The philosopher and orator Marc Tul·li Cicero, a key figure of Roman republicanism, sets out his conception of the universe and the immortality of the soul in Book VI of The Republic through a revelatory dream, the dream of Scipio, the protagonist of the philosophical dialogue. Scipio's full name is Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus, Africanus Minor, and he was a prominent Roman politician and military man of the 2nd century BC. virtuous, just, and successful, and exemplary in his commitment to the common good. Philosophical and cosmological

Cicero introduces the story of the dream as a kind of philosophical and cosmological epilogue, an appendix to his political philosophy, inspired by Plato's myth of Er, in order to convey the idea that good government and virtuous conduct oriented towards the common good have the great reward of enjoying eternal life.

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