Somnium Scipionis

Scipionis Somnium (Latin, the Dream of Scipio ') is in a comment of Macrobius largely separately narrated story from the sixth book of Marcus Tullius Cicero's De re publica ( written 54-52 BC) titled. It includes chapters 9-29 of the book and the end of the whole work. Its content is the fictional story of Scipio Aemilianus ( 185-129 BC) in a discussion group in the year 129 BC He reported his eight listeners on a dream he twenty years earlier, 149 BC, on the occasion had a visit with the King Masinissa of Numidia. It assumed his adoptive grandfather Cornelius Publius Scipio Africanus ( 236-183 BC) and Lucius Aemilius Paullus his biological father ( 228-160 BC) on.

Construction

Content

The grandfather disappears; Scipio awakened.

Cosmology

In the dream is put to his grandfather Scipio Scipio Africanus, who is according to the teaching of the Pythagoreans on the Milky Way as the residence of the solute from the physicality of souls, and overlooks the entire cosmos from above. In the center rests the spherical earth and encircled by seven planetary orbits and the sphere of the fixed stars, is now located on the Scipio himself. The sphere of the fixed stars revolves from east to west, the underlying Kugelspären but in the opposite direction, and in the following order: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The rotating speeds of the spheres will depend on the clearances. According to the Pythagorean doctrine of the eight spheres of certain sounds are generated by the circles, but which can no longer be heard by the people who have become accustomed in the womb it. However, each sphere will produce a sound, wherein the pitch increases with the distance from the earth. This results in seven different by the pitch of tones, because the outermost sphere of the moon and of the stars together form an octave. The difference between the Moon and the Mercury sphere is half a tone that between Venus and the Sun and a half tones, between the Sun and Mars, Jupiter and Mars, Jupiter and Saturn each half and finally between Saturn and the firmament again one and a half tones. So Scipio overlooks a cosmos whose harmonic structure - the so-called music of the spheres - is musically perceptible.

Geography

Cicero makes Scipio Africanus maior sketch a ground on which also the emerging Roman Empire is only a small spot. Between these individual inhabited " spots" are wide solitudes, and people are sometimes so far apart that they live again on the next " hemisphere " ( North, South, East, West ) and thus they are opposites residents addition to residents and antipodes.

But not limited by the sea, but also limit the climates cultures: There are two poles, both of which are surrounded by the belts most distant. All these parts are frozen in frost. The middle belt is the largest and withered in the heat of the sun. There are only two habitable belt. The south is the northern unknown and viewed from the north, the people standing on their heads. For the earth narrows at the poles and is wider at the sides. Overall, it is a small island that is encircled by the ocean.

Reception in antiquity

Cicero's work De re publica was apparently rezipiert wide in the ancient world. Virgil's Aeneid ( visit to the underworld) In the sixth book of the Aeneid Anchises ' prophecy to Aeneas is included and is the highlight of the story. The whole thing takes place in the underworld. The Virgilian commentator Servius Maurus Honoratius (4th century AD ) claims that Aeneas dreamed of the underworld and was not really there. Cicero also tells of a dream, but unlike Virgil's Aeneid he plays with him in the height above. Macrobius ' comment For survival on the Ancient addition helped the final part of the soon lost work de re publica Macrobius with a comment that precipitated many times longer than the annotated passage, namely includes two books that Macrobius divided .. saw in the tradition of the Neoplatonic school Macrobius in this comment a teacher replacement that his pupils should explain the philosophically -laden text; then align the two books to Macrobius Macrobius son Eustathius .. Although not commented on all the passages of the original ( he cites about 60 % of it and in particular does the frame story without comment ), but treats the quoted it in the order specified in the original.

But Macrobius cites not only Cicero but also Plato ( 428/427-348/347 BC) and Plotinus ( 205-270 AD ) and Porphyry ( 234 to early 4th century AD). His work was cited by the 10th century a lot, so probably also read widely and then rediscovered by Petrarch. The work also maps of the world were attached, one of which even Columbus studied one.

Reception and appreciation in modern times

  • The Italian humanist Francesco Petrarch called Marcus Tullius Cicero as his idol. He admired him for his writing skills. So it is obvious that he is also to Cicero's play " The Dream of Scipio " his comment Somnium Scipionis wrote.
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed Il sogno di Scipione 1772, inspired by Cicero's Somnium Scipionis opera.
  • Richard Harder called Cicero's Somnium Scipionis as a philosophical excellence, which has up to the present influences many other works.

Werkausgaben

  • See De re publica

Audiobook:

  • Somnium Scipionis a Cicerone scriptum, read by Nikolaus Gross, publishing LEO Latinus, undated. ISBN 978-3-938905-17-3
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus Porphyry (philosopher) Publius Rutilius Rufus Integrated Authority File
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