Greek and Roman Ghost Stories | Page 6

the room has set to work to outdo his neighbour
in marvellous yarns, drawing on his imagination for additional material,
and, like Eucrates, being ready to stake the lives of his children on his
veracity.
Another scoffer was Democritus of Abdera, who was so firmly
convinced of the non-existence of ghosts that he took up his abode in a
tomb and lived there night and day for a long time. Classical ghosts
seem to have affected black rather than white as their favourite colour.
Among the features of the gruesome entertainments with which
Domitian loved to terrify his Senators were handsome boys, who
appeared naked with their bodies painted black, like ghosts, and
performed a wild dance.[29] On the following day one of them was
generally sent as a present to each Senator. Some boys in the
neighbourhood wished to shake Democritus's unbelief, so they dressed

themselves in black with masks like skulls upon their heads and danced
round the tomb where he lived. But, to their annoyance, he only put his
head out and told them to go away and stop playing the fool.
The Greek and Roman stories hardly come up to the standards required
by the Society for Psychical Research. They are purely popular, and the
ghost is regarded as the deceased person, permitted or condemned by
the powers of the lower world to hold communication with survivors
on earth. Naturally, they were never submitted to critical inquiry, and
there is no foreshadowing of any of the modern theories, that the
phenomenon, if caused by the deceased, is not necessarily the deceased,
though it may be an indication that "some kind of force is being
exercised after death which is in some way connected with a person
previously known on earth," or that the apparitions may be purely local,
or due entirely to subjective hallucination on the part of the person
beholding them. Strangely enough, we rarely find any of those
interesting cases, everywhere so well attested, of people appearing just
about the time of their death to friends or relatives to whom they are
particularly attached, or with whom they have made a compact that
they will appear, should they die first, if it is possible. The classical
instance of this is the well-known story of Lord Brougham who, while
taking a warm bath in Sweden, saw a school friend whom he had not
met for many years, but with whom he had long ago "committed the
folly of drawing up an agreement written with our blood, to the effect
that whichever of us died first should appear to the other, and thus
solve any doubts we had entertained of the life after death." There are,
however, a number of stories of the passing of souls, which are
curiously like some of those collected by the Society for Psychical
Research, in the Fourth Book of Gregory the Great's Dialogues.
Another noticeable difference is that apparitions in most
well-authenticated modern ghost stories are of a comforting character,
whereas those in the ancient world are nearly all the reverse. This
difference we may attribute to the entire change in the aspect of the
future life which we owe to modern Christianity. As we have seen,
there was little that was comforting in the life after death as conceived
by the old pagan religions, while in medieval times the horrors of hell

were painted in the most lurid colours, and were emphasized more than
the joys of heaven.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 25: Cic., Murena, 27.]
[Footnote 26: _Ep._, i. 18.]
[Footnote 27: _Ibid._, 3. 5. 4.]
[Footnote 28: Chap. II]
[Footnote 29: Dio Cass., Domitian, 9.]

III
STORIES OF HAUNTING
In a letter to Sura[30] the younger Pliny gives us what may be taken as
a prototype of all later haunted-house stories. At one time in Athens
there was a roomy old house where nobody could be induced to live. In
the dead of night the sound of clanking chains would be heard, distant
at first, proceeding doubtless from the garden behind or the inner court
of the house, then gradually drawing nearer and nearer, till at last there
appeared the figure of an old man with a long beard, thin and emaciated,
with chains on his hands and feet. The house was finally abandoned,
and advertised to be let or sold at an absurdly low price. The
philosopher Athenodorus read the notice on his arrival in Athens, but
the smallness of the sum asked aroused his suspicions. However, as
soon as he heard the story he took the house. He had his bed placed in
the front court, close to the main door, dismissed his slaves, and
prepared to pass the night there, reading and writing, in order to prevent
his thoughts from wandering to the ghost. He worked on