§ i. What amount of argument, Sossius Senecio,…

tyrannical, "for it attempts incest," he says, "with its mother, and procures for itself unlawful meats, and gives itself up to the most abandoned desires, such as in daytime the law through shame and fear debars people from." As then beasts of burden that have been well-trained do not, even if their driver let go the reins, attempt to turn aside and leave the proper road, but go forward orderly as usual, pursuing their way without stumbling, so those whose unreason has become obedient and mild and tempered by reason, will not easily wish, either in dreams or in illnesses, to deal insolently or lawlessly through their desires, but will keep to their usual habits, which acquire their power and force by attention. For if the body can by training make itself and its members so subject to control, that the eyes in sorrow can refrain from tears, and the heart from palpitating in fear, and the passions can be calm in the presence of beautiful youths and maidens, is it not far more likely that the training of the passions and emotions of the soul will allay, tame down, and mould their propensities even in dreams? A story is told about the philosopher Stilpo,³⁶ that he thought he saw in a dream Poseidon angry with him because he had not sacrificed an ox to him, as was usual among the Megarians:³⁷ and that he, not a bit frightened, said, "What are you talking about, Poseidon? Do you come here as a peevish boy, because I have not with borrowed money filled the town with the smell of sacrifice, and have only sacrificed to you out of what I had at home on a modest scale?" Then he thought that Poseidon smiled at him, and held out his right hand, and said that for his sake he would give the Megarians a large shoal of anchovies. Those, then, that have such pleasant, clear, and painless dreams, and no frightful, or harsh, or malignant, or untoward apparition, may be said to have reflections of their progress in virtue; whereas agitation and panics and ignoble flights, and boyish delights, and lamentations in the case of sad and strange dreams, are like the waves that break on the coast, the soul not having yet got its proper composure, but being still in course of being moulded by opinions and laws, from which it escapes in dreams as far as possible, so