There the spirit of the elder Scipio appears to his great namesake, Cicero's ideal Roman, and assures him that the road to heaven (caelum) lies open to those who do their duty in this life, and especially their duty to the State.

"Know thyself to be a god; as the god of gods rules the universe, so the god within us rules the body, and as that great god is eternal, so does an eternal soul govern this frail body."[577] The _Somnium Scipionis_ was an inspiration, written under the influence of Plato at one of those emotional moments of Cicero's life which make it possible to say of him that there was a religious element in his mind.[578] Some years later the poignancy of his grief at the death of his daughter Tullia had the effect of putting him again in a strong emotional mood.

For many weeks he lived alone at Astura, on the edge of the Pomptine marshes, out of reach of all friends, forbidding even his young wife and her mother to come near him; brooding, as it would seem, on the survival of the godlike element in his daughter.

These sad meditations took a practical form which at first astonishes us, but is not hard to understand when we have to come to know Cicero well, and to follow the tendencies of thought in these years.

He might erect a tomb to her memory,--but that would not satisfy him; it would not express his feeling that the immortal godlike spark within her survived.