Greek and Roman Ghost StoriesCollison-Morley, Lacy
History
Greek and Roman Ghost Stories
Collison-Morley, Lacy
Ghosts
We have one or two ghost stories connected with early Greek mythology.
Cillas, the charioteer of Pelops, though Troezenius gives his name as
Sphaerus, died on the way to Pisa, and appeared to Pelops by night,
begging that he might be duly buried. Pelops took pity on him and
burnt[85] his body with all ceremony, raised a huge mound in his honour,
and built a chapel to the Cillean Apollo near it. He also named a town
after him. Strabo even says that there was a mound in Cillas' honour at
Crisa in the Troad. This dutiful attention did not go unrewarded. Cillas
appeared to Pelops again, and thanked him for all he had done, and to
Cillas also he is said to have owed the information by which he was able
to overthrow OEnomaus in the famous chariot race which won him the
hand of Hippodamia. Pelops' shameless ingratitude to OEnomaus's
charioteer, Myrtilus, who had removed the pin of his master's chariot,
and thus caused his defeat and death in order to help Pelops, on the
promise of the half of the kingdom, is hardly in accordance with his
treatment of Cillas, though it is thoroughly Greek. However, on the
theory that a man who betrays one master will probably betray another,
especially if he is to be rewarded for his treachery with as much as
half a kingdom, Pelops was right in considering that Myrtilus was best
out of the way; and he can hardly have foreseen the curse that was to
fall upon his family in consequence.
With this story we may compare the well-known tale of the poet
Simonides, who found an unknown corpse on the shore, and honoured it
with burial.[86] Soon afterwards he happened to be on the point of
starting on a voyage, when the man whom he had buried appeared to him in
a dream, and warned him on no account to go by the ship he had chosen,
as it would undoubtedly be wrecked. Impressed by the vision, the poet
remained behind, and the ship went down soon afterwards, with all on
board. Simonides expressed his gratitude in a poem describing the event,
and in several epigrams. Libanius even goes so far as to place the scene
of the event at Tarentum, where he was preparing to take ship for
Sicily.
The tale is probably mythical. It belongs to a group of stories of the
grateful dead, which have been the subject of an interesting book
recently published by the Folk-Lore Society.[87] Mr. Gerould doubts
whether it really belongs to the cycle, as it is nearly two centuries
earlier, even in Cicero's version, than any other yet discovered; but it
certainly inspired Chaucer in his Nun's Priest's Tale, and it may well
have influenced other later versions. The Jewish version is closer to
the Simonides story than any of the others, and I will quote it in Mr.
Gerould's words.[88]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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