Greek and Roman Ghost StoriesCollison-Morley, Lacy
History
Greek and Roman Ghost Stories
Collison-Morley, Lacy
Ghosts
[Footnote 85: If that is the meaning of [Greek: exerruparou] in the
Homeric Scholia of Theopompus.]
[Footnote 86: Cic., _De Div._, i. 27, 56. Cp. Val. Max., i. 7; Libanius,
iv. 1101.]
[Footnote 87: _The Grateful Dead_, by G.H. Gerould.]
[Footnote 88: _The Grateful Dead_, p. 27.]
[Footnote 89: _Ibid._, p. 10.]
[Footnote 90: 6. 6. 7.]
[Footnote 91: AElian, _Fragm._, 82.]
[Footnote 92: Herod., iv. 14, 15.]
[Footnote 93: _Hist. Mir._, 11.]
[Footnote 94: _N.H._, 7. 52. 174.]
[Footnote 95: 67. 16.]
[Footnote 96: _N.H._, 7. 52. 174.]
[Footnote 97: Vagina.]
[Footnote 98: _Human Personality_, ii. 383.]
[Footnote 99: Phlegon of Tralles, _De Rebus Mirabilibus_, _ad fin._]
[Footnote 100: _Rhein. Mus._, vol. xxxii., p. 329.]
[Footnote 101: Mai, _Script. Vet. Nov. Coll._, ii. 671.]
[Footnote 102: London, 1616.]
[Footnote 103: [Greek: errho]]
VII
WARNING APPARITIONS
As we should expect, there are a number of instances of warning
apparitions in antiquity; and it is interesting to note that the
majority of these are gigantic women endowed with a gift of prophecy.
Thus the younger Pliny[104] tells us how Quintus Curtius Rufus, who was
on the staff of the Governor of Africa, was walking one day in a
colonnade after sunset, when a gigantic woman appeared before him. She
announced that she was Africa, and was able to predict the future, and
told him that he would go to Rome, hold office there, return to the
province with the highest authority, and there die. Her prophecy was
fulfilled to the letter, and as he landed in Africa for the last time
the same figure is reported to have met him.
So, again, at the time of the conspiracy of Callippus, Dion was
meditating one evening before the porch of his house, when he turned
round and saw a gigantic female figure, in the form of a Fury, at the
end of the corridor, sweeping the floor with a broom. The vision
terrified him, and soon afterwards his only son committed suicide and he
himself was murdered by the conspirators.[105]
A similar dramatic story is related of Drusus during his German
campaigns.[106] While engaged in operations against the Alemanni, he was
preparing to cross the Elbe, when a gigantic woman barred the way,
exclaiming, "Insatiate Drusus, whither wilt thou go? Thou art not fated
to see all things. Depart hence, for the end of thy life and of thy
deeds is at hand." Drusus was much troubled by this warning, and
instantly obeyed the words of the apparition; but he died before
reaching the Rhine.
We meet with the same phenomenon again in Dio Cassius, among the
prodigies preceding the death of Macrinus, when "a dreadful gigantic
woman, seen of several, declared that all that had happened was as
nothing compared with what they were soon to endure"--a prophecy which
was amply fulfilled by the reign of Heliogabalus.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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