Dreams, Theurgy and Freelance Divination: the Testimony of Iamblichus

Abstract

The men of the Antonine era shared with us a keen interest in divination, which they expressed in a variety of complementary or apparently contradictory ways: in polemic and dispassionate research, but more obviously in the act of reviving their ancient prophetic shrines and of establishing new oracles. If the rage that the vaticinating demons inspired in Oenomaus of Gadara and in Lucian is sufficient evidence of the rationalist's reaction to a mounting social and intellectual trend, the scholarly achievement of Artemidorus of Daldis at the instigation of Apollo himself exemplifies in more positive fashion the involvement of the age with prophetic lore. So does the incredible success of the Pythagorean Alexander's oracular establishment on the inhospitable shores of the Black Sea, and the personality of Aelius Aristides, that professional valetudinarian whose night-diaries dictated by Asclepius covered more than three hundred thousand lines. It was in precisely this world that the Delphic oracle underwent a remarkable renaissance under the auspices of a Platonist philosopher, and that an emperor commended the publication by a senator of a work about the dreams which foretold his ascent to the throne.