Anecdote collection · Cities & buildings
Minerva withdrew from her sanctuary
Rome, Italy · 96 CE
He dreamt that Minerva, whom he worshipped even to a superstitious excess, was withdrawing from her sanctuary, declaring she could protect him no longer, because she was disarmed by Jupiter.
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- Source
- The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (Thomson trans., rev. Forester) — Suetonius; trans. Alexander Thomson, rev. T. Forester, c. 121 / 1796 (trans.). Domitian, ch. XV
- Record type
- Anecdote collection
- Place
- Rome, Italy · Roman
- Date
- 96 CE
- Uncertainty
- High — From Suetonius’ Lives of the Twelve Caesars (A. Thomson trans., rev. T. Forester); an omen-dream reported by a Roman biographer.
- Imagery
- Temple · War · Gate
- Feelings
- Unease · Loneliness
Another way to look at this dream
Notes on the images in this dream from psychology, myth, folklore and semiotics. Each names its source.
War
In the war, were you a soldier, someone fleeing, or watching from outside? Was there a particular enemy?
Homeric epic Classical text
Zeus sends Agamemnon a deliberately false dream promising that Troy will fall at once. The epic itself treats a war dream as something that can mislead.
Homer, Iliad II
Song-dynasty poetry Literature
Lu You and Xin Qiji, both kept from the frontier they longed to recover, kept dreaming of battle; their war dreams are read today as poems of unfulfilled duty.
Lu You; Xin Qiji
Gate
Was the door open, closed, or locked — and did you want to go through it?
Ancient Greece Classical text
Penelope says dreams come through two gates: those through polished ivory deceive, those through horn come true. Even in Homer, not every dream was to be trusted.
Homer, Odyssey XIX
Anthropology Dream research
Arnold van Gennep described rites of passage as separation, a threshold (“liminal”) stage, and return. Doors and gates are where many cultures stage that middle step.
van Gennep, The Rites of Passage (1909)
Exploration notes, not a diagnosis, a prediction, or evidence of real events.
Dreams that share its images
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- The statue could not be erected Capri, Italy · 37 CE
- A samurai racing the temple clock to enlightenment Tokyo, Japan · 1908
- The god stood by the weeping priest Memphis, Egypt · c. 701 BCE (as told)
- My son would be killed by an iron spear Sardis, Lydia · c. 550 BCE (as told)
- A mother praying for a father who never returns Tokyo, Japan · 1908