Dreams of kings and generals: from Astyages to Hannibal and Alexander

In ancient historiography the dreams of rulers are not mere anecdotes. Herodotus, Plutarch, Cicero and Suetonius record them carefully, because a king's destiny coincided with that of a people, and a night message received by him could change the course of a war or a dynasty. Gathered together, these stories show how the dream was a language of power, used to explain victories, justify decisions and announce, with hindsight, catastrophes.

Astyages and the birth of Cyrus

Herodotus, in the first book of the Histories, relates that Astyages, king of the Medes, dreamt that his daughter Mandane produced so much water that it flooded the whole of Asia. Frightened by the Magi's interpretation, he married her to a Persian of modest rank. Later he dreamt of a vine growing from his daughter's womb and covering the entire continent.

Fearing that his grandson would take his kingdom, Astyages ordered the newborn to be killed, but the child was saved and raised by a herdsman. That child was Cyrus the Great, who as an adult would indeed overthrow his grandfather and found the Persian Empire. The story follows a widespread pattern: the attempt to escape a dream ends up fulfilling it.

The phantom of Xerxes

In the seventh book Herodotus relates that Xerxes, unsure whether to make war on Greece, had decided to give it up. Then a tall, handsome man appeared to him in a dream, rebuking him and ordering him to set out. His counsellor Artabanus, a sceptic, argued that dreams arise from the thoughts of the day, but agreed to put on the king's robes and sleep in his bed.

Artabanus too saw the same figure, which threatened him for having dissuaded the king. Convinced, he changed his mind and the expedition set out, only to end in the defeats of Salamis and Plataea. For Herodotus the episode shows how a dream sent by the gods can drive a king to ruin, and it closely recalls Agamemnon's deceptive dream in the Iliad.

Alexander, Hannibal and Caesar

Plutarch, in his Life of Alexander, reports that during the siege of Tyre in 332 BC the king dreamt of a satyr that eluded him and then let itself be caught. The seer Aristander of Telmessus divided the satyr's name into two Greek words, sa Tyros, «Tyre is yours», and the city fell soon afterwards. The same anecdote is also found in Artemidorus.

Cicero, in his treatise On Divination, reports from older sources Hannibal's dream after the capture of Saguntum: a young man sent by Jupiter led him towards Italy, while behind him a huge serpent laid everything waste, a symbol of the destruction the general would bring. Plutarch and Suetonius relate, finally, that Calpurnia, Caesar's wife, dreamt on the night before the Ides of March in 44 BC that her husband had been killed and tried to keep him at home.

Many of these stories were probably constructed or embellished after the event, to give meaning to what had happened. But precisely for this reason they are precious: they reveal that the ancients considered the dream one of the places where history and the will of the gods met, and that no power, however great, could feel safe from the night.