1. “The Dream of Scipio” — “Somnium Scipionis” — occupies
most of the sixth book of Cicero’s “Republic;” which, indeed, as
it has come down to us, is otherwise imperfect. Scipio
Africanus Minor is represented as relating a dream which he had
when, in B.C. 149, he went to Africa as military tribune to the
fourth legion. He had talked long and earnestly of his adoptive
grandfather with Massinissa, King of Numidia, the intimate
friend of the great Scipio; and at night his illustrious ancestor
appeared to him in a vision, foretold the overthrow of Carthage
and all his other triumphs, exhorted him to virtue and patriotism
by the assurance of rewards in the next world, and discoursed
to him concerning the future state and the immortality of the
soul. Macrobius, about AD. 500, wrote a Commentary upon the
“Somnium Scipionis,” which was a favourite book in the Middle
Ages. See note 17 to The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.
2. Y-nome: taken; past participle of “nime,” from Anglo-Saxon,
“niman,” to take.
3. His grace: the favour which the gods would show him, in
delivering Carthage into his hands.
4. “Vestra vero, quae dicitur, vita mors est.” (“Truly, as is said,
your life is a death”)
5. The nine spheres are God, or the highest heaven, constraining
and containing all the others; the Earth, around which the
planets and the highest heaven revolve; and the seven planets:
the revolution of all producing the “music of the spheres.”