even the learned argued the question
of their existence. Here are parts of another letter culled from Pliny
already several times quoted. He writes to his friend Sura: "I should
very much like to know whether you think that apparitions actually
exist, with a real shape of their own and a kind of supernatural
power, or that it is only our fear which gives an embodiment to vain
fancies. My own inclination is to believe in them, and chiefly because
of an experience which, I am told, befell Curtius Rufus." He then
speaks of a phantom form which prophesied that person's fortune.
"Another occurrence, quite as wonderful and still more terrifying, I
will relate as I was told it. There was at Athens a house which was
roomy and commodious, but which bore an ill-name and was
plague-stricken. In the silence of the night there was heard a sound
of iron. On closer attention it proved to be a rattling of chains,
first at a distance and then close at hand. Soon there appeared the
spectre of an old man, miserably thin and squalid, with a long beard
and unkempt hair. On his legs were fetters, and on his hands chains,
which he kept shaking. In consequence the inhabitants spent horrible
and sleepless nights; the sleeplessness made them ill, and, as their
terror increased, the illness was followed by death.... As a result
the house was deserted and totally abandoned to the ghost.
Nevertheless it was advertised, on the chance that some one ignorant
of all this trouble" (note the commercial morality) "might choose to
buy it or rent it. To Athens there comes a philosopher named
Athenodorus, who reads the placard. On hearing the price and finding
it so cheap, he has his suspicions" (the ancient philosopher had his
practical side), "makes enquiry, and learns the whole story. So far
from being less inclined to hire it, he is only the more willing. On
the approach of evening he gives orders for his couch to be made up in
the front part of the house, and asks for his tablets, pencils, and a
light. After dismissing his attendants to the back rooms, he applies
all his attention, as well as his eyes and hand, steadily to his
writing, for fear his mind, if unoccupied, might conjure up imaginary
sounds and causeless fears. At first there was the same silence of the
night as elsewhere; then there was a shaking of iron, a movement of
chains. The philosopher refused to lift his eyes or stop his pencil;
instead he braced up his mind so as to overcome his he