Lion's Head, to have imagined in a sleep, into which he had fallen in the middle of the day, that he beheld the goddess Cybele, who advised him to fly the Lion's Head, unless he meant to fall into the Lion's jaws, requiring the dedication of his daughter Mnesiptoleme as an acknowledgment for the intimation. Themistocles, we are told, avoided the city in obedience to the suggestion, and thereby escaped the Pisidians, who had been engaged by Epixia the Persian to assassinate him*; and in grateful memory of the deliverance, built a temple in the city of Magnesia, which he dedicated to Cybele Dyndimene, appointing his daughter to be the priestess.

On another occasion, when concealed at Ege, a city of the Etolians, he is reported to have dreamed, that Olbius, the tutor of the children of his host, appeared to him one

*Plut. in Themist,

night after a sacrificial feast, and in a prophetic rapture, úttered this verse:

"Counsel, O Night, and victory are thine!"

after which he also dreamed, that a dragon coiled itself round his body, and on creeping up his neck, and touching his face, was turned into an eagle, which spread his wings over him, and flew away with him to a distant place; where he beheld a golden sceptre, upon which he rested in security, and free from fear. The circumstances of the dream were supposed to have been completed in the escape of Themistocles from the house, by a stratagem of Nicogenes, in the covered carriage of a woman, and in his favourable reception by Ar

taxerxes.

Peticius, who received Pompey into his bark, when flying from the battle of Pharsalia, is said to have beholden, when in port at Larissa, in his sleep, on a preceding night, the vanquished hero unattended and wretchedly

clothed, approaching him*, and to have told the dream to his companions before its accomplishment.

Historians report of Artorius, or, as some style him, of Marcus Antonius Musa, the physician of Octavianus, afterwards Augustus, that Minerva appeared to him in a dream the night before the battle of Philippi, enjoining him to warn Octavianus not to omit being present at the battle, notwithstanding his severe disorder. In consequence of which Octavianus, being carried in his litter into the field, escaped from the soldiers of Brutus, who gained possession of his camp with the expectation of killing him.

If we regard these as instances of a providential care of distinguished men, we must

* Alexander ab Alex. Genial. Dier. L. ii. C. 26.

+ Plutarch. Ant. C. 28. Valerius Maxim. L. vii. Velleius Patercul. L. ii.

consider the deities introduced to have been employed merely as machinery familiar to the heathen world, such being calculated to impress the persons to whom the warnings were addressed, and to engage their regard. Yet even upon this supposition we must conceive, that God encouraged indirectly a confidence in false

deities.

But the dreams might be the effect of solicitude, casually productive of safety to the persons concerned. The recollection of the town in which Themistocles resigned himself to anxious sleep, and the hope of protection from Artaxerxes, might have contributed to his security and the presence of Augustus at the battle of Pharsalia, must have been of so much advantage in encouraging the soldiers, and perhaps so much better for the patient than the anxiety of absence, that the physician might conceive it essential to success or recovery, and really imagine in his sleep, or po litically fabricate the dream.

Alexander is related by historians to have dreamed, after committing himself to sleep with great solicitude in the chamber with his friend Ptolemy, who had been wounded in some engagement in the East, that he saw the figure of a dragon or serpent, which his mother Olympias cherished, and which she feigned to have been the father of Alexander, which presented him with a root that the monster carried in his mouth, as a remedy for the poison. Alexander described the colour of the herb, and affirmed that he should know it, if found; which, on its being accordingly discovered, he did, and applied it with success to the wound of his friend and others.

Alexander, desirous of exciting a salutary confidence in his friend, and of impressing his army with the idea of his influence with the gods, might contrive the dream, availing himself of the knowledge of some remedy of the country, perhaps communicated to him by the prisoners.