Some scary Roman halloween stories…

Stories of ghosts, gouls and werewolves are nothing new - the Romans enjoyed telling scary stories, and some of them have survived.  Here are two of them, just for halloween...

The first story was written by Pliny the Younger in the late 1st or early 2nd Century AD.  In a letter to a friend he quotes the tale of Athenodorus the Greek philosopher and his encounter with a haunted house:

"There was at Athens a large and spacious, but ill‑reputed and pestilential house. In the dead of the night a noise, resembling the clashing of iron, was frequently heard, which, if you listened more attentively, sounded like the rattling of fetters; at first it seemed at a distance, but approached nearer by degrees; immediately afterward a phantom appeared in the form of an old man, extremely meagre and squalid, with a long beard and bristling hair; rattling the gyves on his feet and hands. The poor inhabitants consequently passed sleepless nights under the most dismal terrors imaginable. This, as it broke their rest, threw them into distempers, which, as their horrors of mind increased, proved in the end fatal to their lives. For even in the day time, though the spectre did not appear, yet the remembrance of it made such a strong impression on their imaginations that it still seemed before their eyes, and their terror remained when the cause of it was gone. By this means the house was at last deserted, as being judged by everybody to be absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely abandoned to the ghost. However, in hopes that some tenant might be found who was ignorant of this great calamity which attended it, a bill was put up, giving notice that it was either to be let or sold.

It happened that Athenodorus the philosopher came to Athens at this time, and reading the bill ascertained the price. The extraordinary cheapness raised his suspicion; nevertheless, when he heard tbe whole story, he was so far from being discouraged, that he was more strongly inclined to hire it, and, in short, actually did so. When it grew towards evening, he ordered a couch to be prepared for him in the fore‑part of the house, and after calling for a light, together with his pen and tablets, he directed all his people to retire within. But that his mind might not, for want of employment, be open to the vain terrors of imaginary noises and apparitions, he applied himself to writing with all his faculties. The first part of the night passed with usual silence, then began the clanking of iron fetters; however, he neither lifted up his eyes, nor laid down his pen, but closed his ears by concentrating his attention. The noise increased and advanced nearer, till it seemed at the door, and at last in the chamber. He looked round and saw the apparition exactly as it had been described to him: it stood before him, beckoning with the finger. Athenodorus made a sign with his hand that it should wait a little, and bent again to his writing, but the ghost rattling its chains over his head as he wrote, he looked round and saw it beckoning as before. Upon this he immediately took up his lamp and followed it. The ghost slowly stalked along, as if encumbered with its chains; and having turned into the courtyard of the house, suddenly vanished. Athenodorus being thus deserted, marked the spot with a handful of grass and leaves. The next day he went to the magistrates, and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. There they found bones commingled and intertwined with chains; for the body had mouldered away by long Iying in the ground, leaving them bare, and corroded by the fetters. Thc bones were collected, and buried at the public expense; and after the ghost was thus duly laid the house was haunted no more."

The second story comes from the Satyricon by Petronius, written in the late 1st Century AD.  The Satyricon tells the story of the misadventures of a man named Encolpius.  While attending a ridiculous dinner party hosted by a man named Trimalchio, a guest tells a story of how he once encountered a werewolf:

"When I was still a slave, we lived in a narrow street; the house is Gavilla's now.  There, as the gods would have it, I fell in love with Terentius, the tavern-keeper's wife; you all knew Melissa from Tarentum, the prettiest of pretty wenches!  Not that I courted her carnally or for venery, but more because she was such a good sort.  Nothing I asked did she ever refuse; if she made a penny, I got a halfpenny; whatever I saved, I put in her purse, and she never choused me.  Well! her husband died when they were at a country house.  So I moved heaven and earth to get to her; true friends, you know, are proved in adversity.

It so happened my master had gone to Capua, to attend to various trifles of business.  So seizing the opportunity, I persuade our lodger to accompany me as far as the fifth milestone.  He was a soldier, as bold as Hell.  We got under way about first cockcrow, with the moon shining as bright as day.  We arrive at the tombs; my man lingers behind among the gravestones, whilst I sit down singing, and start counting the gravestones.  Presently I looked back for my comrade; he had stripped off all his clothes and laid them down by the wayside.  My heart was in my mouth; and there I stood feeling like a dead man.  Then he made water all round the clothes, and in an instant changed into a wolf.  Don't imagine I'm joking; I would not tell a lie for the finest fortune ever man had.

However, as I was telling you, directly he was turned into a wolf, he set up a howl, and away to the woods.  At first I didn't know where I was, but presently I went forward to gather up his clothes; but lo and behold! they were turned into stone.  If ever a man was like to die of terror, I was that man!  Still I drew my sword and let out at every shadow on the road till I arrived at my sweetheart's house.  I rushed in looking like a ghost, soul and body barely sticking together.  The sweat was pouring down between my legs, my eyes were set, my wits gone almost past recovery.  Melissa was astounded at my plight, wondering why ever I was abroad so late.  'Had you come a little sooner,' she said, 'you might have given us a hand; a wolf broke into the farm and has slaughtered all the cattle, just as if a butcher had bled them.  Still he didn't altogether have the laugh on us, though he did escape; for one of the labourers ran him through the neck with a pike.'

After hearing this, I could not close an eye, but directly it was broad daylight, I started off for our good Gaius's house, like a peddler whose pack's been stolen; and coming to the spot where the clothes had been turned into stone, I found nothing whatever but a pool of blood.  When eventually I got home, there lay my soldier a-bed like a great ox, while a surgeon was dressing his neck.  I saw at once he was a werewolf and I could never afterwards eat bread with him, no! not if you'd killed me.  Other people may think what they please; but as for me, if I'm telling you a lie, may your guardian spirits confound me!"

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