What did the Romans dream about?

Artemidorus’ *The Interpretation of Dreams* provides a unique, systematic window into the daily lives, social hierarchies, and anxieties of ordinary people in the 2nd-century Roman Empire. Unlike modern psychological approaches, this ancient manual relies on symbolic analogies and linguistic wordplay to predict future events, reflecting the specific cultural concerns of the era. The text reveals intimate details about ancient life, from the presence of vermin in households to the rigid social distinctions between free citizens and the enslaved. While the interpretations often strain modern credulity, they offer invaluable insights into the hopes and fears of non-elite individuals. The work also highlights the enduring, albeit selective, influence of classical thought on later figures like Sigmund Freud, who utilized similar linguistic methods to analyze the human psyche, despite their fundamentally different goals regarding the predictive power of dreams.