ABSTRACT
So Artemidorus of Daldis in a section of The Interpretation of Dreams (3.1) explaining the significance of dreams of games of chance. Artemidorus’ treatise is a remarkable document, not simply because of the inherent appeal of the vast repertory of dreams it contains, but because the dreams and the meanings Artemidorus ascribes to them reveal a social universe rarely encountered in a work of classical literature. The book exposes the population of the high Roman Empire in a unique way, introducing every conceivable social type – not just the broad categories of men and women, masters and slaves, the rich and the poor and those in between, but a multiplicity of specific figures as well: the tax-collector, priest, prostitute, goatherd, sophist, innkeeper, shopkeeper, juggler, dancer, seafarer, donkey-driver, moneylender, cook, beekeeper, fruit-farmer, beggar, philosopher, poet, criminal, midwife, labourer, doctor, soldier, painter, and so on. The list of those who people Artemidorus’ pages, either as dreamers from whom he had collected dreams or as social types drawn on to explain their significance, is almost limitless.
