But it is an abuse of time to commit such dreams to paper. - Vit. Tit. Livii. a Jac, Phil. Tomas. conscript. Verum eaim vero, & c.

Th at the pretensions of antiquity fo. the claim of inspired dreams may be fairly examined, another chapter or two should be assigned to some other accounts, which have been transmitted to us, with a show of authority, and which may equally be explained on very simple considerations.

The dream in which the apprehensions of Antigonus, king of Macedonia, foresaw the flight of Mithridates, the illustrious captive, whom after the conquest of Persia he detained in his service, and whom he imagined to have reduced away the flower of his troops, may be referred to the jealous penetration of Antigouus, who might have detected the views of Mithridates, and whose sleeping thoughts might have revived the solicitude of the day.

The account is as follows: - Antigonus dreamed that he sowed gold in a spacious field, and that the seed sprung up, flourished, and ripened; but that soon after the golden harvest was reaped, and nothing left but the worthless stubble and stalks, and that then he heard a voice proclaim that Mithridates was fled to the Euxine Sea, carrying with him all the harvest: the king being awake, and exceedingly terrified, resolved to cut off Mithridates, and communicated the matter to Demetrius, exacting of him a previous oath of silence. Demetrius, who was favourably disposed towards Mithridates, met him on coming from the king. The young prince compassionated his friend, and was restrained only by a reverence for his oath from openly imparting the secret. Taking him.

however, aside, he wrote on the sand with the point of his spear, "Fly Mithridates." Admonished by these words, and the countenance of Demetrius, Mithridates fled into Cappadocia, and not long after founded the famous and powerful kingdom of Pontus, which continued from him to the eighth descent, the last Mithridates being with much difficulty overthrown by all the power and forces of the Romans *.

It may be incidentally remarked, that the conduct of Demetrius reminds us of the amiable kindness of Jonathan towards David, in counselling his flight from the envious jealousy of Saul †.

Some dreams may reasonably be ascribed to political contrivance, as those related by Herodotus to have occurred to Xerxes and Arta-banus, on occasion of the Persian expedition into Greece. In the former a person of remarkable stature and beauty is represented to have twice expostulated with Xerxes for wavering in his resolution, in consequence of the suggestions of Artabanus, who had urged the danger of the invasion; and on his determiua- tion to undertake the war, the wreath of an olive tree, whose branches covered the earth, is described to have crowned him in intimation of victory, as the Magi misinterpreted the fallacious omen. In the latter the same phantom remonstrated with Artabanus for endeavouring to prevent the execution of the design. Some writers consider this as the invention of Artabanus, willing to soothe the king by artfully acceding to his favourite scheme, but perhaps all may be regarded as the concerted fabrication of Xerxes and Artabanus, desirous of exciting a confidence in the public mind, by representing the expedition as countenanced by the gods *. If there were any thing preternatural in the dream, it was the suggestion of an evil spirit, which impelled Xerxes and his army to destruction.

* Plutarch, in Demetrio et Appian. † 1 Sam, chap, xx.

* Herod. L. vii. C. 12, §, 19.

* Julius Caesar is reported to have projected the rebuilding of Carthage, in consequence of a dream in which he beheld a great army in affliction inviting him to the work, and Augustus is reported to have accomplished the design in regard to the memory of his uncle. But dreams which were related to have happened on the buildings of cities, and the establishment of colonies, were endless; upon which we may observe in the words of Livy, "As for those things which are related before the building of the city, which are more like poetical decorations than historical truths, I neither wish to affirm or refute them: we grant this indulgence to antiquity, that by mingling divine with, human circumstances, it rendered the origins of cities more august †."

* Appian.

† Livii Hist Pref.

The dreams which are said to have predicted the character and actions of illustrious men, appear often to be but nursery inventions, or the flatteries and embellishments of history.

Such as was that of Agariste, the mother of Pericles *, who dreamt before his birth that she was delivered of a lion; and to mention no more, those of Octavius and Attia, the parents of Augustus, the latter of whom fancied, the day before her delivery, that her bowels were carried up as high as heaven, and thence spread out to cover the earth †.

Almost all the Roman emperors professed to have had presages, or found others to proclaim the indications that foreshewed their greatness. The elegant flattery of Cicero beheld Octavianus, whom the favour of Caesar had destined to the empire, let down in a golden chair from heaven *; and Quintus Catulus, another noble Roman, pretended to have seen Jupiter deliver into his hands, while yet a child, the ensigns of the Roman people †.

* Plut. in Pericles.

† Sabell. Ex L. i. C. i. P. 6,

The auspicious dream of Trajan, who was crowned in his sleep, and of Hadrian, who experienced uninjured the descent of celestial fire ‡; and of Antoninus, who fancied that he had shoulders and arms of ivory §; of Severus, who imagined that he mounted the horse which had thrown Pertinax to the ground ||; and many others, that might be mentioned, carry the air of fiction; and are such as Cicero places on a footing with those of AEneas and Hecuba. They remind us of the dream which Euripides attributes to Iphigenia when in Tauris, in which she, fancying herself with her virgin followers at Aulis, beheld the roofs of Palaces shattered by an earthquake, and one column standing alone amidst the wreck of her fathers house, expressive, as she conceived, of the death of Orestes.