DREAM OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT. 65 65 surprised at what Alexander had done, and supposed him disordered in his mind. However, Parmenio alone went up to him, and asked him, how it came to pass that, when all others adored him, he should adore the high priest of the Jews? To whom he replied, "I did not adore him, but that God who hath honoured him with this high priesthood; for I saw this very person in a dream, in this very habit, when I was at Dios, in Macedonia, who, when I was considering with myself how I might obtain the dominion of Asia, exhorted me to make no delay, but boldly to pass over the sca thither, for that he would conduct my army and give me the dominion over the Persians; whence it is, that having seen no other in that habit, and now seeing this person in it, and remembering that vision, and the exhortation which I had in my dream, I believe that I bring this army under the divine conduct, and shall therewith conquer Darius, and destroy the power of the Persians, and that all things will succeed according to what is in my own mind." And when he had said this to Parmenio, and had given the high priest his right hand, the priests ran along by him, and he came into the city; and when he went up into the temple, he offered sacrifice to God, according to the high priest's direction, and magnificently treated both the high priest and the priests; and when the book of Daniel was showed him, wherein Daniel declared that one of VOL. II. F 66 DREAM OF HYRCANUS. the Greeks should destroy the empire of the Persians, he supposed that himself was the person intended; and as he was then glad, he dismissed the multitude for the present, but the next day he called them to him, and engaged himself to grant any favours that might be. desired of him.' 'Alexander Janneus was hated by his father, Hyrcanus, as soon as he was born, and could never be. permitted to come into his father's sight till he died. The occasion of this hatred is thus reported: When Hyrcanus chiefly loved the two eldest of his sons, Antigonus and Aristobulus, God appeared to him in his sleep, of whom he inquired which of his sons should be his successor. Upon God's representing to him the countenance of Alexander, he was grieved that he was to be the heir of all his goods, and suffered him to be--brought up in Galilee. However, God did not deceive Hyrcanus, for, after the death of Aristobulus, he certainly took the kingdom; and one of his brethren, who affected the kingdom, he slew; and the other, who chose to live a private and quiet life, he had in esteem.' -Antiquities of the Jews. DREAM OF CALPURNIA. PLUTARCH. "We are told there were strong signs and presages of the death of Cæsar. Many report that a certain soothsayer forewarned him of a great danger which threatened him on the Ides of March; and that when the day was come, as he was going to the senate-house, he called to the soothsayer, and said, laughing, "The Ides of March are come." To which he answered, softly, "Yes; but they are not gone." 'The evening before, he supped with Marcus Lepidus, and signed, according to custom, a number of letters as he sat at table. While he was so employed, there arose a question, "What kind of death was the best ?" and Cæsar, answering before them all, cried out, "A sudden one." The same night, as he was in bed with his wife, the doors and windows of the room flew open at once. Disturbed, both with the noise and the light, he observed, by moonshine, Calpurnia in a deep sleep, uttering broken words and inarticulate groans. She dreamed that she was weeping over him, as she held him, murdered, in her arms. Be that as it may, next morning she conjured Cæsar not to go out that day, if he could possibly avoid it, but to adjourn the Senate, and, if he paid no regard to her dreams, to have recourse to some other species of divination, or to 68 RALLIED TO DEATH. This gave sacrifice, for information as to his fate. him some suspicion and alarm: for he had never known before, in Calpurnia, anything of the weakness or superstition of her sex, though she was now so much affected. 'He therefore offered a number of sacrifices; and as the diviners found no auspicious tokens in any of them, he sent Antony to dismiss the Senate. In the meantime Decius Brutus, surnamed Albinus, came in. He was a person in whom Cæsar placed such confidence that he had appointed him his second heir; yet he was engaged in the conspiracy with the other Brutus and Cassius. This man, fearing that if Cæsar adjourned the Senate to another day, the affair might be discovered, laughed at the diviners, and told Cæsar he would be highly to blame if, by such a slight, he gave the Senate an occasion of complaint against him. "For they were met," he said, "at his summons, and came prepared with one voice to honour him with the title of king in the provinces, and to grant that he should wear the diadem, both by land and sea, everywhere out of Italy. But if any one go and tell them, now that they have taken their places, they must go home again, and return when Calpurnia happens to have better dreams, what room will your enemies have to launch out against you! Or, who will hear your friends when they attempt to show that this is not an open servitude on the DREAM OF HECUBA. 69 one hand, and tyranny on the other? If you are absolutely persuaded that this is an unlucky day, it is certainly better to go yourself, and tell them you have strong reasons for putting off business till another time." So saying, he took Casar by the hand, and led him out.'-Life of Julius Cæsar. So far Plutarch. The issue of that meeting of the Senate every one can supply. ANOTHER BUNDLE OF ANCIENT DREAMS. CICERO. The following is the dream of IIecuba in reference to her son Paris, who caused the destruction of his native city: 'Queen Hecuba dreamed-an ominous dream of fate That she did bear no human child of flesh, queen |