Artemidorus and the Oneirocritica

This chapter sketches out what little is known of Artemidorus’ life (largely confined to what he tells us in the Oneirocritica). His social standing as a member of the civic elite at Lydian Daldis is explored in the light of recently discovered bronze coins of Daldis that seem to mention Artemidorus or his homonymous son. The chapter includes discussion of the date (Severan rather than Antonine), structure, and purpose of the Oneirocritica; it also addresses the question of its relationship to earlier Greek books on dream-interpretation (many of which are cited in passing by Artemidorus), with the aim of determining which aspects of the Oneirocritica were original to Artemidorus, and which parts are simply paraphrases of earlier oneirocritical literature.

Epilogue

This chapter describes the fate of the Oneirocritica after antiquity, with a focus on its reception in Medieval Islam, Byzantium, and early modern Europe. The transmission of the text (in Greek and Arabic) is discussed, with particular attention to the enormous influence exercised on later Islamic dream-interpretation by the ninth-century Arabic translation of the Oneirocritica by Ḥunayn b. Isḥâq. An account of the rediscovery of the Oneirocritica in sixteenth-century Europe is followed by a short coda on the influence of Artemidorus in the modern world, with a discussion of the role played by the Oneirocritica in Freud’s ‘new science’ of dream-analysis.

Status and Values

Artemidoran dream-symbolism is pervaded by status-distinctions: the same dream means different things depending on whether it is dreamed by a slave, a freedman, a poor man, a rich man, a slave-owner, and so on. As this chapter demonstrates, the Oneirocritica is one of our key sources for class dynamics and status-assumptions in Graeco-Roman society, and potentially provides us with rare access into the mindsets and aspirations of subaltern groups in the Greek East, including slaves and the labouring poor. The ideology of work and leisure in the Oneirocritica is explored in particular depth.

Festivals and Games

Agonistic culture is remarkably prominent in the Oneirocritica. Athletes and actors are among the most heavily represented classes of dreamers, and people from all different social groups are expected to dream regularly about competing in or attending the great civic and Panhellenic festivals of the Imperial Greek world. This chapter attempts to reconstruct the world of these festivals, and to explain why they are so unexpectedly prominent in the Oneirocritica; it also explores the characteristic anxieties of athletes and their families, the symbolism of the athletic body, images of victory, gladiatorial combat and the theatre-culture of the Greek city in the Roman period.

The Gods

Artemidorus has long been recognized as an important source for epiphany-dreams, local Greek cult-practices, and ideas about the Greek pantheon. This chapter serves as a companion to his account of dreams about the gods in Book 2 of the Oneirocritica, with extended discussion of his classification of the gods (intelligible and sensible; ethereal, celestial, terrestrial, marine, subterranean, encircling), his curious lack of interest in deities outside the ‘standard’ Greek pantheon (including most local Anatolian deities), and his views on the alleged divine origin of dreams. His attitude towards incubation-sanctuaries seems to have been ambivalent at best, for what may have been rather practical professional reasons.

Cities of Dreams

The civic life of Greek poleis in the eastern Roman empire is very prominent in the Oneirocritica (particularly in Book 4). This chapter will discuss the absence of the Classical Greek polis from Artemidorus’ conception of the Greek city (an aspect in which he differs profoundly from other Greek authors of his day), and the rich and detailed picture that he gives us of Greek civic institutions and hierarchies in the Severan period. The role of civic elites and the social expectations placed upon them is a major theme of the chapter, as is the degree to which the Oneirocritica reflects the distinctive social and political conditions of his two native cities, Ephesus and Daldis.

Sexuality and Gender

The Oneirocritica is a remarkably rich source of evidence for Graeco-Roman ideas about gender relations and male and female sexuality. For Artemidorus, as Foucault recognized, the key to the symbolic meaning of a sex-act in a dream is not the biological sex of the participants, but their relative social status. This chapter deals with Artemidorus’ classification of sex-dreams (varieties of sexual intercourse which are considered to be ‘in accordance with’ or ‘contrary to’ law and/or nature), as well as the symbolic significance of different sexual acts and positions; it is argued that Artemidorus’ sexual ethics are more strongly heteronormative than they have often been considered in previous scholarship. This chapter also explores the marginalization of women’s dreams (and female sexuality) in the Oneirocritica, as well as Artemidorus’ implicit and explicit assumptions about gender relations and female social and sexual roles.

The Snake and the Whale

This chapter introduces ancient Graeco-Roman traditions of dream-interpretation through a close reading of the opening scene of Aristophanes’ Wasps, which presents two slaves comparing their dreams. This scene provides us with a helpful encapsulation of popular views in antiquity about dreams and their significance. The chapter briefly summarizes five basic ancient assumptions about dreams: that dreams (or at least some dreams) come from the gods; that dreams (or at least some dreams) are predictive; that predictive dreams deal in symbols, not narratives; that predictive dreams resemble riddles; and that accurate dream-interpretation calls for the services of a professional dream-interpreter like Artemidorus.

Books and Literary Culture

Quotations from earlier Greek literary works are very frequent in the Oneirocritica, and it is possible to reconstruct in some detail Artemidorus’ knowledge of (and tastes in) ‘classical’ Greek literature. As one might expect, Homer is particularly prominent, but in a manner that suggests that Artemidorus may not have been equally acquainted with all parts of the Iliad and Odyssey. His knowledge of early Greek poetry, tragedy, and comedy, and other ‘high’ Greek literature appears at first sight to be impressively extensive, but patterns of quotation in the Oneirocritica imply that he in fact knew little of this literature at first-hand. It is suggested that Artemidorus provides us with an unusually clear and representative picture of the intellectual and literary horizons of an ordinary ‘middling’ member of the civic elite in the Greek world during the high Roman imperial period.

The Body

This chapter focuses on Oneirocritica Book 1, which is largely dedicated to the human body and body-symbolism, and examines the ways in which Artemidorus’ conception of the body and its functions might be historically and culturally distinctive. Artemidorus offers us a remarkably detailed and coherent ‘tour’ of the symbolic meanings of the constituent parts of the male and female body, based around a series of polarities (upper and lower, right and left, front and back), which reflect three different dimensions of the social order (status, age, gender). The ways in which bodies are gendered (firmness, dryness, vigour) in Artemidorus’ body-symbolism are discussed in detail, and the extraordinary over-signification of the male penis and under-signification of the female vagina in Artemidorus’ classificatory system are highlighted. The chapter concludes with an extended discussion of the presentation of physical and mental disability in the Oneirocritica.