Vespasian dreamt in Achaia that the good fortune of himself and his family would begin when Nero had a tooth drawn; and it happened that the day after, a surgeon coming into the hall showed him a tooth which he had just extracted from Nero.

EDITOR'S NOTE

Notice how the dream sets itself up nicely to look metaphorical, or a wish, or even a reality check. "You'll rise only when this unlikely event happens--the current tyrant loses his teeth"--his power to harm. Nero, crossed, was famously dangerous, so the sensible thing, the dream seems to say, is to bide your time and wait for indirect signs.

So imagine the galvanizing effect on Vespasian when the dream turns out to be literal and immediate--the unlikely sign happens the very next day. Now the same dream says "Nero is decaying physically not just morally; the time is now, not years from now; and your dreams are not mere wishes or metaphors; we deliver!"

--Chris Wayan--

SOURCE: The Dream World by Rodolphe L. Megroz, p. 59. Primary source: Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Book 10: Vespasian, part V.

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