Book 2, Chapter 66
Original Latin
135 Ergo obscura somnia minime consentanea maiestati deorum.
Ad aperta et clara veniamus, quale est de illo interfecto a caupone Megaris, quale de Simonide, qui ab eo, quem humarat, vetitus est navigare, quale etiam de Alexandro, quod a te praeteritum esse miror, Quinte. Cum Ptolomaeus, familiaris eius, in proelio telo venenato ictus esset eoque vulnere summo cum dolore moreretur, Alexander adsidens somno est consopitus. Tum secundum quietem visus ei dicitur draco is, quem mater Olympias alebat, radiculam ore ferre et simul dicere, quo illa loci nasceretur (neque is longe aberat ab eo loco), eius autem esse vim tantam, ut Ptolomaeum facile sanaret. Cum Alexander experrectus narrasset amicis somnium, emissi sunt, qui illam radiculam quaererent; qua inventa et Ptolomaeus sanatus dicitur et multi milites, qui erant eodem genere teli vulnerati.
Musean translation
Complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the Latin in separate source-only tasks and reviewed throughout against it. Both books, all 130 chapters and 282 numbered sections; no historical English translation used. Latin transcription credited to the Perseus Project under CC BY-SA 4.0, Müller’s 1915 Teubner edition.
135 “Obscure dreams, then, are wholly incompatible with the gods’ majesty.
“Let us turn to plain, clear dreams: the one about the man murdered by the innkeeper at Megara; the one about Simonides, who was forbidden to sail by the man he had buried; and the one about Alexander, which I am surprised you passed over, Quintus. When his friend Ptolemy was struck in battle by a poisoned missile and lay dying in great agony from the wound, Alexander sat beside him and fell asleep. In his sleep, they say, he saw the serpent his mother Olympias kept, carrying a little root in its mouth and telling him where it grew—not far from where they were. Its power, the serpent said, was such that it would readily cure Ptolemy. Alexander woke and told his friends the dream. Men were sent to seek the little root; when it was found, Ptolemy is said to have been cured, along with many soldiers wounded by the same kind of missile.
Plain English translation
Complete machine-assisted Plain English translation, made independently and directly from the Latin, never from the Musean edition. Both books and every numbered section; a separate Latin-source model review covered the entire text. No human specialist review is claimed.
135 “So obscure dreams are entirely out of keeping with the gods' dignity.
“Let us turn to open, clear ones. There is the dream about the man killed by the innkeeper at Megara, and the dream of Simonides, whom the man he had buried forbade to sail. There is also Alexander's dream. I am surprised you left it out, Quintus. His friend Ptolemy had been hit in battle by a poisoned weapon and was dying in great pain from the wound. Alexander sat beside him and fell asleep. Then, the story goes, he dreamed that the snake his mother Olympias kept brought a little root in its mouth. It also told him where the root grew, not far from where he was, and said it had such power that it would easily cure Ptolemy. Once awake, Alexander described his dream to his friends, and men were sent out in search of that little root. With the root found, the story says, both Ptolemy and many soldiers hit by weapons of the same kind were cured.
About this section
Book 2, Chapter 66 is part of On Divination by Marcus Tullius Cicero. This page sets the Latin original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 124 of 130 in the work, which is kept in the Roman tradition.
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