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Pliny – Letters – Book 7 Letter 27 (On Ghosts)

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In short

The correspondence sent to Sura details the encounter of Curtius Rufus, who met the tutelar Genius of Africa and accurately learned of his future political offices and eventual demise. In Athens, a spacious dwelling stood completely abandoned because a fettered phantom caused severe fright that led to resident illnesses and fatalities. Aware of this lethal reputation and the unusually cheap rent, the philosopher Athenodorus secured the property to investigate the haunting himself. He waited with a lamp and writing tablets, deliberately occupying his mind before directly confronting the rattling apparition.

Key points

  • Pliny examines whether apparitions possess real shapes and divine nature or are simply me…: Pliny examines whether apparitions possess real shapes and divine nature or are simply mental illusions caused by human fear.
  • Haunted locations suffered severe economic depreciation and physical abandonment after re…: Haunted locations suffered severe economic depreciation and physical abandonment after repeated spectral disturbances harmed previous occupants.
  • Philosophical inquiry drove individuals like Athenodorus to intentionally lease dangerous…: Philosophical inquiry drove individuals like Athenodorus to intentionally lease dangerous properties to observe supernatural occurrences firsthand.

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LETTER 27

TO SURA

THE present recess from business affords you leisure to give, and me to receive, instruction. I am extremely desirous therefore to know your sentiments concerning spectres, whether you believe they actually exist and have their own proper shapes and a measure of divinity, or are only the false impressions of a terrified imagination?

What particularly inclines me to give credit to their existence, is a story a which I heard of Curtius Rufus. When he was in low circumstances and unknown in the world, he attended the newly made governor of Africa into that province. One afternoon as he was walking in the public portico he was extremely daunted with the figure of a woman which appeared to him, of a size and beauty more than human. She told him she was the tutelar Genius that presided over Africa, and was come to inform him of the future events of his life:�that he should go back to Rome, where he should hold office, and return to that province invested with the proconsular dignity, and there should…

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