LETTER TO SURA by PLINY, THE YOUNGER

Our leisure furnishes me with the opportunity of learning from you, and

you with that of instructing me. Accordingly, I particularly wish to

know whether you think there exist such things as phantoms, possessing

an appearance peculiar to themselves, and a certain supernatural power,

or that mere empty delusions receive a shape from our fears. For my

part, I am led to believe in their existence, especially by what I hear

happened to Curtius Rufus. While still in humble circumstances and

obscure, he was a hanger-on in the suit of the Governor of Africa. While

pacing the colonnade one afternoon, there appeared to him a female form

of superhuman size and beauty. She informed the terrified man that she

was "Africa," and had come to foretell future events; for that he would

go to Rome, would fill offices of state there, and would even return to

that same province with the highest powers, and die in it. All which

things were fulfilled. Moreover, as he touched at Carthage, and was

disembarking from his ship, the same form is said to have presented

itself to him on the shore. It is certain that, being seized with

illness, and auguring the future from the past and misfortune from his

previous prosperity, he himself abandoned all hope of life, though none

of those about him despaired.

Is not the following story again still more appalling and not less

marvellous? I will relate it as it was received by me:

There was at Athens a mansion, spacious and commodious, but of evil

repute and dangerous to health. In the dead of night there was a noise

as of iron, and, if you listened more closely, a clanking of chains was

heard, first of all from a distance, and afterward hard by. Presently a

spectre used to appear, an ancient man sinking with emaciation and

squalor, with a long beard and bristly hair, wearing shackles on his

legs and fetters on his hands, and shaking them. Hence the inmates, by

reason of their fears, passed miserable and horrible nights in

sleeplessness. This want of sleep was followed by disease, and, their

terrors increasing, by death. For in the daytime as well, though the

apparition had departed, yet a reminiscence of it flitted before their

eyes, and their dread outlived its cause. The mansion was accordingly

deserted, and condemned to solitude, was entirely abandoned to the

dreadful ghost. However, it was advertised, on the chance of someone,

ignorant of the fearful curse attached to it, being willing to buy or to

rent it. Athenodorus, the philosopher, came to Athens and read the

advertisement. When he had been informed of the terms, which were so low

as to appear suspicious, he made inquiries, and learned the whole of the

particulars. Yet none the less on that account, nay, all the more

readily, did he rent the house. As evening began to draw on, he ordered

a sofa to be set for himself in the front part of the house, and called

for his notebooks, writing implements, and a light. The whole of his

servants he dismissed to the interior apartments, and for himself

applied his soul, eyes, and hand to composition, that his mind might

not, from want of occupation, picture to itself the phantoms of which he

had heard, or any empty terrors. At the commencement there was the

universal silence of night. Soon the shaking of irons and the clanking

of chains was heard, yet he never raised his eyes nor slackened his pen,

but hardened his soul and deadened his ears by its help. The noise grew

and approached: now it seemed to be heard at the door, and next inside

the door. He looked round, beheld and recognized the figure he had been

told of. It was standing and signalling to him with its finger, as

though inviting him. He, in reply, made a sign with his hand that it

should wait a moment, and applied himself afresh to his tablets and pen.

Upon this the figure kept rattling its chains over his head as he wrote.

On looking round again, he saw it making the same signal as before, and

without delay took up a light and followed it. It moved with a slow

step, as though oppressed by its chains, and, after turning into the

courtyard of the house, vanished suddenly and left his company. On being

thus left to himself, he marked the spot with some grass and leaves

which he plucked. Next day he applied to the magistrates, and urged them

to have the spot in question dug up. There were found there some bones

attached to and intermingled with fetters; the body to which they had

belonged, rotted away by time and the soil, had abandoned them thus

naked and corroded to the chains. They were collected and interred at

the public expense, and the house was ever afterward free from the

spirit, which had obtained due sepulture.

The above story I believe on the strength of those who affirm it. What

follows I am myself in a position to affirm to others. I have a

freedman, who is not without some knowledge of letters. A younger

brother of his was sleeping with him in the same bed. The latter dreamed

he saw someone sitting on the couch, who approached a pair of scissors

to his head, and even cut the hair from the crown of it. When day dawned

he was found to be cropped round the crown, and his locks were

discovered lying about. A very short time afterward a fresh occurrence

of the same kind confirmed the truth of the former one. A lad of mine

was sleeping, in company with several others, in the pages' apartment.

There came through the windows (so he tells the story) two figures in

white tunics, who cut his hair as he lay, and departed the way they

came. In his case, too, daylight exhibited him shorn, and his locks

scattered around. Nothing remarkable followed, except, perhaps, this,

that I was not brought under accusation, as I should have been, if

Domitian (in whose reign these events happened) had lived longer. For in

his desk was found an information against me which had been presented by

Carus; from which circumstance may be conjectured--inasmuch as it is the

custom of accused persons to let their hair grow--that the cutting off

of my slaves' hair was a sign of the danger which threatened me being

averted.

I beg, then, that you will apply your great learning to this subject.

The matter is one which deserves long and deep consideration on your

part; nor am I, for my part, undeserving of having the fruits of your

wisdom imparted to me. You may even argue on both sides (as your way

is), provided you argue more forcibly on one side than the other, so as

not to dismiss me in suspense and anxiety, when the very cause of my

consulting you has been to have my doubts put an end to.