De re publica in the context of "The Republic (Plato)"

A lost literary work (referred throughout this article just as a lost work) is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia, produced of which no surviving copies are known to exist, meaning it can be known only through reference, or literary fragments. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical world, although it is increasingly used in relation to modern works. A work may be lost to history through the destruction of an original manuscript and all later copies.

Works—or, commonly, small fragments of works—have survived by being found by archaeologists during investigations, or accidentally by laypersons such as, for example, the finding Nag Hammadi library scrolls. Works also survived when they were reused as bookbinding materials, quoted or included in other works, or as palimpsests, where an original document is imperfectly erased so the substrate on which it was written can be reused. The discovery, in 1822, of Cicero's De re publica was one of the first major recoveries of a lost ancient text from a palimpsest. Another famous example is the discovery of the Archimedes Palimpsest, which was used to make a prayer book almost 300 years after the original work was written. A work may be recovered in a library, as a lost or mislabeled codex, or as a part of another book or codex.

The Dream of Scipio (Latin: Somnium Scipionis), written by Cicero, is the sixth book of De re publica, and describes a (postulated fictional or real) dream vision of the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus, set two years before he oversaw the destruction of Carthage in 146 BC.

On the Laws, also known by its Latin name De Legibus (abbr. De Leg.), is a Socratic dialogue written by Marcus Tullius Cicero during the last years of the Roman Republic. It bears the same name as Plato's famous dialogue, The Laws. Unlike his previous work De re publica, in which Cicero felt compelled to set the action in the times of Scipio Africanus Minor, Cicero wrote this work as a fictionalized dialogue between himself, his brother Quintus, and their mutual friend Titus Pomponius Atticus. The dialogue begins with the trio taking a leisurely stroll through Cicero's familial estate at Arpinum and they begin to discuss how the laws should be. Cicero uses this as a platform for expounding on his theories of natural law of harmony among the classes.

The three surviving books (out of an indeterminate number, although Jonathan Powell and Niall Rudd in their translation for Oxford seem to argue that it may have been six, to bring it in line with the number in de re publica), in order, expound on Cicero's beliefs in Natural Law, recasts the religious laws of Rome (in reality a rollback to the religious laws under the king Numa Pompilius) and finally talk of his proposed reforms to the Roman Constitution.

Commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio (Latin: Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis) is a philosophical treatise of Macrobius based on the famous dream narrated in On the republic of Cicero (Chapter VI, 9-29).

In Cicero's work, Scipio Africanus appears to his adoptive grandson, Scipio Aemilianus, and reveals him his future destiny, and that of his country, explains the rewards that await the virtuous man in another life, describes the universe and the place of the Earth and of man inside the universe.