Transfers and tensions in the dreams of Graeco-Roman antiquity: Imperial appearances in Artemidorus Daldianus and Aelius Aristides, in: Transferts culturels et droits dans le monde grec et hellénistique, ed, B. Legras, 2012, Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 181-190 (original) (raw)

2012, in: B. Legras (ed), Transferts culturels et droits dans le monde grec et hellénistique, Paris : Publications de la Sorbonne, 181-190

A fertile way of approaching the transfers and tensions between different cultural and legal systems during Greco-roman antiquity is by studying the recording of dreams extant in a good number of primary sources and in the oneirocritic tradition. 1 Dreaming is itself a form of transfer, from the world of light, knowledge and consciousness, to the forces of the night, the unknown and the unconscious -and also a transfer between different psychic agencies. Furthermore, a series of indirect testimonies on the functioning of legal institutions during the imperial period are provided by the dreams which were indeed dreamed, at one point or another in time, and which were subsequently recorded by dreamers. 2 In these dreams, legal institutions (magistrates, judges, synegoroi, or, in the age of Principatus, the emperor himself, consuls, praetors etc.), appear as symbols which reflect the relationship between the dreaming subject and these institutions, but also reveal, in all probability, various ideas, desires, needs and conflicts, conscious or unconscious, originating from equally varied sources. 3 We are called upon to explore the ways in which the dreamer introjects and experiences the power and imperative nature of the institutions,