DREAMS IN THE ANCIENT GRECO-ROMAN WORLD

It is important to suspend cynical disbelief with regards to the act of foreseeing the future if one is to understand the classification of dreams and dream exploration in antiquity. Cicero, although a cynic, gives the clearest explanation of this. He classifies dreams and visions as naturally divined because they have to do with the unmanipulated manifestations of the unrestrained human spirit. As he says, "one by frenzy and the other by dreams". (Cicero,227) Conversely, he describes artificial divination is the interpretation of every day things as signs. It is the more scientific of the two methods. However, with that said, it is important to note that although a great many people considered divination a tried and true way to know the unknowable, there were also those who considered it as inexact as many people would consider it today. Which leads to the question at hand; Is divination- specifically through dreams a legitimate science, and if it is, are all methods of it legitimate?

In her book, Dreams in Late Antiquity, Penelope Cox Miller gives an illuminating interpretation of Cicero's judgment that
dream analysis is a useless false science. She says that he claims that "most people don't even remember their dreams so do the gods then care for people by sending them crucial information in vain packages?".(Miller,45) In addition she gives examples of dreams whose "interpretations and reality only coincide by virtue of a hit-or miss procedure based on chance an luck."(Miller 45) This, brings up a crucial issue in both in the modern world of dream interpretation as well as the ancient. Divination through dreams is entirely subjective, and the knowledge gained lies wholly in the hands of the particular diviner who could easily angle the interpretation in whatever way he chose. However, the more popular opinion was that it was legitimate. In fact, the question of legitimacy raised most often was not the accuracy of the prophesy or interpretation. The prevalent question in antiquity was actually questioned the appropriateness of certain aspects of the "dream" science such as divinatory magic spells. Religion is good and respectable but magic is not, yet the line between them is almost invisibly fine. A person could be accused of performing magic as a bad thing, as Apuleius described in his Apology. Yet, another person could be praised for doing the same thing if it was considered religion. The Greek Magical Papyri contains spells wherein the supplicant is asking for a divinatory dream or asking for an answer from a particular god/ess. These spells were considered non religious and worse than that, "compulsive and egotistic".(Miller, 117) Yet, it truly does not seem so very different than a person staring at birds or examining entrails for that same purpose. Obviously, some people must have believed that as well because otherwise magic would not have been as common as it was. Betz says in the PGM introduction,"the magician could give people the feeling that he could make things work in a world where nothing seemed to..." (Betz, xlvii). He, according to other sources was prone to exaggeration, yet the idea is clear. Unlike Cicero and others who shunned magic, there were people who turned towards magic for help. That is,magicians and their clients were not turning away from religion in the least, but instead were trying help themselves maintain some sense of control over their own lives in the Greco-Roman world, a world that was changing on a daily basis. (Betz,xlvii) Again, this idea of religious divination and that of magic have parallels illustrated most clearly through the example of dreams.

Incubation is the act of sleeping inside a temple in order to relieve a healing divinatory dream. There were in fact, "at least two hundred... healing centers"in the ancient world. (Miller, 110) It was considered a perfectly acceptable thing to do in order find out how a person could cure whatever ailed him. In fact, there was a whole legally sanctioned cult in the second century based around healing in sleep, through the power of the god Asclepius. (Miller, 108) People would arrive at the temple and go to sleep, and, if healed in sleep, or likewise given instruction on how to heal themselves, would, upon waking, make offers to Asclepius. Other kinds of foretelling from dreams were respected because in sleep, the human soul is closer to the gods. So, it only makes sense that if sleeping in a temple did not help a person's sickness they would try something stronger, such as personally and formally asking a god for such a healing dream. Yet, although it makes sense, the stronger pleas for cure were considered magic and therefore illegal. Important to note however, is that while incubation was used primarily for physical ailments (perhaps because they were easier to cure, the supplicant either died or got better), the magical pleas, found in The Greek Magical Papyri, focused more on emotional disease. PGM IV. 3172-3208, is a dream producing spell reproduced below

Dream producing charm using three reeds: the picking of the
three reeds is to be before sunrise. After sunset raise the first, look / to the east and say three times:ÓMASKELLI MASKELLO PHNOUKENTABAO OREOBAZAGRA REXICHTHON HIPPOCHTHON PYRIPEGANYX AEEIOYO LEPETAN AZARACHTHARO, I am pcikcing you up in order that you might give me a dream.Ó/ Raise the second to the south and say again the ÒMASKELLIÓ formula, the vowels and ÒThrobeiaÓ; hold the reed and spin around; look toward the north and the west and say three times the same names,/those of the second reed. Raise the thrid and say the same names and these things:ÓIE IE, I am picking you for such-and-such a rite.Ó
These things are to be written on the reeds: On the first: ÒazarachtharoÓ; on the second: ÒThrobeiaÓ;/ on the third:ÓIE IE.Ó\
Then take a lamp that is not painted red and fill it with pure olive oil. Take a clean strip of cloth and write down all the names. Say the same things to the lamp secen times. Let the lamp be facing east/ and let it be next to a censor on which you will make a offering of lumps of frankincense. After preparing the reeds and binding them together with fibers of a date palm, make them into a kind of tripod, and place the lamp on it. Let the lead of the practitioner be crowned with olive branches.
Composition of the ink with which it is necessary to write/on the reeds and the wick: single stemmed wormwood, vetch, 3 pits of Nicolaus date palms, 3 Karian dried figs, soot for a goldsmith, # branches of a male date palm, sea foam.
The things to be written/and recited are these: ÒI conjure you by the sleep releaser because i want you to enter into me and to show me concerning the NN matter, IERORIETHEDIEN THROU CHAORA ARPEBO ENDALELAÓ

Fear of the unknown is one of the most common human emotions and in the Greco-Roman world, the unknown may have sometimes seemed infinite. Any possible way to foretell the future was a better comfort than having no idea about what the next day would bring. Therefore, it is clear why so much emphasis was put on divination: it was a form of security. However, the fear that drove them trust in the dreams also made them suspicious of magic. Perhaps fearing that the gods would be angered by the disrespect of the more aggressive magical requests and as a result answer neither the religious nor the magical prayers.

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