Greek and Roman Ghost Stories | Page 8

murderer,
which would have been effected in a very different way in a Greek
story. Doubtless a similar tale could be found in the folk-lore of almost
any nation.
Plutarch[32] relates how, in his native city of Chæronæa, a certain
Damon had been murdered in some baths. Ghosts continued to haunt
the spot ever afterwards, and mysterious groans were heard, so that at

last the doors were walled up. "And to this very day," he continues,
"those who live in the neighbourhood imagine that they see strange
sights and are terrified with cries of sorrow."
It is quite clear from Plautus that ghost stories, even if not taken very
seriously, aroused a wide-spread interest in the average Roman of his
day, just as they do in the average Briton of our own. They were
doubtless discussed in a half-joking way. The apparitions were
generally believed to frighten people, just as they are at present, though
the well-authenticated stories of such occurrences would seem to show
that genuine ghosts, or whatever one likes to call them, have the power
of paralyzing fear.
In the Mostellaria,[33] Plautus uses a ghost as a recognized piece of
supernatural machinery. The regulation father of Roman comedy has
gone away on a journey, and in the meantime the son has, as usual,
almost reached the end of his father's fortune. The father comes back
unexpectedly, and the son turns in despair to his faithful slave, Tranio,
for help. Tranio is equal to the occasion, and undertakes to frighten the
inconvenient parent away again. He gives an account of an apparition
that has been seen, and has announced that it is the ghost of a stranger
from over-seas, who has been dead for six years.
"Here must I dwell," it had declared, "for the gods of the lower world
will not receive me, seeing that I died before my time. My host
murdered me, his guest, villain that he was, for the gold that I carried,
and secretly buried me, without funeral rites, in this house. Be gone
hence, therefore, for it is accursed and unholy ground." This story is
enough for the father. He takes the advice, and does not return till
Tranio and his dutiful son are quite ready for him.
Great battlefields are everywhere believed to be haunted. Tacitus[34]
relates how, when Titus was besieging Jerusalem, armies were seen
fighting in the sky; and at a much later date, after a great battle against
Attila and the Huns, under the walls of Rome, the ghosts of the dead
fought for three days and three nights, and the clash of their arms was
distinctly heard.[35] Marathon is no exception to the rule. Pausanias[36]
says that any night you may hear horses neighing and men fighting

there. To go on purpose to see the sight never brought good to any man;
but with him who unwittingly lights upon it the spirits are not angry.
He adds that the people of Marathon worship the men who fell in the
battle as heroes; and who could be more worthy of such honour than
they? The battle itself was not without its marvellous side. Epizelus, the
Athenian, used to relate how a huge hoplite, whose beard
over-shadowed all his shield, stood over against him in the thick of the
fight. The apparition passed him by and killed the man next him, but
Epizelus came out of the battle blind, and remained so for the rest of
his life.[37] Plutarch[38] also relates of a place in Boeotia where a
battle had been fought, that there is a stream running by, and that
people imagine that they hear panting horses in the roaring waters.
But the strangest account of the habitual haunting of great battlefields
is to be found in Philostratus's Heroica, which represents the spirits of
the Homeric heroes as still closely connected with Troy and its
neighbourhood. How far the stories are based on local tradition it is
impossible to say; they are told by a vine-dresser, who declares that he
lives under the protection of Protesilaus. At one time he was in danger
of being violently ousted from all his property, when the ghost of
Protesilaus appeared to the would-be despoiler in a vision, and struck
him blind. The great man was so terrified at this event that he carried
his depredations no further; and the vine-dresser has since continued to
cultivate what remained of his property under the protection of the hero,
with whom he lives on most intimate terms. Protesilaus often appears
to him while he is at work and has long talks with him, and he keeps
off wild beasts and disease from the land.
Not only Protesilaus, but also his men, and, in fact, virtually all of the
"giants of the mighty bone and bold emprise"