imply
an
agreement
of both
sys-
tems,
for it was
generally
assumed that not all dreams were clear
at
once,
and that some of them had to be
interpreted by
such men
as Artemidorus.
With the second
category,
however,
Blum is somewhat at a
loss. He notices that it is not
quite
identical with Macrobius'
visio. Then he thinks that he has found a
way
out
by remarking
that a
specific
instance of visio in Macrobius'
conception
cannot
be found in
Genesis,
which forms the basis of Philo's treatise on
dreams,
and that this is the reason
why
Philo altered it somewhat
5).
1) Op.
cit.,
67-71.
2)
Comm.
I 3,
8.
3)
M.
Gelzer,
Zwei
Einteilungsprinzipien
der antiken
Traumdeutung,
in
Iuvenes dum
sumus,
Aufstze
zur klassischen
Altertumswissenschaft
der
49.
Versammlung
deutscher
Philologen
und Schulmnner
(Basel 1907), 49, gives
an
interpretation
which is in fact the same as the one
put
forward
by
Blum:
"Nach beiden wird der Trumende durch Worte ber seine Zukunft auf-
geklrt".
Gelzer further identifies Philo's third class with Macrobius' som-
nium,
because both need
interpretation,
and Philo's second class with
visio. Certain
points
in Gelzer's
interpretation
have
already
been refuted
by
J.
H. Waszink in
Mnemosyne
III
g
(1941), 81
note
3.
4)
Comm.
1 3,
10.
5) Op.
cit.,
68.
399
This
argument,
however,
is not consistent if one considers the
fact that Cicero made use of the same
system
as Philo. Then with
him, too,
the second
category
should
correspond
to Macrobius'
visio. Of this Cicero does not
give any
indications,
although
of
course for his work on divination he could have made use of a
much more extensive literature than
Philo,
and therefore
may
have
found a
typical example
of visio
very easily.
IV
It is
now,
I
think,
sufficiently
clear that these two
systems
did
not
originate
from the same
source 1).
Besides there is another and
even more
compelling
reason
why
these two
systems
are irrecon-
cilable.
The
point
is that all classifications are answers to certain
questions.
In this case the
questions
from which
they
started are
totally
different.
The classification of
Artemidorus/Macrobius
is an answer to the
following problem:
one sees certain
things happen
in a
dream;
are
they signs
of future events or are
they
not ? And if
they
are,
how are those
signs expressed;
if
they
are
allegorical signs,
we call
the dream
6veipoq ;
if the future is told
by
means of some
important
person appearing
in the
dream,
we call it and if we
foresee the future in our dreams in
exactly
the same form in which
it will
occur,
we call it
6pmym.
If the
signs
in our
dreams, however,
are not
signalling
future
events,
those dreams
may
be either
or For Macrobius
again gives
an
explanation
in answer to the
question:
"What do I see in the dream
and what does it mean ?"
2).
For
however,
Macrobius
3) gives
an
explanation
as to
how these dreams
originate.
This shows that the common
expla-
nation of
non-predictive
dreams was
accepted by
the dream-
1)
Another
objection
to the
supposed
interrelation between Posidonius'
and Artemidorus'
systems
is based on the
terminology
in which the various
classes are described
by
Artemidorus. For where did he find this
terminology ?
Neither in Cicero's works nor in those of Philo is there
any
trace to be
found of this
terminology.
2)
Comm. I
3, 7.
3)
Comm. I
3, 4-6.
400
interpreters,
too. It was an old
explanation,
traces of which are
to be found in Herodotus
(VII 16),
Plato and the various medical
schools.
The classification of Posidonius is
totally
different,
because it
tries to
give
an answer to the
question:
"How is it
possible
that
human
beings (with
the aid of
God)
are able to
get
a certain know-
ledge
of the future in their dreams As we have
seen,
this
ques-
tion recieves three answers.
However,
it is not
quite
clear whether Posidonius
accepted
all dreams as
signs
of the future.
Perhaps
the
phrase
deoruns
adpulsu
in Cicero indicates that Posidonius did not exclude a
category 1)
of dreams which were not under the influence of a deorum
adpulsus,
and which therefore did not have
any predictive
value
2).
This distinction leads us back to what we have noticed at the
beginning
of this article: in ancient Greece there were two
ways
of
approaching
the
phenomenon
of the
dream,
namely
a
practical
one,
manifesting
itself in the classification of
Artemidorus/Macro-
bius,
and a
philosophico-psychological
one of which Posidonius is
an
exponent.
This
philosophical
classification also
appears
in a christianized
form in Tertullian. It is clear from his definitions that his classifi-
cation does not refer to
prophetic
dreams
only.
It
goes
as follows:
definimus
enim a daemoniis
Plurimum
incuti
somnia,
although
these
are vana et
fyustyatoyia
et turbida et ludibriosa et immunda... A deo
autem... ea
deputabuntur quae ipsi gyatiae compayabuntur,
si
qua
honesta sancta
pyoplaetica
revelatoria
aedificatoyia
vocatoyia... Teytia
species
erunt somnia
quae
sibimet
ipsa
anima videtuy inducere ex
intentione circumstantiarum
3).
Waszink
4)
has shown that the source of Tertullian must have
been
Hermippus
of
Berytus,
of whom
nothing
much is known
except
that he lived under Hadrian and wrote about dreams.
It is
very likely
that Tertullian
kept very close
to the text of
Hermippus.
The conclusion must be that the
original
idea of
1)
Div. I
64.
2)
Cf.
above,
p. 396,
note
4.
3)
De A nima
47, 1-3.
4)
In his
commentary
on De Anima
(Amsterdam 1947), 45*.
401
Posidonius of
classifying only predictive
dreams was
gradually
lost
1).
V
Another classification has
given
rise to even more
problems
and
therefore to even m.ore
solutions. I mean the classification which
Calcidius has drawn
up
in his
commentary
on the Timaeus
2).
It
seems best first to cite it in full: Consentit huic Platonico
dogmati
Hebyaica
philosoPhia; appellant qui?pe
illi
vayie,
ut somniu-m et
item
visum,
tum
admonitionem,
etiam
spectaculum nihiloque
minus
revelationem: somnium
quidem, quod
ex
reliquiis
commotionum
animae diximus
oboyiyi,
visum
veyo,
quod
ex divina viytute
legatur,
admonitionem,
curn
angelicae
bonitatis consiliis
regimur atque
ad-
monemuy,
spectaculum,
ut cum
vigilantibus offeyt
se videndam caelestis
potestas
claye iubens
aliquid
aut
prohibens forma
et voce
miyabili,
revelationem,
quotiens ignoyantibus
sortem
futuram
imminentis
exitus secreta
panduntur.
When he tells us that the Hebyaica
philosophia
is in accordance
with the
teachings
of
Plato,
as far as
dream-interpretation
is
concerned,
Philo is
meant,
as is
commonly accepted 3).
Alas,
this
appears
to be the
only thing
that can be said with
certainty
about
his classification. The efforts that have been made to reconcile the
classifications of Calcidius and Macrobius have resulted in
very
divergent
and to
my
mind
unsatisfying
solutions. Let us
survey
them
briefly.
Blum
4) proposes
the
following
identification: admonitio -
spectaculum
=
revelatio
=
6veipoq ;
somniurn
=
Evunwov ;
but "the
description
of visum does not
tally
with that of
/ 1)
1)
For the other Christian
adaptations
of this
system
cf. Waszink on
Tertullian's De
Anima,
p. 501
f. After
my manuscript
had been finished D.
del Corno's work on the
fragments
of Greek onirocritical writers was
pu-
blished
(cf.
above,
p. 394,
note
1).
He has come to similar conclusions about
the
(non-existing)
interrelation between Posidonius' and Artemidorus'
classifications
(cf. p. 173 ff.).
2)
Comm. in Tim.
256 = p. 265
ed. Waszink
(London
&
Leyden 1962).
3)
Cf.
J.
H.
Waszink,
Die
sogenannte Fnfteilung
dey Trume bei Chalcidius
und
ihre Quellen, Mnemosyne 1119 (1941), 65
f.; Blum,
op.
cit., 59.
4) Op.
cit.,
58.
402
Mras
1)
has a different view: sonsniuns
=
6veipoq (sic) ; spectaculum
visum
=
revelatio
=
The
ad-
monitio he does not even mention.
Switalski
2)
has
again
another
identification,
but
only
for three
out of the five classes mentioned: yevelatio
=
somnium
s?ectaculum=
The most recent effort is that made
by
Behr
3) :
somnium
=
visum - admonitio
=
6veLpoq; sfiectaculu5Y1 =
while Behr himself notices that revelatio bears no
relation to
If we
put
these four identifications
4) together,
we see that
only
about one
category
there exists a communis
opinio, namely
somnium.
It can be
put
on a level with that
is,
if we
forgive
Mras his
apparent slip
of the
pen
in
identifying
somnium with
Eveipoq.
It is clear that all four start from the
presumption
that the
classification made
by
Philo,
the Hebraica
philosoPhia,
is connected
with the one
by Artemidorus/Macrobius.
That this
presumption
is
false I have shown above. All these so
very divergent
views are
only
the
logical
results of it.
Only
Switalski has noted that in
Philo no trace of Calcidius' classification can be
found,
but Blum
5)
thinks this of no
major importance,
because in his
opinion
all these
classifications
ultimately go
back to Posidonius. And after
all,
we
have
only part
of Philo's treatise on dreams.
Before
going
further into the classification of Calcidius some
remarks should be made on what Calcidius understands
by
the
Platonicum
dogma
in this connection. For that
purpose
we must
go
back a few
pages
in his
commentary.
In ch.
253-255
he has
expounded
his view more
clearly.
In brief it comes to this.
Plato 6)
studied the
problem
of dreams and
finally
came to the
1)
K.
Mras,
Macrobius' Kommentar zu Ciceros
Somnium,
Sitz. ber. Preuss.
Akad.
Berlin,
Ph. Hist. K1.
(1933), 237.
2)
B. W.
Switalski,
Des Chalcidius Kommentay zu Platos Timaeus
(Mnster
1902), 45.
3) Op.
cit.
177,
note 11 f.
4)
The
interpretation
of Waszink in
Mnemosyne 111 9 (1941), 65
ff. will be
reviewed later on.
5) Op.
cit., 59.
6)
This and what follows of course is the
interpretation
of Calcidius.
403
conclusion that there are more than one source from which dreams
may originate 1).
In the first
place
there are the dreams that are the results of
physical
or
psychical
causes:
gigni quibpe
vel ex
reliquiis cogitationum
et accidentis alicuius rei
stimulo,
ut in nono Politiae libro docet
2).
Secondly
there are the dreams that result from divine
providence,
or
(and
this is a third
class) they
result from the love that the
heavenly powers
have for human
beings 3) :
at veyo
somnioyum,
quae
divina
pyovidentia
vel
4)
caelestium
potestatum
amore iuxta homines
oboyiuntur,
causam
rationemque exposuit
in eo libro
qui Philosophus
inscyibitur
5).
The
examples
that Calcidius
gives
for this
expla-
nation are from the Cyito
(44
a I o-b
2)
and the Phaedo
(60 e).
A fourth class comes about when Plato reflects on the fact that
even in a
waking
state the human
being
is not without the bene-
volent
help
of
God,
and
by
this
support
is moderated in his ac-
tions
6) : denique
etiam
vigilanti
non deerat
proPitia
divinitas,
quae
eiusdem modeyaretuy
actus,
ut Plato demonstyat in
Euthydemo 7).
As
an
example
he mentions the daemonion of Socrates.
If we take a closer look at these
definitions,
we see that
they
correspond respectively
to
somnium, visum, admonitio,
and
specta-
culum in ch.
256 8).
But we
expect
to find a fifth
class,
too. It must be a
fairly general
one,
if we consider Calcidius' definition of revelatio to which it
1)
Comm. in Tim.
253.
2)
Cf.
Plato,
Rep. 571
b
4-572
b
1,
of which lines Calcidius l.c.
gives
a
translation.
3)
Comm. in Tim.
254.
4)
Vel
=
aut is not uncommon in
post-classical
Latin;
cf.
e.g.
Tac. Hist.
1 21 oblivione
apud posteros
vel
gloria distingui ;
Tac. Ann.
14, 35.
That vel
should be taken here in this sense will
appear
in the course of
my argument
(cf.
below,
note
8).
5) By Philosophus
he means
Epinomis,
viz.
984
e
5
ff.
6)
Comm. in Tim.
255.
7)
Here Calcidius
errs;
it is not in the
Euthydemus
but in the
Theages
128
d 2-7.
8)
This
correspondence
is
immediately
clear for somnium and
spectaculum.
That the Hebraic visum and admonitio find their
corresponding parts
in the
Platonic doctrine
appears
from
cap. 254.
Here we find divina
providentia
set
against
caelestium
potestatum
amore,
while under the definition of visum
we find the divina virtus as the cause of such
dreams,
and under admonitio
the
angelicae
bonitatis consilia as the cause.
404
should
correspond.
I think it can be found in the words
1) :
Nec
veyo dubitaye
fas
est
intellegibilem
deum
pro
bonitate natuyae suae
rebus omnibus consulentem
o_pem generi
hominum,
quod
nulla esset
sibi cum
corpore
conciliatio,
divinayum
Potestatum interpositione ferye
voluisse;
quayum quidem beneficia
satis claya sunt ex
pyodigits
et
divinatione vel noctuyna somnioyum vel
dittynafama byaescia
yumoyes
ventilante,
medelis
quoque
adveysum ntoybos intimatis et
pyophetayum insplyatione
veyidica.
On the details of the
system
as a whole the
following
obser-
vations
may
be made.
The definition of somnium
given by
Calcidius refers to a rather
general category
of
mostly non-predictive
dreams. One can find
corresponding
remarks in a wide
range
of authors. It
may
be iden-
tified with the V7tVWV of
Artemidorus, but,
as will be
shown,
it
is not the result of the same
system.
Next Calcidius
gives
a definition of visum :
quod
ex divina viytute
legatur. Again
he traces the cause of the
dream,
why
the soul sees
this
particular
dream. There
seems, however,
to be a
difficulty
in
the translation and exact
meaning
of the words. Waszink
2)
trans-
lates : "das aus der
gottlichen
Kraft
(nl.
der
Seele...) gewonnen
wird".
Accordingly,
he
supplies
-animae and takes
legatur
as sub-
junctive
from
legere.
He states: "Dafur
spricht
auch die
Gegen-
berstellung
von sornnium und visum durch
quidem......
veyo".
It is
quite
true that
quidem
..... veyo can
give
a closer connection
to the words to which these
particles
are attached. But there is
no reason at all here to
supply
animae. There would
be,
if Calcidius
had written: ...
quod
ex
reliquiis
commotionum animae
q u i d em
....
followed
by
....
quod
ex divina viytute verso ... etc.
To
my
mind another
interpretation
is more
plausible
here.
It
may
not be untrue that MMS can be translated on occasion
by
'Kraft',
but it seems that here the
meaning 'might'
or 'om-
nipotence'
would fit better
3).
The word is often used for the divine
omnipotence 4).
Of course it need not have the usual Christian
1)
Comm. in Tim.
255.
2)
Mnemos.
1119 (1941), 68,
note 2.
3)
Cf. Blaise &
Chirat,
s.v. nr.
5.
4)
Cf.
e.g.
Tert. Prax. 26 virtus altissimi.
405
flavour with
Calcidius,
but it is remarkable that Calcidius
speaks
of a divin.a virtus. And let us remember that Calcidius
probably
was a Christian himself. The mental
suppletion
of
animae,
I
think,
is rather far-fetched. And furthermore it is
improbable
that
legatur
should be taken as a
subjunctive.
All around there are
only
in-
dicatives,
also in the same construction. Therefore
legatur
is the
indicative from
legare.
And
finally,
with an
eye
on
cap. 254
where
the words divina
providentia clearly
have a connection with Cal-
cidius' definition of
visum,
the
passage
should be translated as
'what is sent
by (virtue of)
the divine
omnipotence'.
So the
purely
godsent
dream
i)
is
meant,
the
'o'-veLpo4
of Philo.
The definition of admonitio does not in
any respect
resemble one
of the definitions of Macrobius. As to the
contents,
as
they appear
in the
examples
Calcidius
gives,
it
might
be
compared
to Macrobius'
oyaculum.
Spectaculum
is the fourth class with Calcidius
2).
It
appears
from
his definition that
by
it he meant the daemonion of Socrates. This
daemonion
restrained,
as we
know,
Socrates from
doing things
that were not
good.
So Calcidius has
prohibens. Although
he cites
as an
example Theages
128 d
2-7,
in which the task of the daemo-
nion is
clearly
defined,
Calcidius does not
excusively
mean the
daemonion
by
his
definition;
he also uses iubens
aliquid. Anyhow
he wanted to make clear the auditive character of this class.
Revelatio forms the last class. As
already
noticed this is a rather
1)
Plato did in fact know of the belief that dreams
might
be
godsent;
cf.
Apol. 33
C
2) Spectaculum
in this sense is of course
highly
unusual.
Perhaps
this is a
translation of some Greek word. I know of
only
one
passage
where it is used
in a somewhat similar
sense,
viz.
Augustine
in Psalm.
96,
1
magna spectacula
Deus
praebet
cordi christiano. I am indebted to Mr. P. G. van Wees for this
reference. In the
Corpus
Glossariorum
Latinorum,
rec. G.
Goetz,
it is said
to be the
equivalent
of
(II 505, 42
and III
338, 40), (III 302,
23
and
522, 13)
or
(II 532, 20).
For used in connection with
dreams cf. Arist. Div. Somn.
463
b
17
In 2 Mac.
15,
II-16 we find the word used to describe a vision in a
dream;
cf.
further
Jos.
Vita 208 Ant. II 10 and II
75;
A cta
Joannis 48
406
general
class,
only saying
that the secrets of the future will be
opened
in these dreams.
One would do better to
give up attempts
to connect the
systems
of Calcidius and Macrobius. This Waszink
1) already
noticed
referring
to Calcidius' words consentit huic Platonico
dogmati
Hebraica
philosoPhia.
But he did not ask himself
why
Macrobius'
system
did not show
any
relation to that of Calcidius. We have
seen that this is not
surprising,
for Macrobius'
system
fundament-
ally
differed from the
Hebraicaphilosophia ( = Philo) by starting
from different
points
of view.
The
way
in which the
system
reached Calcidius has
already
been
explained by
Waszink
2) :
from Calcidius it
goes
back to
Porphyry,
who
got
it from Philo via Numenius.
But if Calcidius' version of the Platonic
system
is in accordance
with the Hebraica
philosoPhia,
it must be
possible
to determine
the various identical classes.
Calcidius makes mention of five classes. Therefore it is certain
that the Hebraica
Philosophia
also knew five classes. In the
part
of
Philo's treatise that has come down to us
only
three classes have
been defined. The other two
possibly
had been treated in the
part
lost after the second book.
We further see that
only
the somnium in Calcidius seems to have
had no connections with the
divine,
but the other four classes
clearly
do have a divine
component.
This shows that Calcidius drew a
sharp
distinction between
predictive (i.e. divine)
and
non-predictive (i.e.
not
divine,
be-
longing
to the human
soul)
dreams,
apparently following
the
Hebraica
philosoPhia
in this matter. This
implies
that we have to
search also for a class of
non-predictive
dreams in Philo.
However,
all three classes mentioned
by
Philo have connections
with the
divine,
they
are
0el<ey<oi ovwpot.
Therefore I think
that Waszink
3)
is
quite right
when he remarks: "Was weiter die
erste
Traumart,
das ex
reliquiis
commotionum animae entstehende
1)
Mnemos. III
9 (1941), 73.
2)
Ibid., 81-82,
and more
recently
in
Porphyre,
Entretiens de la Fon-
dation Hardt
XII,
35 ff., espec. 53-54.
3)
Mnemos. III
9 (1941), 79.
407
somnium
betrifft,
so kommt es mir sehr wahrscheinlich
vor,
dass
Philo sie in
dem jetzt
verlorenen Teil seines Werkes erortert hat".
He then
gives
some
good parallels
for his statement that Philo did
not
regard
all dreams as
godsent 1).
But did Calcidius' somnium
2)
concern
only
the
non-predictive
dreams,
as Waszink seems to
imply
when he draws a
parallel
with
Aristotle's De lnsomniis
46o
b 28 ff. ? Plato
3)
did in fact consider
some dreams to be
products
of so-called
'Tagesreste',
to which he
also reckoned the effects of food and
drinking.
He therefore re-
commended as a means to exclude such effects a sober meal before
one
goes
to
sleep (thus calming
down the and
urged
the
reader to behave so that the will not effect
the dreams. Then the
Xoyt.aTt.xo?
can have its own
way,
and then
that
part
of the soul is able to foresee the future. So dreams
may or
may
not be
prophetic,
in Plato's
interpretation.
I wonder whether Calcidius did not
identify
this sort of dreams
with the ones which Philo described in his third class. This would
mean that Calcidius' somnium includes both Philo's third class and
the
non-predictive
dreams which Philo
occasionally
mentions.
It
may
be useful here to stress the fact that Calcidius was in a
very
difficult
position
when he tried to reconcile such
divergent
systems
as those of Plato and
Philo,
the more so as Plato
strictly
spoken
did not have
any regular system
at all.
Moreover,
as Waszink
thinks,
Calcidius
may
have had
only
a second-hand
knowledge
of
the
classification-system
in the Hebyaica
philosoPhia.
We further must bear in mind that Calcidius had to
adapt
the
1)
Ibid.,
81-82.
According
to
LSJ,
s.v. Artemidorus and Philo
made a distinction between 'a mere dream' and 'a
signifi-
cant,
prophetic
dream'. But in Artemidorus this distinction is not
always
kept
in mind
(cf.
above,
p. 392,
note
i),
and neither is it in
Philo;
cf.
e.g.
De Cherub. 128
De Somniis II
78
(by
which
Joseph
is
meant).
But
generally speaking
Philo did make such a
distinction,
as
appears
most
clearly
from De Somniis II
138
etc.
2)
Mnemos.
9 (1941), 83,
he states that somnia are
"solche,
die aus den
von aussen her
empfangenen
Eindrcken
hervorgehen",
which is somewhat
different from Calcidius' definition.
3) Rep. 571
b ff. Calcidius
gives
the whole
passage
in translation.
408
Posidonian
system,
in Philo's
version,
in accordance with the
passages
in Plato about dream-like occurrences.
He,
as it
were,
interpolated
an
existing
dream-classification into Plato's theories.
Most
important
is the fact that Posidonius and Philo attached a
deorum
adpulsus
to
(predictive)
dreams,
while
Plato,
of
course,
did
no such
thing.
So the definition of somnium which Calcidius
gives
in fact includes
both
predictive
and
non-predictive
dreams,
but the cause of it
lies within the soul itself.
Now Philo's
0el<ey<oi 6veipoi
are identical with visum in Cal-
cidius. Here I
disagree
with
Waszink,
because of his
interpretation
of ex divina virtute
legatur,
as I have
explained
above
1).
Philo's second class
corresponds
to Calcidius'
admonitio,
as
Waszink
agrees 2).
This class
originates
from
cooperation
with
the souls in the
air,
as Cicero
puts
it. In a more christianized
version these souls
may
become
angels
or divine
spirits 3).
As I
said,
Waszink identifies the third class of Philo with visum
in Calcidius. I
may
add to
my
criticism of this
interpretation
that
Philo did not credit the soul with a divina virtus or
something
like
it,
only
with a
prognostic power,
that
is,
in connection with dreams.
The
consequence
of Waszink's
interpretation
is that he has to
rank both
spectaculum
and revelatio under Philo's first
class,
the
dreams sent
by
the divine. But it must be considered
unlikely
that
the
only
difference between the two is "dass die revelatio der
klarere Traum ist"
4).
Philo does not mention
any
difference in
clearness for his dreams of the first class. He
only
draws attention
to the mutual difference in clearness of his various classes
5).
The fundamental difference between yevelatio and
spectaculum
is, however,
that
spectaculum clearly
is a vision received in a
waking
state
6),
and revelatio
any
revelation of the
future,
especially
of course in a dream.
By sbectaculum
Calcidius understands the daemonion of
Socrates,
1)
Cf.
above,
pp. 404-405.
2) Op.
cit., 79.
3)
Philo De Somn. I
141.
4) Op.
cit., 83,
note 1.
5)
De Somn. II
3-4.
6)
Cf.
below,
p. 409,
note
5
and
p. 411,
note 1.
409
which comes about
by
means of a
heavenly power.
So it bears some
resemblance to Philo's first
class,
but
only
a little. The fact remains
that
Philo,
in the
part
of his treatise on dreams which has come
down to
us,
did not
speak
about visions that arise when one is awake.
In
my opinion, spectaculum
must be
put
on a level with in the
Septuagint.
Philo
may
have mentioned this class in the
part
of
his work that has been lost. In
fact,
the is a
quite
common
phenomenon
in the
Septuagint.
As to the revelatio I
may repeat
what Waszink said : "dass die
nur den sofort verstandlichen Traum bedeuten
kann,
der Urheber
nicht
genannt
wird"
1).
It is
remarkable, however,
that Calcidius
did not
give any example
of it from Plato's works. We
may suppose
that if there were
any,
Calcidius would have mentioned them.
Furthermore this has been said to be the
only
time in non-
Christian literature that revelatio is used
2).
However,
Calcidius
seems to have been a Christian himself
3).
The word is a
translation,
made
perhaps by
Tertullian
4)
himself,
of the Greek
Now
('x7roxo'cXu?L?
means both 'vision' and 'revelation'. So it is not
exclusively
used for a certain class of
dreams,
but in
any
case it
can be used for dreams with a revelational character
5).
1) Op.
cit.,
83.
2)
Cf. C.
Mohrmann,
Die altchristliche
Sondersprache
in den Sermones des
hl.
Augustin
I
(repr.
Amsterdam
1965), 144.
3)
Cf. Plato Latinus
IV,
Timaeus a Calcidio
translatus,
ed. Waszink
(London
&
Leyden 1962),
XI.
4)
Cf. S.
Teeuwen,
Sprachlicher Bedeutungswandel
bei Tertullian
(Pader-
born
1926), 18;
C.
Mohrmann,
op.
cit.,
80-81.
5)
Cf. Andr. Caes.
Apoc.
1
... ,
etc. Of course one would have
preferred
an older
testimony
than
this one from the sixth
century. Perhaps
a
passage
in Clement of Alexandria
will
do,
although
he makes no
explicit
mention of
dreams,
viz. Strom. I
29
(p.
III,
I St.) :
Furthermore cf. 2 Cor.
12,
1 where the
Vulgate
translates visiones et
revelationes. More
pertinent
is Hermas Vis. III
1,
2
(Joly)
....
etc.;
cf. III
10,
7;
Lxx Da.
2, 19 (Theod.)
cf. Da.
2, 28,
where in both versions is used.
One cannot
help feeling
that there was no clear distinction drawn be-
410
Therefore we must
suppose
that
Calcidius,
not
finding anything
in Plato
resembling
the
Old-Testamentary
decided to
adopt
the
explanation already provided
for
it,
without
bothering
much about Plato.
Moreover,
his words imminentis exitus
may point
to the
usual,
i.e.
principally eschatological,
character of
in the Old Testament
1).
As Calcidius
actually
was a
Christian,
this
easily explains why
he shows some
knowledge
about the Old
Testament. Another
possibility
is that Philo treated the
in the lost
part
of his work on dreams.
The result of these
explanations
must be the
rejection
of the
structure of the five-fold
system,
and its relations with
Philo,
as
Waszink sees it.
In
my
own
interpretation
of the
correspondence
of the various
classes I have laid more stress on the fact that Calcidius was
starting
from Plato's
ideas,
and therefore ran into difficulties when
applying
the Hebraic
system
to the remarks on dreams that he
found in Plato.
Concluding
this section I shall resume what I think are the
connections between Calcidius' and Philo's definitions in their
respective
classifications.
Calcidius' somnium includes Philo's third class in addition to his
general
remarks about
non-predictive
dreams
(which probably
form a
separate class)
as
originated by
the human soul.
Calcidius' visum coincides with Philo's
0el<ey<oi
that is
his first class.
Calcidius' adnzonitio is to be identified with Philo's second class.
Calcidius'
spectaculum
has
very
little connection with Philo's
first class
(only
because of caelestis
Potestas).
We have seen that
tween a vision of a
person
in a
waking
state and a vision in a dream. The fact
that,
according
to
Calcidius,
the Hebraica
philosophia
ranked them both
under a
general
classification of dreams
is,
I
think,
sufficient
proof
for it.
1)
Cf.
Religion
in Geschichte und
Gegenwart,
I,
col.
465,
s.v.
Apokalyptik :
"Die
Offenbarungen
werden
gern
in der Form von Trumen und Visionen
gegeben.....".
For exitus in this sense cf. Tert. Resurr.
25 (incidentally,
a
chapter
on the
Apocalypse
of S.
John)
in exitu
saeculi ;
Tert.
Apol.
18, 2;
Tert. De
Monog.
16 illo ultimo exitu
saeculi;
Commod.
Apol. 136 nullo
datur
scire,
donec
fiat
exitus aevi.
Imminens
corroborates,
I
think,
my suggestion
to take exitus in this
sense;
cf.
e.g.
Tac. Hist.
1 86, 3
omen imminentium cladium.
411
Socrates' daemonion is meant
by
it. It
may
be a translation of the
Greek
(or oFw5)
which occurs in the
Septuagint
in connec-
tion with dreams. It is therefore the class in which a
personal
con-
tact between the dreamer and his
god
is established
1).
Calcidius'
revelatio,
as we have
seen, corresponds
to the
apo-
calyptic
revelations in the Old
Testament,
which often have an
eschatological
character,
both in dreams and otherwise.
We know that what is left of Philo's work on dreams in
only
a
part
of the whole work. One
theory
is that it
originally
consisted of
five
parts,
with
only
two of them
remaining.
However this
may
be,
Philo
may
have reviewed in the
part
that has been lost other
dream-stories from the Old
Testament,
among
them
possibly
the
and I must admit that this is rather
'spe-
culative,
but to me it seems the
only possible way
to connect
Calcidius' views of the Platonicum
dogma
with the Hebraica
philo-
sophia.
VI
Something
remains to be said about the
way
in which the five-
fold classification reached Macrobius. In
short,
who was his
source for Comm. I
3 ?
The various views have been collected
by
W. H.
Stahl 2).
'
Mras assumed
Porphyry's Quaestiones
Homeyicae as a
source,
while Courcelle had a
preference
for
Porphyry's Commentary
on
Plato's
Republic.
We
may
add that Schedler
3)
connects the classifi-
cation with a
commentary
on the
Timaeus,
also
by Porphyry,
but
1)
In Greece such a
personal
contact between
god
and man
might
be
achieved
by visiting
an
incubation-sanctuary.
This
explains
the close re-
semblance of Calcidius' definition of
spectaculum
and Macrobius' remarks on
oraculum.
Calcidius, however, applies
the
spectaculum
to
people
who are
awake
(vigilantibus),
while Macrobius
explicitly
adds in somniis. But in
incubation-sanctuaries such contacts between
god
and man were often
achieved in the
twilight
zone between
sleeping
and
waking.
Nevertheless
spectaculum
is included
by
Calcidius in a dream-classification
(multiformis
ergo
est ratio
somniorum,
cap. 206), although
it
happens
to
people
who are
awake. See further
above,
p. 409,
note
5.
2)
Macrobius'
Commentary
on the Dream
of Scipio,
transl.
by
W. H. Stahl
(New
York
1952), 34.
3)
P. M.
Schedler,
Die
Philosophie
des Macrobius und ihr
Einfluss auf
die
Wissenschaft
des Mittelalters
(Mnster 1916),85,
note 6.
412
Courcelle thinks this
improbable
because of the
terminology
used
by
Calcidius.
Now there is a
point
in Courcelle's view that a
commentary
on the
Republic may
have been the
source,
for Macrobius cites the
dream of
Agamemnon
from Iliad
II,
a
passage
which is also treated
by
Plato in his
Republic.
Courcelle further is
quite
sure that Ar-
temidorus was not Macrobius'
source 1).
However,
this does not
explain
the almost literal resemblance between Artemidorus' and
Macrobius' remarks on the classification and
explanation
of
dreams
2).
On the other
hand,
there is truth in Courcelle's remark
3)
that
Macrobius drew a
parallel
between Plato's
Republic
and the dream
of
Scipio
in Cicero's De Re Publica. It is also true that for this
pur-
pose
he must have consulted the
existing
commentaries,
especially
the one
by Porphyry.
This shows the
probability
of Macrobius
having
drawn from this source when he treats of the dream of
Agamemnon (Coww.
I
3, 15 ff.). Blum 4)
held that
Porphyry
had
been Macrobius' source
by referring
to auctoye
PorPhyrio
in Comm.
I
3, 17.
But this remark
clearly
refers
only
to the imitation
by
Virgil
of the motif of the Gates of Dreams which we find in Homer.
But,
although Porphyry
had
quite
a
big
influence
upon
Macrobius,
I fail to see
why
he must have been the source for Comm. I
3,
1-13, too.
In order to find the
possible
source we first shall have to review
Comm. I
3
in connection with the
surrounding chapters.
As I see
it,
this
chapter
is
clearly
an
insertion,
only serving
as a learned
excursion. This view harmonizes
quite
well with Courcelle's words
5),
"Macrobe,
s'il n'est
pas
un
compilateur,
n'est
pas
un
plagiaire:
il
ne transcrit
pas
une source
unique,
mais son
ouvrage
revele 1'6tendue
de ses lectures".
The
passage
has a rather
abrupt
start,
it serves as an introduction
to the
phenomenon
of the
dream,
and
just
before the end of the
1)
P.
Courcelle,
Les lettres
grecques
en occident
(Paris 1948), 24,
note 2.
2)
Cf.
Blum, Studies, 53-56;
Stahl,
op.
cit.,
87-88,
note 1.
3) Op.
cit.,
23.
4) Op.
cit.,
56-57.
5) Op.
cit., 21,
agreeing
with Mras and
Henry.
413
chapter 1)
the whole
classification-system
is
applied
to the dream
of
Scipio.
Then Macrobius draws on another source
(see above)
and in addition
gives
some remarks on the dream of
Agamemnon.
I
think, therefore,
that Macrobius has found the whole
system ready-
made in some more or less obscure
work,
probably
on the inter-
pretation
of
dreams,
and then
put
it into his own work without
bothering
much about the
very
loose connection it has with the
surrounding chapters.
This
view,
I
feel,
is
strengthened by
the fact that nowhere else
in his work do we ever come across either
visio,
or
oraculum,
or
visum,
or even insomnium. If we leave the whole
chapter
out,
noth-
ing
much has been lost of the
argument
of the
Commentary.
All
this would
imply
that Macrobius did not use
Porphyry
as a source
for Co?ram.
1 3, except
for the last
part (1 3, 15 ff.).
But there is another
way
to arrive at the same conclusion.
Porphyry
was
very
much
occupied
with
philosophico-religious
questions.
In this
sphere
also falls the
question
of dreams and
their
origin.
So we
may
assume that this
subject
had his interest
2),
but as I see
it,
mainly
from the
philosophical point
of view.
As I have
already
mentioned,
Waszink
3)
has shown that Cal-
cidius made use of the classification of
Philo,
which
ultimately
came from
Posidonius,
and that it reached Calcidius
by way
of
Numenius and
Porphyry.
So
Porphyry
made use of the
philosoph-
ical
classification,
which bears no resemblance to the
practical
classification used
by
Artemidorus and Macrobius.
But
why
did Macrobius not use
Porphyry's system?
I think there
is a
very practical
reason. Macrobius wanted to write a
commentary
on Cicero's Dyeam
of Scipio,
that
is,
he wanted to
interpret
the
dream. And besides he wanted to
give
an air of 'Wissenschaftlich-
keit' to it. So he
disregarded Porphyry
for the
moment,
and found
an
impressive
dream-classification in some
dream-book,
the same
that has been Artemidorus' source. This
hypothesis gains
in
plausi-
bility
when we bear in mind that Macrobius mentioned not
only
the
1) Comm. 13, 12-13.
2)
It can also be inferred from his
Qu.
ad
Iliadem,
217, 9
(ed. Schrder),
where the dream-book of Artemon is mentioned.
3)
Cf.
above,
p. 406,
note 2.
414
five classes of
dreams,
but also the division into five
(= genera
in
Macrobius).
Now where else could he have found it
except
in a
dream-book ? We
may
take it as certain that he did not use Ar-
temidorus' work
directly,
for that would leave
unexplained
the
question
of the source of his definitions of
visum, oyaculum,
and
visio,
and
why
he did not mention the distinction between theore-
matical and
allegorical
dreams.
VII
In the above I have not taken into account the medical theories
concerning
the
dream,
for instance the classification of
Herophilus.
Diels,
Dox. Gr.
416, gives
the
following
text :
'Hp6<pt.Xo<; ov?ipwv
0eo<ly<ouq
XKT'
yiv?66av, TovS 8? cpua?xouS
6u E ov
To
Tou
8E
fauyxpmym<ixolqf 3)
<05
4)
X<XT' si8wawv
7tpcr7t'!')mv
a
(?ou?o?,?8a
w iocS
pwv'!'CV 5)
v
\)7tvcp
This text is to be found in Plutarch's Placita V
I,
2.
Galen in his Historia
Philoso?hiae
106
(=
Diels,
Dox. Gr.
640)
has drawn on the same source as Plutarch :
oveiPwv
1)
Diels
conjectured
from Galen's version. The
manuscripts,
however,
read which Bernardakis wants to
keep
in his text.
This
is, however,
immaterial to
my present argument.
2) too,
has been
conjectured by
Diels from Galen. Bernardakis
sticks to the
reading
of the
manuscripts,
but I fail to see what
this would mean.
3)
is the
reading
of the
manuscripts.
Galen has
4)
'Ex has been bracketed
by
Diels,
kept
however
by
Bernardakis,
who is
right
in
doing
so,
if one considers that Galen's version
has
5)
is read
by
both Diels and
Bernardakis,
probably
with an
eye
on Galen's The or of the
manuscripts
does not seem
to make much sense.
6)
Cf. the critical
apparatus
in Diel's
Doxographi, 640, showing
the
confusion of the text.
415
As is
usually
assumed,
this classification has
nothing
to do with
the two
preceding
ones
1).
But
quite recently
C. A. Behr
2)
has
expressed
a
very
different
opinion.
So a few words have to be said
here about his theories.
In Behr's
theory
of a
gradual development
of the classifications
into
two-, three-, four-,
and five-fold
systems, Herophilus'
classifi-
cation forms the three-fold
system.
Posidonius then would have
added a fourth class and then
"finally by
the first
century
A.D.
under the influence of medical theories on
disruptions
caused
by
the
digestive processes,
the
non-predictive
dreams were also di-
vided into two classes". So we have five classes.
But if this were
true,
whose medical theories had such an in-
fluence,
and
why
did not
Herophilus
himself come to this con-
clusion ? And if medical theories
really gave
rise to a
splitting up
of
the
non-predictive
dreams into two
separate
classes,
we at least
expect
to find some traces of a medical
origin
in these two
resulting
classes. The
disruptions
caused
by
the
digestive processes,
however,
were known
long
before the first
century
A.D. We find some
reference to this
question
in Plato's
Republic C 3) ,
but it
might easily
be older. Certain
prescriptions
of the
Pythagorean
school
4)
seem
to
point
in this direction. Their views on dreams Behr does not even
mention,
although they
had,
as it
were,
a sort of ritual
5)
before
going
to
sleep,
a ritual which
very appropriately
has been
brought
into relation with their beliefs on dreams
6).
Besides,
a
systematic interpretation
of dreams was known
long
before Artemidorus.
Panyasis,
for
instance,
who lived in the
4th
century
B.C.,
has been credited with the division into
1).
1)
Cf. Waszink in his
commentary
on Tertullian's De Anima
(Amsterdam
1947), 502.
2)
Aelius Aristides and the Sacred Tales
(Amsterdam 1968), chapt.
8,
espec. 174,
note
11 ;
cf. above
p. 392
and notes 2 and
4.
3) 571c.
4)
Cf. Waszink on Tertullian's De Anima
48, 3.
5)
Iambl. V.P.
65
and
114.
6)
Cf. P.
Boyanc,
Le culte des Muses chez les
philosophes grecs (Paris
1936),
110.
7)
Artem.
II,
4-6
Pack. Did
Hippocrates
show
any knowledge
of the
division into in
87
Cf. the
and in Artemidorus
p. 7
Pack.
It is not
really important
to our
argument,
whether
Panyasis
in fact
416
Returning
to
Herophilus'
classification I must admit that it
seems
quite
obscure what
exactly
he means. But I do not think
Behr's solution
acceptable.
He identifies the so-called
cpuacxoi
ovsc?oc
with "the
predictive
dreams of the soul"
i).
It seems to me
that,
if
Herophilus
had meant such
dreams,
he would have called
them rather
uxixoi
than
puaixoi.
For
cpumx
this sense is attested
nowhere else. Moreover the usual sense
'arising
from natural
(or
physical)
causes' fits in here
quite
well
2).
So here we have dreams
in which the
dreamer,
and therefore also his
physician, might get
some
knowledge
about his
physical
condition. The words
a!LEVOV certainly
seem to be in favour of this
explanation.
The same
conception
is to be found in
Hippocrates'
work on
dreams : 8: TO xoci
EYp7jYopeou(7<x
4).
So the soul is credited with
quite
an
independent
activity during sleep.
It even can foresee certain
physical
abnor-
wrote about this whole
system
or
only
about
public dreams,
as del
Corno,
of.
cit.,
122 assumes. The
important point
is that the
system
was in existence
in the fourth
century
B. C. If we are
right
in
assuming
a certain connection
between this
system
and n. IV
87,
this would involve no
problems
of
dating,
for it is not
improbable
that the
Hippocratic
work has been written
about
370
B.C.
1)
L.
Edelstein,
Ancient Medicine
(Baltimore 1967), 242, goes
even
further:
"Herophilus
declares dreams to be
merely psychological phenomena;
it is not the
bodily changes
but
only
the
psychic changes
that are manifested
in
dreams;
these are the natural dreams which have to be
separated
from
the divine".
However,
he cites
only
half of
Herophilus' theory
on the
Placita,
and
puts,
I
think,
a modern
theory
into
Herophilus'
mouth.
2)
So
already
C.
Fredrich,
Hippokratische Untersuchungen (Berlin 1899),
215:
"im Zustande des
Krpers
.... beruhende Trume".
3)
In Galen's version we read
accepted
it seems
by
E. R.
Dodds,
The Greeks and the Irrational
(Berkeley 1951), 124,
note 28. I must admit that
does not make much sense.
Wyttenbach (IV 436) already
wrote :
"malim ". But
why
not The sense of
would be: 'what is
going
to
happen
in
consequence
of those
dreams'. For this sense of cf.
LSJ.,
s.v. C III
2,
and
Khner-Gerth,
Satzlehre, I, 520. Palaeographically
the difference between and is
very
little. If we then
suppose
that had been abbreviated
to,
for in-
stance,
the
following
could have been misread as if was attracted
by
ou and are
easily
confused in minuscule hands.
4)
II.
86;
cf. Galen VI
834
ed. Khn.
417
malities: 6xo'aoc 05
1).
In the
passage
from the Placita
Herophilus
makes a clear dis-
tinction between
godsent
and
non-godsent
dreams:
puaixoi,
dreams
arising
from a divine cause and dreams
arising
from natural
causes,
the latter
being
associated with the constitu-
tion of the
dreamer,
as we
might expect
from the
physician
He-
rophilus
was. I
think, therefore,
that for instance Bfchsenschftz
was
completely wrong
in
maintaining:
"Die
Beziehung
auf k6r-
perliche
Zustande,
deren
Berucksichtigung
man von einem Artzte
erwarten
sollte,
fehlt"
2).
We should remember that the
physical
state of the
body
can be foreseen
by
the
soul,
as
Hippocrates
clearly
stated for the first time. But we cannot call the class of the
cpu6cxov 6veipoi merely 'predictive
dreams of the
soul',
for this is
only
the
interpretation
of but
they
are dreams caused
by
natural
causes,
as contrasted with divine
causes
telling
the dreamer r6
auyppov
xml r6
7tpO
Tourouq
3)
So
Herophilus'
first class consists of dreams that are due to a
divine
origin,
whether we read or
OeonvEUC7,rOU4.
They
happen
xT'
&v&yx'Y)v,
which
probably
means that the human
being
has no
part
in it as to their
origin;
in other
words,
they
are sent
from
outside,
from the
gods.
This class coincides with the OeZcx
E-vu7rvLoc of
Hippocrates 4),
who reserves the
interpretation
of this
category
for the
dream-interpreters.
So we
may
take it as certain
that
Herophilus
followed
Hippocrates
in his
description
of these
two classes.
But what about the third class attributed to
Herophilus ?
A
glance
at Diels'
Doxogyaphi
will tell us that there is not even a
communis
obinio
on the exact
wording
of the
passage.
C. Fredrich
adopted
a
conjecture by
Diels and read
?v?u?.TCxouS 5).
This
1)
II.
87.
This same
opinion
is held
by
Galen VI
833
Khn,
although
he
puts
it in a
negative
form:
2)
B.
Bchsenschtz,
Traum und
Traumdeutung
im Alterthume
(1868,
repr.
Wiesbaden
1967), 34.
He was followed
by
M.
Gelzer,
op.
cit.,
42.
3) Cf. above, p. 416, note 3.
4)
II.
87.
5) Op.
cit., 215.
418
conjecture
at first seems
attractive,
if one looks at the
passages
which Diels and Fredrich adduce to
support
their view.
However,
this
conjecture
has been refuted in
part by
M.
Gelzer,
whose further
conclusions I shall not
follow 1).
In addition to this refutation it
may
be remarked that the fundamental difference between dreams
originated by
the soul and those
originated by
the human
body,
which Diels and Fredrich seem to
presuppose,
did not exist at all.
Bodily
conditions
might
be seen
by
the soul in
dreams,
as
Hippo-
crates tells us
2).
The
reading
'mixed
together' gives
rise to con-
siderable difficulties.
Firstly,
what has been mixed
together ?
Secondly,
how are we to
explain
ex To6 which seems to
mean almost the same as X (X'!" And
thirdly,
what about
X CXT
I think that Dodds was on the
right
road,
when he
suggested
that the words oTav a
pouxlye0m
Tow
v form a fourth class
3).
Dodds further thinks
that these "'mixed' dreams are dreams of monsters
which on Democritus'
theory 4)
arise from a fortuitous
conjunction
of He should have referred to the same
chapter
in the
Placita,
where it is said:
rouq
lveipovq Y,LvzaoocL
XOC'7o'c
'!'(;)v d8N)V
napaa?aa?v.
This rather
disproves
his
theory,
for
in Democritus'
theory
all dreams come about
by way
of a con-
1) Op.
cit.,
41
f. Gelzer sees the
relationship
between
Herophilus
and
Artemidorus as follows:
= =
and
=
The
following objections
can be raised:
a)
It is not clear
why
Artemidorus should have followed the
medical tradition in his classification of
dreams;
b)
Artemidorus has five
classes,
whereas
Herophilus
has
only
three;
c)
Artemidorus does not start
from an
aetiological reasoning,
as
Herophilus
seems to do
especially
in his
first and second
classes;
d)
The
parallels
between
Synesius
and Artemidorus
which Gelzer adduces to
prove
his
theory,
do not
prove
that their classifi-
cation-systems
were the
same,
but
only
that there are certain connections
between Artemidorus and
Synesius
in their views on the
aetiology
of the
dream.
2)
II.
87;
cf. also
Herophilus'
second class.
3) Op.
cit., 124,
note 28.
4)
As
Blum,
op.
cit., 69 already observed, might
be Democritean in
origin;
cf. Plut. Plac.
899
E
and Plut. Conv.
735
B
(sc.
419
junction
of and
certainly
not all dreams were dreams of
monsters. 'Fortuitous' is Dodds' translation of casu in Lucr.
5, 741,
but there is not a
single corresponding
word in the Greek text of the
Placita.
Futhermore,
against
Dodds'
interpretation
of the third class it
might
be asked whether it needs have a Democritean
origin,
and
why
all of a sudden this Democritean
theory emerges
in the work
of this medical writer. We further should bear in mind that e18mxov
does not have a Democritean flavour
every
time that the word
occurs,
and
that,
notwithstanding
the
parallels
which Blum
1)
adduces,
7tpcr7t'!')m
is not
exclusively
a Democritean
word,
and
neither is
?cPoa?ri?Twv 2).
Moreover
7po'a7rrwgL4
is not the same as
7t(XprXcr'!'(Xm.
Therefore Dodds'
"(fortuitous) conjunction
of
may
be a translation of but
certainly
not of
1tpcr7t'!')m.
It has been
suggested
to me that this mixture to which
auy-
refers,
is a mixture of divine and human causes. Then
xT'
r?Poanic?aw
would be the divine
component
and
pouxlye0m
the human one. But as Dodds
already
noticed
3),
"a dream of one's beloved is not a 'mixed' dream ....
in
any
sense". One also
expects
that,
if
auyxpmym<ixo4q
were the
correct
reading,
the mixture would consist of
0el<ey<<oq
and
cpvwxoS,
but a
pouxlye0m
can
hardly
be called
The words ex Tou xT' d8N)V
npo?nTC?aw
have
nothing
to do with the
divine,
but rather
suggest
a mechanical automatism.
On the other
hand,
Artemidorus also mentions that are
common to both
body
and soul
4),
and it is in
just
this connection
that he mentions the
examples
of a lover
being together
with his
beloved
boy
in his
dreams,
and a sick man
dreaming
of
being
healed.
If this remark has
anything
to do with
Herophilus'
classification,
1)
Cf. the
preceding
note.
2)
The verb for instance occurs twelve times in
Hippocrates'
cf. R.
Joly, Hippocrate, Du Rgime (Paris 1967),
index,
s.v.
3) Op.
cit., 124,
note 28. This holds
good
as far as the
categories
'divine'
and
'physical'
are concerned. In Artem.
4,
2 we read about dreams that are
a mixture of somatic and
psychic
elements,
it seems.
Artem. 4, 4
Pack The text is somewhat
confused;
cf.
below,
p. 421.
Reiske's
conjecture
is now confirmed
by
the
recently
discovered Arab translation of the first three books of
Artemidorus;
cf. Gnomon
37 (1965), 671.
The
passage
seems to have a
very
medical colour.
420
it would
give
a clue as to the sense of then the
origins
of such dreams would have been mixed
together,
that is to
say,
these dreams would be
products
of both
body
and soul. How-
ever,
the
supposed
mixture would consist of
cpumx
and
Body
and soul as
origins
of such dreams then would not be in
accordance with these terms. So Artemidorus is better left
out,
at least for the moment.
But what if we read
auyxp?KTLxouf; ?
This in fact has
already
been done
by
M. Wellmann
1),
and to
my
mind he has come
up
with some
good
reasons. He referred to Soranus
2)
for evidence that
Herophilus
used the word
a4yxpiym especially
to describe a
part
of
the
body.
To this
may
be added the use of the word
by
Galen and
Soranus in the sense of 'anatomical
structure',
to show that it was
well known in medical circles. Hence Wellmann concluded: "Die
6veipoi auyxpL?t(xTLxot
sind also
Traum,
welche durch ein
Organ
des
Korpers hervorgerufen
werden".
The fact that the
reading auyxpL?taTLxo'uq
comes from Galen is
in its favour. Galen was the man who must have had a better know-
ledge
of medical terms than the writer of the Placita.
Besides,
it is
more
probable
that someone
changed auyxpiym<ixo4q,
which he
did not
understand,
into a word the sense of which would be
immediately
clear. It is also
quite possible
that the scribe had in
mind a three-fold classification of
dreams,
for instance the one
by
Posidonius and
Cicero,
and then
incorrectly
drew some
parallels
between the two
systems 3) .
And so he credited
Herophilus
as well
with a three-fold
system,
the third class of which
being
a sort of
combination of the other two.
All this seems to me sufficient reason for
keeping
Galen's
reading
cyuyxpL?taTLxouq.
But then what of Tou As I have
already
noticed,
x rou seems to
express
almost the same
1)
ber
Trume,
Arch. f. Gesch. d. Mediz.
(1924), 72;
cf. A.
Palm,
Studien
zur
Hippokratischen Schrift (Tiibingen 1933), 72,
who
adopts
his conclusions.
2) Gynaec. 1131, 85 (p. 372, 13
ed.
Rose).
3)
Such
parallels
were in fact drawn
by
Wellmann,
op.
cit.,
72.
This of
course is
wrong,
for
Herophilus
did not follow Posidonius'
classification,
but
adopted
the views of
Hippocrates
on these
matters,
certainly
so for his
first and second classes.
421
thought
as xT'
&vrXyx'Y)v.
Some scholars therefore have treated it as a
gloss
and excluded it from the text
1).
But it is not
quite
the same
as x(x'!"
ocvocyxyl having
of itself
already
connections with
the
divine,
i.c. ex Tou
certainly
does not have
this colour.
Here, therefore,
it indicates a
corporal
automatism
showing
itself to the dreamer's mind xT' d8c0)v
7rp6a7rrwatv.
The
"3wXa occasioned
by physical
stimuli
automatically
reach the
mind of the dreamer. I think that
by
these observations we can meet
Dodds' criticism of Wellmann's
reading 2).
Now we are left with a
pouxlye0m
etc.,
for this
kind of dreams cannot be
explained
as
corporal
automatisms
only.
As I observed
above,
Dodds'
suggestion
that this
might
form a
fourth
class,
to me at
least,
seems attractive. So
something
must
have
dropped
out after
7tpcr7t'!'Cmv 3).
It
may
not then be
pure
coincidence that Galen's text is
very
confused
precisely
in these
last lines.
I
suggest
that after
7tpcr7t'!')mv
we should read
ro'uq
8E
uxixo4q 4).
For this
seemingly
wild
conjecture
a
parallel
is to be found in
Artemidorus: 8E Tou',7cov rcov & 8c' v8eimv
K 8e
, ?rr?pcasoi? , ?
'RCOV 8' K
plpov
oc. 8'e
,
at'
5).
It is rather remarkable that
only
a few lines
before,
Artemidorus
speaks
about lovers
dreaming
of their beloved
boys s),
although
the text seems to be somewhat confused.
Furthermore,
this
chapter
in Artemidorus has an
undeniably
medical colour
7).
1)
So
Diels,
Dox.
Gr.,
416,
followed
by
Blum,
op.
cit., 69.
2) Op.
cit.,
124,
note 28.
3)
Cf. the critical
apparatus
in
Diels' Dox. Gr.,
640.
4)
It is not the word that is of most
importance,
but rather the
idea of a
separate
class of
dreams,
for which we can find
parallels
in other
medical writers.
5) 4, 7-9
Pack.
6) 4, 2-3 Pack;
cf.
3, 17-18
Pack;
Macr. Comm. 1
3, 4 si
amator deliciis
suis aut
fruentem
se videat aut
carentem ;
Schol. on Ar. Nub. 16.
Perhaps
this
kind of dreams was a common
topic
in the medical schools. Such dreams
were
already
mentioned
by
Aristotle Insomn.
460
b
5-8,
who of course
treated them
quite differently.
7)
Cf. Artem.
239, 2-4
cf. Artem.
4, 5-7 ;
Hipp. 93, 2-3.
Galen attaches
importance only
to the somatic
cause,
leaving
the
psychological
one
out;
cf.
VI
834
Kiihn
422
Speculative though my conjecture may
seem,
if we
accept
the
insertion of
ro'uq
8s we have a classification of dreams
which shows a
good
deal of
relationship
to the theories
put
forward
first
by Hippocrates,
and later on
by
Galen. And this
certainly
is
something
we
might expect
in
Herophilus 1).
A short
recapitulation
shows the
following
results. First He-
rophilus
draws a distinction between and
cpuavxoi 6veipoi,
that
is,
as to the
origin
of the dream. His
theory
is that
they
come
about either because of some divine influence or
by
certain natural
causes,
that
is,
when the soul is active in the
body
and forms mental
images.
So this first
part
is an answer to the vexed
question
of how
do dreams arise.
Then
Herophilus
elaborates the second
possibility,
viz. the kind
of dreams that were
important
to him as a
physician.
He then asks
himself: what do these dreams result from or
by
what are
they
caused,
in
short,
why
do we have such dreams ? He finds two
causes,
namely
a
physiological
one and a
psychological
one;
such
dreams are the result of either
psychological
or somatic troubles
2).
Until now I have
only
hinted at Galen's views on the dream. I am
fairly
sure that his ideas must have some
relationship
to the
theory
ascribed to
Herophilus.
Therefore I
quote
the most
important
passage
on dreams in his works in full
3) :
8E EV
TOGS
oux
To6 rdvzw
cpaviaaia xmplq
To6
ml>mXa01
7rCkVU
X(x6(X7rSp
x1
To6 a01cw
iTCX?CF'7(Oq
Toiq 7tZLV&m,
TOU 8
7oZq
O'7tp[1.iXTOe; r?a?peaw.
It
may
be noticed that in each of the
passages
adduced there is talk of
shortness and abundance of food and drink on the one
hand,
and of fear and
hope (or desire)
on the other hand.
1)
Cf.
Dignot.
ex Insomn.
(VI 832-835 Khn).
A
large part
of
De Dignatione
has been
repeated
in Galen's
commentary
on
Hippocrates'
De Humoribus
II 2
(Khn
XVI
219-226).
The more theoretical
part,
however,
has been
left out.
2)
In this
way Hippocrates distinguishes
between dreams caused
by
wishes of the soul
93, 3),
and
e.g.
those caused
by
want of food
93, 2).
It is rather
surprising,
that
Dodds, op. cit., 124,
note
28,
after his
sugges-
tion of a fourth class
arising
from did not think of the
pos-
sibility
that the third class
might
arise from
bodily
disorders.
3)
Kiihn VI
833.
423
The first
thing
to notice is that Galen does not consider all
dreams to be of value for the
diagnosis
of his
patients.
He
clearly
allows room for mantic dreams. So we
again
have a division into
medical and non-medical
dreams,
which
Herophilus
also
made,
with an
important
modification,
however. For Galen does not
credit the
gods
with the
sending
of
prophetic
dreams,
but considers
this, too,
to be a
faculty
of the human soul
1).
The words cw
7tECPPOV'!'[X(X!LEV
bear resemblance to the a
pouxlye0m
of
Herophilus:
both clauses
express
kinds of
wish-fulfilment-dreams. So Galen also
gives
an answer here to the
question zvky
dreams occur.
Another
possibility,
then,
is that dreams are the result of our
daily occupations, thoughts
of which
occupy
us even in our
sleep 2).
But that is not all. Galen
clearly
states that because of these
various sorts of dreams it becomes difficult to
give
a
diagnosis
of
the
body by
virtue of the drams
arising
from that
very body.
Now at first
sight
dreams that arise from the
body
seem to be
the
only
sort there is.
However,
a few lines further on Galen im-
plicitly
seems to make a
sharp
distinction between the
purely
mantic dreams and those
arising
from the
body 3).
It
may
be con-
cluded that he did not hold mantic dreams to come
directly
from
the
body.
This, then,
brings
his
theory
closer to the classification
of
Herophilus:
Galen has mantic
dreams,
without
explaining
how
exactly they
arise,
only stating
that it is the soul that
displays
a
mantic
activity,
whereas
Herophilus
has
Eveipoi.
But neither the kind of dreams that results from our
daily
occu-
pations,
nor the one that results from what we
continually
think
about,
has
any significance
for
diagnosing
the
body.
Galen
says:
1)
So in his
opinion
the
only way
in which dreams can
arise,
is
through
the
working
of the
soul,
either or in the
sphere
of the
bodily
con-
stitution. As he
adds,
it is often
very
difficult to choose between the two.
2)
Cf. Aristotle's
theory
in his work on
dreams,
Div. Somn.
463
a
25;
and
Hippocrates
88,
1-2.
3)
(VI 833 Khn).
424
easy
for
Galen,
if he
only
had to make a distinction between
'Tagesreste' -dreams
and medical
ones,
to consider those dreams the
result of a
bodily
constitution that showed no connections with our
daily waking-life.
His
point
is that the mantic dreams make such a
distinction
extremely
difficult.
However,
it seems to be clear that
Galen wishes to
distinguish
also between
purely
somatic
(that
is,
being
of value for the
diagnosis)
dreams,
and dreams that result
from so-called
'Tagesreste'.
In fact this is the same distinction that
Herophilus
made,
namely
between
cruyxpc?,T?xo?
and what I
exempli gratia
called
By way
of
summary
it
may
be said that there is a
great
deal of
resemblance between
Herophilus'
and Galen's
conceptions
of the
dream. Both
distinguished
between
godsent, c.q.
mantic,
dreams
and non-mantic dreams. The last class fell within the
competence
of the
physicians.
This sort of dreams arises from natural
causes,
which can be divided into
psychological
and somatic causes
2).
1)
VI
833 (Khn).
2)
I thank Dr. K.
J. McKay
from
Melbourne,
who
during
his recent visit
to this
country
found some
spare
time to turn
my English
into a more in-
telligible
form. Prof. Verdenius and Prof. Waszink have read this
paper
in
typescript
and made some valuable
suggestions,
for which I am
grateful.
UTRECHT,
Vleutenseweg 163