Chapter III: Selected Materials: The Classical Period Summary and Analysis

Three sources provided the most important contributions to the Model: The Bible, Ovid, and Virgil. However, as these sources are so well-known, attention instead will be given to those less famous, though still vitally influential, sources, beginning with those from the period between 0 AD and 300 AD.

The first of these is the "Somnium Scipionis" or "the dream of Scipio" which appears in Cicero's Republic. In the dream, Scipio Minor is taken up by his father, Scipio Major, to a region of the heavens known as the Stellatum. The Stellatum is part of a common astronomical picture in which "Nature" is divided from the "Sky" by the orbit of the moon. Nature is the realm in which things constantly change whereas the Sky is a place where nothing changes and...