Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity by D. Felton

Author:D. Felton [Felton, D.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Published: 2010-07-21T16:00:00+00:00

SIX

LUCIAN’S GHOST STORIES

TWO WELL-KNOWN GHOST STORIES SURVIVE IN THE WORKS OF THE satirist Lucian (fl. A.D. 160–180), both of them in his dialogue Philopseudes (“The Lover of Lies”), in which he satirizes superstition.1 In this dialogue, Lucian’s spokesman, the rational Tychiades, begins a conversation with his friend Philocles about why men love to tell lies and outrageous stories. “Can you tell me, Philocles, why it is that many people are so fond of telling lies that they enjoy saying things that are unsound and pay particular attention to those who tell those sorts of stories?”2 Tychiades criticizes intelligent men who are nevertheless lovers of lies (φιλοψευδες, philopseudeis), and cites Homer and Herodotus as two of his main examples, finding it ridiculous, for one thing, that the god Pan came from Arcadia to participate in the battle of Marathon.3

Explaining to Philocles why the subject is on his mind, Tychiades tells him about a recent visit to the house of Eucrates, an invalid recovering from an unspecified foot disease. He had found Eucrates in the company of the doctor Antigonos and three philosophers: the Peripatetic Cleodemos, the Stoic Deinomachos, and the Platonist Ion. Lucian sets the theme by having Tychiades interrupt the company during a discussion about healing amulets. His mockery of their superstitious beliefs challenges Eucrates and the others to try to persuade Tychiades to believe in the supernatural. The sequence of stories they proceed to tell forms the basis for this dialogue, as Lucian links one tale to another until most of the well-known superstitions of his day have been exposed.4

The first story, concerning a man bitten on the foot by a snake, follows naturally from Eucrates’ illness.5 The subsequent stories include tales of walking statues, visions of the underworld, and ghosts. We have already seen several of these stories in Chapter 2, such as the ones about the little bronze figurine of Hippocrates and the giant apparition of Hekate, who opens a chasm to the underworld (Philops. 21–22). Though Lucian criticizes many superstitions, largely through hyperbole, perhaps his most effective exaggerations come in the treatment of the two ghost stories. The first, told by Eucrates himself, concerns a visit paid to him by his dead wife (Philops. 27). The second, about a haunted house at Corinth, is told by the Pythagorean philosopher Arignotos (Philops. 30–31). Arignotos also provides the link to the last and most well-known story, that of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice: although this story is told by Eucrates, the Sorcerer turns out to be Arignotos’s teacher, the Egyptian Pancrates.6

Is There Wife after Death?

At Philopseudes 27, Eucrates tells how the ghost of his wife suddenly appeared one day, returning from the dead because her sandal was not burned with the rest of her belongings and consequently her spirit could not rest:

Eucrates, as if reminded [of the story] at the sight of his sons, said, “So may my sons here prosper”—taking them by the hand—“I will tell you the truth, Tychiades. Everyone knows how I loved my dear departed wife, the mother of these children.

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