Page 616 of 1391

His most remarkable imitation of Plato is the adaptation of the

vision of Er, which is converted by Cicero into the 'Somnium

Scipionis'; he has 'romanized' the myth of the Republic, adding

an argument for the immortality of the soul taken from the

Phaedrus, and some other touches derived from the Phaedo and the

Timaeus. Though a beautiful tale and containing splendid

passages, the 'Somnium Scipionis; is very inferior to the vision

of Er; it is only a dream, and hardly allows the reader to

suppose that the writer believes in his own creation. Whether his

dialogues were framed on the model of the lost dialogues of

Aristotle, as he himself tells us, or of Plato, to which they

bear many superficial resemblances, he is still the Roman orator;

he is not conversing, but making speeches, and is never able to

mould the intractable Latin to the grace and ease of the Greek

Platonic dialogue.