01-14-2006, 08:18 PM
Quote:Flavia:Sorry it has taken me so long to reply!!I still am not sure how to use this site to reply to people. It fascinates me that the romans saw and recorded ghosts also. Italy was supposed to be a very haunted country but the ghosts were exorcised over the centuries? The coliseum is supposed to be one of the most haunted sites but when I was in Rome I sure didn't want to linger in the ruins on the Palatine hill and they just gave me the creeps. Flavia
Good luck. I say this because the Romans had a very different view of the living and the dead than we do. It seems that to them the so called spirits of the dead were never that far away. They could help or hinder ones everyday life. They were often worshipped, or at least prayed to. Sorry for the sweeping generalizations. A "visit" from a dead ancestor was a not uncommon motif amongst the romans.
The atomists, such as Lucretius explained "ghosts" in terms of atoms (De rerum natura IV, 45f, 84f, 721f).
A specific "ghost story" in the modern sense can be found in one of the leters of Pliny, letter VII, 27. Pliny's may be the best known example. This is probably the closest to what you are looking for.
Someone else, can not remember who, may be the satirist Lucian, has a number of "ghost" stories.
Kevin
