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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 2: And we are into October here. We're covering our spooky topics.

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Speaker 2: And we have at least a couple lined up here

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Speaker 2: that are going to involve Haunted Houses of the Ancient World.

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Speaker 2: Joe and I are going to spend a couple of

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Speaker 2: nights in this topic and see if we survive to

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Speaker 2: meet the dawn on the other side.

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Speaker 1: See if we can earn that prize and get 100

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Speaker 1: tacos for $ 100. There you go.

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Speaker 2: So haunted houses. We don't even have to present this

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Speaker 2: idea to you. I think everyone out there like us,

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Speaker 2: you just grew up knowing what a haunted house was.

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Speaker 2: Like I was trying to think back to my earliest

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Speaker 2: introduction to the concept. And I think it would have

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Speaker 2: had to, it had to have been old episodes of

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Speaker 2: Scooby-Doo and or the 1937 Mickey Mouse cartoon, Lonesome Ghost.

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Speaker 2: It's a short, this is the one where Mickey has

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Speaker 2: a shotgun and there are ghosts after him and his

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Speaker 2: buddies in a haunted house. This is one that they

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Speaker 2: would air on like Disney TV specials alongside other Um, spooky, uh,

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Speaker 2: Halloween shorts from, you know, across the decades. I think

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Speaker 2: those were the main ways I was introduced to it.

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Speaker 2: And then at some point I also saw parts of

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Speaker 2: 1982s poltergeist and I was way too young to see this. Uh,

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Speaker 2: and it terrified me for most of my childhood. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Weird to see that you've got this picture in here

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Speaker 1: of the the lonesome ghost it is weird to see

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Speaker 1: mickey mouse with a gun it's one of those sneaky

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Speaker 1: guns in old media it's like you forget about how

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Speaker 1: in the wizard of oz movie for some reason the

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Speaker 1: scarecrow has a.

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Speaker 3: Gun yeah where'd he get that yeah i got those

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Speaker 3: in oz.

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Speaker 2: Yeah it's just uh it's a different time back when

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Speaker 2: uh mickey was packing heat yeah how about you joe

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Speaker 2: do you remember your earliest uh exposure to haunted house media.

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Speaker 1: I have no idea, though the concept is broad enough

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Speaker 1: that it shows up in a lot of kids' media, too.

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Speaker 1: So even before I was into horror movies, adult horror movies,

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Speaker 1: I'm sure I got it in all kinds of cartoons

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Speaker 1: and things. I liked Scooby-Doo a lot when I was

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Speaker 1: a little kid, so yeah, I'm sure I got Scooby-Doo.

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Speaker 3: That was probably pretty early.

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Speaker 2: Scooby-Doo was kind of a nice dose of skepticism about

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Speaker 2: the supernatural, right? Because it was never an actual ghost,

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Speaker 2: as I recall. It was always... like a grumpy old

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Speaker 2: man in a mask. There was always some sort of

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Speaker 2: natural explanation for what was going on.

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Speaker 1: It's old man Donner who's trying to, you know, get

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Speaker 1: a cheap price to buy the old mansion. And so

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Speaker 1: he's like running around in a ghost costume to scare

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Speaker 1: away the other buyers.

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Speaker 2: That's a good idea. We'll come back to this concept

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Speaker 2: here in a bit. But of course, you know, anyone

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Speaker 2: who listens to our Weird House Cinema episodes know that

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Speaker 2: We like a lot of haunted house media. For my

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Speaker 2: own part, eventually I discovered Stephen King's The Shining, Richard

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Speaker 2: Matheson's The Legend of Hell House. And then on Weird House,

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Speaker 2: we discussed Obayashi's 1977 film House, the Japanese haunted house

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Speaker 2: film that is one of our favorites.

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Speaker 3: One of the greats.

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Speaker 1: The novel, The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson, I

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Speaker 1: think is one of the best of all time.

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Speaker 3: And Oh, we talked about that on the show before.

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Speaker 1: I think years ago it was one of my summer

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Speaker 1: reading picks, uh, cause I just read it for the

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Speaker 1: first time and thought it was so great. Interesting how,

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Speaker 1: and I think this was an idea that came in

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Speaker 1: the forward to that book. The, the addition of that

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Speaker 1: book that I had had a forward by Guillermo del

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Speaker 1: Toro who pointed out that in the novel, the house

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Speaker 1: as a malevolent kind of total entity, uh, behaves like

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Speaker 1: a predatory animal. In that it tries to isolate members

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Speaker 1: of the herd. It's constantly trying to shuffle people apart

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Speaker 1: and get one alone from everybody else so that it

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Speaker 1: can psychically attack them. And then he springs off from

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Speaker 1: there to talking about how that's like an early dynamic.

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Speaker 1: But then later on, there's the horrifying revelation that even

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Speaker 1: when you're around other people, you're always alone in your

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Speaker 1: own head and the house can attack you there.

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Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah. Yeah. This also touching on this idea that

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Speaker 2: the house itself becomes an entity. It becomes personified. Very

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Speaker 2: much the.

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Speaker 1: Case in The Shining as well. Like, the hotel is evil.

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Speaker 1: It's not just that there is a ghost in it.

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Speaker 1: There's this total entity that sort of inflicts all of

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Speaker 1: the sub-hauntings.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And, of course, this becomes, even though I don't

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Speaker 2: know if I ever saw one all the way through,

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Speaker 2: but just being exposed to posters and trailers for the

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Speaker 2: Amityville horror films, the house has eyes. It has those

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Speaker 2: two windows. It looks kind of like a face. And

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Speaker 2: I don't even know if they really personify the haunt

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Speaker 2: in those movies or not, but the poster sure as

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Speaker 2: heck did.

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Speaker 3: I've never seen that one.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I know it's spawned out the whole thing, and

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Speaker 2: it's based on a supposed and allegedly true haunting. But

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Speaker 2: I guess, okay, so we'll get back to what is

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Speaker 2: a haunting, what is a haunt, but first, like, what

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Speaker 2: is a house?

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Speaker 3: Great questions.

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Speaker 2: What is the house in a haunted house? Like, this

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Speaker 2: is one of the things we just kind of, like,

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Speaker 2: blow past because we just grew up knowing about haunted houses,

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Speaker 2: but you know, it's, it's a human domicile. Uh, it's

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Speaker 2: a place with a personal human history that predates us.

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Speaker 2: People lived here before, um, you know, all sorts of

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Speaker 2: things happen like mundane occurrences. You know, people made love

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Speaker 2: in this house before you lived here. People probably died

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Speaker 2: in this house. If it's old enough, people may have

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Speaker 2: been born in this house. Crimes took place. Tears were shed.

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Speaker 2: It's a place that literally contains secrets, flaws, and hidden problems,

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Speaker 2: you know, in its design or construction and repair work.

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Speaker 2: And it doesn't seem like too much of a step

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Speaker 2: then to assume that it has secrets in a supernatural

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Speaker 2: sense as well. You know, it has an actual crawl space,

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Speaker 2: but maybe it has like a spiritual crawl space on

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Speaker 2: top of that.

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Speaker 1: That is a really good point. Domestic houses, especially if

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Speaker 1: they're old, just come loaded with all of this potential

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Speaker 1: for haunting because they have the history because they have

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Speaker 1: history and it's a private history.

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Speaker 3: It's a history of.

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Speaker 1: Like, uh, you know, what people were doing that the

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Speaker 1: neighbors didn't know about. So you can have like interesting

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Speaker 1: mysteries attached to the history of the house. It's the

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Speaker 1: kind of the reason that you probably wouldn't get a

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Speaker 1: haunted building story about a taco bell location that was

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Speaker 1: built in the last 10 years.

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Speaker 3: You know, something about that doesn't feel ancient. Doesn't feel secret.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's like a public place and it's tied

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Speaker 1: to profane associations. The house is the best kind of

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Speaker 1: place for this. Or maybe like an old church, you know,

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Speaker 1: things that have a deep history. Maybe things could be

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Speaker 1: buried there. Things took place there that people don't know about.

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Speaker 1: And the associations are not overtly profane. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so we have lots of traditions and stories as

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Speaker 2: well from around the world of not only haunted homes

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Speaker 2: and houses, but yeah, haunted churches, haunted temples, haunted, you know,

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Speaker 2: other things of that nature, haunted hospitals, haunted asylums, things

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Speaker 2: like this. So, you know, and a lot of what

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Speaker 2: we're going to be talking about is going to, we're

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Speaker 2: going to be mostly talking about houses, but a lot

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Speaker 2: can be applied to these other locations and other stories.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think in all cases, like the house

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Speaker 2: becomes a localization place for other beliefs and traditions about

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Speaker 2: the continuation of the human soul. So where do we

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Speaker 2: get these ideas of haunted houses? We get them from

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Speaker 2: ghost stories of haunted houses, of course. That's the main

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Speaker 2: way to acquire them. Outside of having some sort of

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Speaker 2: an experience that you then interpret and retell as haunted.

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Speaker 2: But then that's like self-generation of a haunted house story.

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Speaker 2: Narrative is key to all of this.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and though I guess I shouldn't prejudge this, I

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Speaker 1: think obviously there is some question about about whether you

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Speaker 1: would be getting new spontaneous hauntings and haunted house stories

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Speaker 1: if there were not this tradition of haunted house stories

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Speaker 1: in the culture.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I do think that is key, as we'll discuss. But,

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Speaker 2: you know, certainly for most of us, nothing new. We

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Speaker 2: grew up watching it on TV, reading stories, hearing stories,

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Speaker 2: and on the Internet engaging in creepypasta about hauntings, playing

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Speaker 2: video games and tabletop RPGs that have hauntings. So, you know,

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Speaker 2: it's a rich haunted ecology that we were all born into.

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Speaker 2: And the idea is certainly not new. Many of our

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Speaker 2: traditions of haunted houses broadly have like 19th century Victorian

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Speaker 2: and 18th century Gothic origins. But the stories of haunted

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Speaker 2: houses go back much further than that. And of course,

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Speaker 2: they're not uniquely European in origin. But in these episodes,

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Speaker 2: we're going to dive into some of the oldest recorded

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Speaker 2: accounts of haunted houses from antiquity, from the Greek and

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Speaker 2: Roman world. and discuss what they lay down, what do

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Speaker 2: they seem to reveal about our fascination with haunted houses,

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Speaker 2: what do they have in common with the haunted house

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Speaker 2: tradition that still continues on today, and what particulars of

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Speaker 2: the time and of the tellers of these tales we

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Speaker 2: can sort of piece out amid the details.

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Speaker 1: On one of those later points you made, the thing

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Speaker 1: that struck me the most about the big example we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk about today is how similar it is

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Speaker 1: to haunted house stories that you would still get in

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Speaker 1: brand new media of today. There is a shocking amount

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Speaker 1: of similarity, actually.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And part of that is it's a great story.

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Speaker 2: Why mess with it? So, yeah, it'll be fun to

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Speaker 2: get into this. Two sources of note that I want

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Speaker 2: to bring up at the beginning that I'll be referring to.

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Speaker 2: One is by Dee Felton, a professor of classics at

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Speaker 2: the University of Massachusetts Sam Hurst. published in 1999, titled

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Speaker 2: Haunted Greece and Rome, Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquities. And

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Speaker 2: the other is Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek

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Speaker 2: and Roman World by Daniel Ogden, professor of ancient history

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Speaker 2: at the University of Exeter. This is the second edition

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Speaker 2: from 2009. Both authors have published numerous works that are

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Speaker 2: right in the stuff-to-blow-your-mind zone of classical studies. including Ogden's

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Speaker 2: The Werewolf in the Ancient World, or Werewolves of the

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Speaker 2: Ancient World. I'm blanking on which title it actually is,

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Speaker 2: but I referenced this work in my Monster Fact Werewolf

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Speaker 2: series last year, and it's a great read.

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Speaker 1: I just had to look it up to remember which

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Speaker 1: episode it was. But we talked about an article by

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Speaker 1: Daniel Ogden in our series on necromancy from one or

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Speaker 1: two years ago because he had some stuff about this, too.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. He's written multiple works that deal with this

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Speaker 2: sort of thing. And in fact, the work that I'm

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Speaker 2: referring to of his magic, witchcraft and ghosts, it has

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Speaker 2: almost an encyclopedic list of like different elements that you

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Speaker 2: find in different stories. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The main interesting fact from the tradition of necromancy in

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Speaker 1: the real world is that unlike in Dungeons & Dragons,

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Speaker 1: it does not involve resurrecting skeleton warriors. It's all about

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Speaker 1: getting information from the dead.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. All right, so what constitutes a haunted house? Again,

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Speaker 2: there's sort of a know-it-when-you-see equality to the genre. It's

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Speaker 2: easy to sort of plow forward without actually looking at

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Speaker 2: the criteria. Felton especially gets into the details of this,

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Speaker 2: stressing that when we talk about haunted houses... We're, of course,

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Speaker 2: talking about haunted house stories, and certain plot elements are

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Speaker 2: often very much in play and in the view of

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Speaker 2: some scholars are present in all or most of the

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Speaker 2: key examples from antiquity that we'll be looking at. So

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Speaker 2: what are they? These will not come as a surprise.

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Speaker 2: An unsettled spirit of the dead due perhaps to murder

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Speaker 2: and or improper burial. Sure. Sounds familiar. We've all heard

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Speaker 2: that one a million times, right? Yeah, the ghost is

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Speaker 2: haunting because they were murdered or they weren't buried right. Okay,

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Speaker 2: another one is some sort of continual haunting by said

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Speaker 2: spirit observed by multiple parties over time. That's always key, right?

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Speaker 2: If I'm the only one who can see the ghost,

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Speaker 2: is it really a ghost story or is it another

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Speaker 2: type of story? You need some sort of like independent

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Speaker 2: verification of the haunt. Like someone else needs to be

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Speaker 2: able to see it too. There need to be stories

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Speaker 2: about people who have seen the ghost before. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Also that it's bound by place and that it happens

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Speaker 1: multiple times over time.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

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Speaker 1: If it just happens once, that's not really a haunted

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Speaker 1: house story. If it can leave the house, that's not

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Speaker 1: really a haunted house story.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And I erred slightly by saying, talking about seeing

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Speaker 2: a ghost, perhaps because we have that, you know, we

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Speaker 2: talk about, oh, you look like you saw a ghost.

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Speaker 2: But of course, haunted phenomena don't just mean visual. And

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Speaker 2: this is another thing that Felton points out is that you...

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Speaker 2: you need some sort of haunted phenomena to, to be

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Speaker 2: occurring in your story. It might be purely audible. It

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Speaker 2: could just be sounds like I heard this, you know,

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Speaker 2: crashing sound, but there was nothing that there's no physical

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Speaker 2: evidence of crashing, but I heard it. Uh, you know,

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Speaker 2: that alone is often, uh, a detail in a story

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Speaker 2: of a haunted house. Other times audible plus physical evidence.

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Speaker 2: Like I heard a crashing and then I went in

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Speaker 2: and yeah, something had like torn up part of the

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Speaker 2: room or, you know, broken a couch or whatever the

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Speaker 2: case may be. All the mirrors were shattered. So you

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Speaker 2: have sound plus physical evidence, but no visual evidence of

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Speaker 2: something having occurred beyond that.

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Speaker 1: Keeps knocking over my Warhammer miniature.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. That sort of thing. And then the third

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Speaker 2: category would be either it could be on top of

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Speaker 2: these other two things. It could be the culmination of

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Speaker 2: these things. And that is that you actually visually see something.

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Speaker 2: And a lot of times this is going to be

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Speaker 2: seeing a ghost, seeing some sort of a specter, some

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Speaker 2: sort of person. You know, maybe they're walking through the walls.

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Speaker 2: Maybe you can see through them. Maybe they just look

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Speaker 2: like a person. And then sometimes there's added sensory input

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Speaker 2: as well. Like there's a chill in the air. Now,

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Speaker 2: as far as like, you know, creepypasta and oral traditions go,

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Speaker 2: sometimes that is all there is to the story. It's

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Speaker 2: like there's a place. These are the details of the ghost.

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Speaker 2: You might not even have much in the way in

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Speaker 2: details about who saw the ghost. Sometimes there's a specific

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Speaker 2: person because you want to be clear that a real

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Speaker 2: person saw this and therefore it's on some level authenticated.

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Speaker 2: But sometimes that's all there is to it. It's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: it happens. Nobody knows what it's about. Don't go there

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Speaker 2: because you might be frightened. Or the dare is, of course,

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Speaker 2: go there. You will be frightened. And it becomes like,

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Speaker 2: you know, a test for young people. this sort of

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Speaker 2: legendary quest that they're going to put themselves up against

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Speaker 2: to sort of push the boundaries of mortality and so forth.

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Speaker 1: Though if it only has those elements, it's not really

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Speaker 1: a story, is it? It kind of doesn't have the

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Speaker 1: full contour of a story that's like a problem is

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Speaker 1: presented and someone confronts it. So that is more like

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Speaker 1: I guess there are things that you might call stories,

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Speaker 1: but they're more like urban legends where you just describe

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Speaker 1: a situation or a kind of persistent way things are

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Speaker 1: in a place.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Then it's just like a bad screenplay. It's

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Speaker 2: just a scenario that's been laid out. Yeah, for a

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Speaker 2: proper ghost story, you need, as Felton points out, you

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Speaker 2: need a brave person to solve the haunting, to go

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Speaker 2: in there, to figure out what's going on. Often this

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Speaker 2: is a scholarly, studious, skeptical or wise person that is

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Speaker 2: going to actually brave the haunting, figure out why the

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Speaker 2: haunting is occurring, and solve it. Correct whatever wrong has

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Speaker 2: been done in order to stop the haunting from occurring.

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Speaker 1: I do think it's interesting that ghost stories, especially stories

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Speaker 1: where the ghost turns out to be real, like the

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Speaker 1: premise is there really is a supernatural being here, so

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Speaker 1: often need a character who's a skeptic. They either need

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Speaker 1: a skeptic who is later convinced and becomes a believer

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Speaker 1: or a skeptic who is proven wrong by a believer.

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Speaker 1: So the believer gets vindication over them. I think that's

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Speaker 1: there because it gives human drama, but it also gives

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Speaker 1: credibility to the situation. Like you, it doesn't feel as

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Speaker 1: powerful if everybody going in is already like, yeah, I

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Speaker 1: believe in ghosts and there is one here. You've got

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Speaker 1: to have at least one person who's like impossible.

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Speaker 3: I doubt it.

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Speaker 1: And then they get their comeuppance one way or another.

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Speaker 1: Either their mind is changed or they are humiliated.

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Speaker 2: Now, is this still largely true of the many recent

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Speaker 2: haunting movies that have come out? I'm thinking about, what

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Speaker 2: are the insidious movies? Are those the ones that have

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Speaker 2: a pair of paranormal investigators that are based on.

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Speaker 3: The Conjuring.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, The Conjuring. That's what it is. Are they presented

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Speaker 2: as skeptics or are they true believers?

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Speaker 1: Well, they're presented... I mean, the movie very much... It's

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Speaker 1: awkward because these are based on real people who, I

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Speaker 1: don't know how deep we want to get into it there,

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Speaker 1: but the real people that the main characters of the

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Speaker 1: Conjuring series are based on would have their critics in

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Speaker 1: real life, I think. But the characters in the movie

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Speaker 1: are presented as devout Christians and true believers in spiritual

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Speaker 1: powers and hauntings. Sometimes they practice a kind of pose

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Speaker 1: of skepticism where it's like, well, we, of course, know

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Speaker 1: that these powers are real, but we don't think in

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Speaker 1: every case that's really what's happening. So they will they're

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Speaker 1: presented as believers, but also practicing responsible skepticism in the

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Speaker 1: early stages of the investigation. And then, of course, you

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Speaker 1: always find out in the end, like, oh, yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: really the devil.

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Speaker 2: Well, that makes sense that even in these cases, you

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Speaker 2: still have to have at least some of the skeptic present.

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Speaker 2: in order to tell the story the way we're accustomed

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Speaker 2: to it being told.

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Speaker 1: And there are other characters who are more skeptical and

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Speaker 1: they end up getting their minds changed or get proven wrong.

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Speaker 2: All right. So we have to have all of that.

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Speaker 2: And then of course we also need a house. Uh,

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Speaker 2: and it depends on how picky we want to get

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Speaker 2: on all of this. Again, is it, is it fine

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Speaker 2: to just say it's a building? Um, and again, we

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Speaker 2: have haunted temples, we have haunted castles and these can

355
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Speaker 2: blur the line. Did someone actually live there or how

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Speaker 2: much time has to be spent in a place and

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Speaker 2: so forth. And, um, we'll mostly set that aside, but

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Speaker 2: as Felton points out, it also does seem to help

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Speaker 2: if a haunted house is also in disrepair and is big. Um,

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Speaker 2: and I had never really thought about this before, but

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Speaker 2: I was thinking like, what are examples of haunted houses

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Speaker 2: from media that I've, I've loved? And I, I was

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Speaker 2: thinking like, okay, the house in, uh, the 1970s house movie, uh,

364
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Speaker 2: the house in haunt and the house on haunted Hill.

365
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Speaker 2: I was thinking of the, the house and Stephen King's it.

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Speaker 2: And I was thinking of, hell house and richard matheson's

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Speaker 2: hell house and indeed these are all big buildings like

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Speaker 2: the the sort of coded idea of a haunted house

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Speaker 2: i think in most of our minds is some sort

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Speaker 2: of a dilapidated mansion of some sorts.

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Speaker 1: Yeah uh a bigger house there's more room for there

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Speaker 1: to be something else going on in another part of

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Speaker 1: it and you were drawn through the hallways and through

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Speaker 1: the there's just more space for action to develop, you know,

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Speaker 1: for things to draw closer or be farther away. If

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Speaker 1: you're in a one room shack, I guess that could

377
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Speaker 1: be haunted, but try to like actually stage out the

378
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Speaker 1: drama of that. How does that, like, how do you,

379
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Speaker 1: how do you go into the other room to see

380
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Speaker 1: the ghost if there's just one room?

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Like I was thinking along these lines and I was thinking, okay,

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Speaker 2: you can maybe make a case for like the evil

384
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Speaker 2: dead movies. Cause at least you have the division between

385
00:19:45,369 --> 00:19:48,620
Speaker 2: the upper house and the cellar. Right. But, but that's

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Speaker 2: not really a haunted house movie. That's like a that's

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Speaker 2: like a zombie demon movie. It's a different sort of story.

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Speaker 1: Even in that case, the house ends up feeling bigger

389
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Speaker 1: inside than it looks on the outside.

390
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Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, I guess that's that's probably pretty common, too.

391
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Speaker 2: And you could also chalk that up to the hauntedness

392
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Speaker 2: of it, kind of a house of leaves sort of

393
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Speaker 2: a thing. But yeah, I was trying to think of

394
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Speaker 2: any haunted house media I've seen with a small haunted house.

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Speaker 2: And the main things that came to mind were things

396
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Speaker 2: where we're dealing with something that's not truly a house,

397
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Speaker 2: like it's a dollhouse, or it's absolutely not a house.

398
00:20:22,450 --> 00:20:27,710
Speaker 2: It's a car like Christine. Or again, thinking about cases where, okay,

399
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Speaker 2: is the cabin haunted? And if so, is it really

400
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Speaker 2: a haunted cabin or is it just a cabin, the

401
00:20:32,190 --> 00:20:38,420
Speaker 2: cabin location where something haunted occurs? But yeah, Felton points

402
00:20:38,500 --> 00:20:42,670
Speaker 2: out that that a lot of haunted house literature from

403
00:20:42,710 --> 00:20:46,820
Speaker 2: recent times doesn't even waste much energy on describing the

404
00:20:46,880 --> 00:20:49,300
Speaker 2: outside of the house, because on some level, we all

405
00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:51,500
Speaker 2: know what one looks like. You don't need to go

406
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Speaker 2: into a lot of detail, like a few flourishes, maybe.

407
00:20:54,780 --> 00:20:57,440
Speaker 2: It's established, and most of the action is going to

408
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Speaker 2: take place inside the house. And so the exterior is

409
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Speaker 2: just kind of a teaser.

410
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Speaker 1: That's interesting. So you just say haunted house and automatically

411
00:21:06,160 --> 00:21:07,820
Speaker 1: there are going to be some attributes that come in.

412
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Speaker 1: People probably picture something big, old in disrepair and somewhat isolated.

413
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Speaker 1: They're not going to picture like, uh, a recent construction

414
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Speaker 1: with a fresh coat of paint that's part of a,

415
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Speaker 1: you know, it's like a McMansion and a series of

416
00:21:23,359 --> 00:21:25,860
Speaker 1: houses all close together that all look like, you know,

417
00:21:25,960 --> 00:21:28,280
Speaker 1: kind of the same. Like there is something that it

418
00:21:28,300 --> 00:21:30,160
Speaker 1: kind of needs to be isolated. It kind of needs

419
00:21:30,180 --> 00:21:34,520
Speaker 1: to be old and different. And the disuse appearance is

420
00:21:34,560 --> 00:21:37,300
Speaker 1: a big part of it too. Yeah. Because if it's

421
00:21:37,320 --> 00:21:41,460
Speaker 1: something where there's just continuous habitation without any problems, that

422
00:21:41,500 --> 00:21:43,100
Speaker 1: also kind of feels like, well, how bad could the

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Speaker 1: haunting be?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why maybe the Taco Bell

425
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Speaker 2: is not haunted. Or it's certainly not haunted during the day.

426
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Speaker 2: Maybe it's haunted at night. Right. Yeah, something like that.

427
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Speaker 2: So the question, is there some sort of a fixed

428
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Speaker 2: image of a haunted house in antiquity that we can

429
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Speaker 2: find in the few remaining haunted house stories that we

430
00:22:12,190 --> 00:22:15,010
Speaker 2: have from this time? Well, Felden stresses that mainly we

431
00:22:15,030 --> 00:22:18,210
Speaker 2: just don't have enough source material here to really have

432
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Speaker 2: a firm answer on this. We just don't know if

433
00:22:21,340 --> 00:22:25,240
Speaker 2: you said haunted house, if someone in ancient Greece or

434
00:22:25,619 --> 00:22:29,000
Speaker 2: ancient Rome would have like an instant mental image of

435
00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:30,119
Speaker 2: what you were talking about.

436
00:22:30,540 --> 00:22:32,440
Speaker 1: Though the main story we're going to talk about today

437
00:22:32,500 --> 00:22:34,780
Speaker 1: has in common with these modern stories that the house

438
00:22:34,840 --> 00:22:37,600
Speaker 1: is big. It is made clear that it is roomy

439
00:22:37,680 --> 00:22:38,310
Speaker 1: and spacious.

440
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:42,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. And yeah, size does seem to be important here.

441
00:22:42,540 --> 00:22:46,400
Speaker 2: It's apparently been argued that we may have so few

442
00:22:46,500 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 2: haunted house stories in the ancient world, in part because

443
00:22:50,880 --> 00:22:56,230
Speaker 2: people lived in small homes. So Felton mentions this, citing

444
00:22:56,590 --> 00:23:01,429
Speaker 2: Adrian Nicholas Sherwin-White in his scholarship. She writes, quote, the

445
00:23:01,470 --> 00:23:05,150
Speaker 2: relatively small size in the compact building of houses, even

446
00:23:05,270 --> 00:23:09,280
Speaker 2: of the wealthy classes and the preponderance of urban life

447
00:23:09,680 --> 00:23:12,540
Speaker 2: did not allow the free development of the haunted house

448
00:23:12,619 --> 00:23:16,399
Speaker 2: and lonely castle themes dear to the ghostly literature of

449
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:20,270
Speaker 2: the 19th century hmm, so the idea being it's like

450
00:23:20,380 --> 00:23:25,730
Speaker 2: on some level you need to have big houses that

451
00:23:26,410 --> 00:23:30,490
Speaker 2: That that have an emptiness to them And it's to

452
00:23:30,570 --> 00:23:33,530
Speaker 2: even generate these stories and give these stories a chance

453
00:23:33,570 --> 00:23:37,030
Speaker 2: to like grow and then take hold of the public imagination.

454
00:23:36,859 --> 00:23:39,440
Speaker 1: I love stuff like this, thinking about ways that whole

455
00:23:39,570 --> 00:23:44,530
Speaker 1: genres of literature are in ways we don't appreciate, possibly

456
00:23:44,590 --> 00:23:47,450
Speaker 1: dependent on historical trends in architecture.

457
00:23:47,470 --> 00:23:51,490
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just thinking about the way that the

458
00:23:51,530 --> 00:23:54,149
Speaker 2: spaces that we built for ourselves and occupied, how they

459
00:23:54,170 --> 00:24:01,230
Speaker 2: end up informing that we think about something as detached

460
00:24:01,250 --> 00:24:03,810
Speaker 2: from reality as a haunted house. Yeah.

461
00:24:05,310 --> 00:24:08,670
Speaker 1: What other kinds of literature could we have if we

462
00:24:08,850 --> 00:24:11,350
Speaker 1: lived in very different types of buildings than the ones

463
00:24:11,390 --> 00:24:11,750
Speaker 1: we do?

464
00:24:12,109 --> 00:24:14,889
Speaker 2: Yeah, and of course we do now. And we can

465
00:24:14,950 --> 00:24:18,590
Speaker 2: have haunted stories about haunted apartments. Stephen King has a

466
00:24:18,630 --> 00:24:21,570
Speaker 2: really good one. We can have stories about haunted cars

467
00:24:21,650 --> 00:24:24,860
Speaker 2: and haunted trailers. We can have all of these because

468
00:24:24,890 --> 00:24:29,080
Speaker 2: we have the tradition that maybe, arguably, emerges because we

469
00:24:29,119 --> 00:24:31,620
Speaker 2: have big empty castles and big empty mansions, that sort

470
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:36,350
Speaker 2: of thing. So... Felton, again, points out that the three

471
00:24:36,430 --> 00:24:39,290
Speaker 2: most complete examples of the haunted house story from antiquity

472
00:24:39,350 --> 00:24:42,730
Speaker 2: are found in three surviving tales. And we're going to

473
00:24:42,950 --> 00:24:44,950
Speaker 2: we're going to talk we're going to talk about those three.

474
00:24:45,920 --> 00:24:47,919
Speaker 2: We're going to mostly talk about the one by Pliny

475
00:24:47,940 --> 00:24:51,660
Speaker 2: the Younger in this episode. And then there are possibly

476
00:24:51,680 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 2: a couple of other examples that I'm going to bring

477
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:57,660
Speaker 2: in from Ogden when we get into the second part. But,

478
00:24:58,080 --> 00:25:00,080
Speaker 2: you know, Felton points out it was such a small

479
00:25:00,140 --> 00:25:03,490
Speaker 2: sample size. We just can't be sure how many additional

480
00:25:03,550 --> 00:25:07,670
Speaker 2: narrative forms there were for haunted house stories in these days.

481
00:25:07,869 --> 00:25:11,630
Speaker 2: But all three survivors that we have, the main three

482
00:25:11,650 --> 00:25:15,300
Speaker 2: that she's referring to, they all do seem to have

483
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:18,520
Speaker 2: similar structure in many ways. They have things in common,

484
00:25:18,859 --> 00:25:21,760
Speaker 2: and this would at least suggest a commonly known structure

485
00:25:21,820 --> 00:25:25,300
Speaker 2: for a story even then. So even at the time,

486
00:25:25,859 --> 00:25:27,780
Speaker 2: there was an idea of what a ghost story was,

487
00:25:27,820 --> 00:25:29,790
Speaker 2: and if you were going to tell one, It needed

488
00:25:29,830 --> 00:25:31,790
Speaker 2: to sort of fall in line and hit those beats.

489
00:25:32,230 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 1: The example we're going to talk about today from Pliny

490
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:40,679
Speaker 1: the Younger feels almost suspiciously well-structured. It's working like a,

491
00:25:41,240 --> 00:25:43,639
Speaker 1: you know, like they say, like a well-oiled machine. And

492
00:25:43,900 --> 00:25:46,460
Speaker 1: it's kind of strange that it would have that feeling

493
00:25:46,980 --> 00:25:50,740
Speaker 1: if it were just a spontaneous tale being recounted rather

494
00:25:50,780 --> 00:25:54,010
Speaker 1: than something that had a familiar and recurring form.

495
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does have a literary feel to it. And

496
00:25:58,840 --> 00:26:01,800
Speaker 2: that's certainly a point that Felton makes about it. And

497
00:26:01,920 --> 00:26:04,330
Speaker 2: I compare that to other writings that I've heard where

498
00:26:04,350 --> 00:26:07,270
Speaker 2: you have writers from other times and other parts of

499
00:26:07,290 --> 00:26:10,189
Speaker 2: the world where they're sharing some story, some little moral

500
00:26:11,030 --> 00:26:15,650
Speaker 2: tidbit that they picked up. And it won't be story-shaped.

501
00:26:15,710 --> 00:26:18,060
Speaker 2: It'll be like, hey, somebody told me about this. A

502
00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:23,040
Speaker 2: weird thing happened. Isn't that strange? It's not particularly in

503
00:26:23,060 --> 00:26:25,660
Speaker 2: the form of a story. It's not story-shaped. It doesn't

504
00:26:25,680 --> 00:26:31,550
Speaker 2: have characters and so forth. Yeah. But yeah, the connections

505
00:26:31,609 --> 00:26:33,629
Speaker 2: that she says, you know, that are going to be

506
00:26:33,670 --> 00:26:36,290
Speaker 2: in common, you know, they can be literary, they can

507
00:26:36,330 --> 00:26:38,169
Speaker 2: be oral, or they can be based on a sort

508
00:26:38,190 --> 00:26:41,290
Speaker 2: of common social experience. And that's another key thing. Like

509
00:26:42,090 --> 00:26:45,570
Speaker 2: once the haunted house story has taken hold of the imagination,

510
00:26:46,730 --> 00:26:48,350
Speaker 2: there's going to be a certain amount of it that

511
00:26:48,369 --> 00:26:51,070
Speaker 2: just comes from our understanding of what it's like to

512
00:26:51,210 --> 00:26:55,310
Speaker 2: see a place that could be haunted, you know? Like

513
00:26:55,790 --> 00:26:57,550
Speaker 2: most of the listeners out here, you know, some of

514
00:26:57,590 --> 00:27:02,450
Speaker 2: you may have experiences where you perceive something that that

515
00:27:02,550 --> 00:27:05,480
Speaker 2: you describe as supernatural. But I think most of us,

516
00:27:05,640 --> 00:27:07,300
Speaker 2: we've been to places where we might be like, oh, yeah,

517
00:27:07,320 --> 00:27:10,020
Speaker 2: this seems like a haunted house or perhaps there's one

518
00:27:10,060 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 2: in your neighborhood. I walk by one, you know, pretty

519
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:16,050
Speaker 2: much every week that for years and years, for over

520
00:27:16,090 --> 00:27:17,510
Speaker 2: a decade of that, it kind of looks like a

521
00:27:17,550 --> 00:27:22,330
Speaker 2: haunted house. But I don't actually think it's haunted, obviously. Okay,

522
00:27:22,710 --> 00:27:25,810
Speaker 2: one more interesting general observation that Felton writes about, and

523
00:27:25,850 --> 00:27:30,230
Speaker 2: it's something that factors into both ancient and contemporary haunted

524
00:27:30,270 --> 00:27:34,230
Speaker 2: house stories and traditions, and that is, get ready for it,

525
00:27:34,750 --> 00:27:40,460
Speaker 2: disclosure issues in real estate, which I was not expected

526
00:27:40,500 --> 00:27:45,460
Speaker 2: to be excited about. This, of course, is very broadly

527
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,200
Speaker 2: we're talking about what happens when you go to sell

528
00:27:49,240 --> 00:27:52,690
Speaker 2: a house I don't know, lease a property, rent a property.

529
00:27:53,310 --> 00:27:57,350
Speaker 2: There's the idea that you have a moral obligation. And

530
00:27:57,390 --> 00:27:59,710
Speaker 2: then generally, especially today, there are going to be certain

531
00:27:59,850 --> 00:28:04,770
Speaker 2: legal obligations about what you have to disclose about that property. Like,

532
00:28:04,810 --> 00:28:07,890
Speaker 2: you know, this might be, does it leak? Does it flood?

533
00:28:08,820 --> 00:28:10,820
Speaker 2: Or it might factor into something else like, what are

534
00:28:10,859 --> 00:28:14,399
Speaker 2: the crime statistics? Or in certain cases, like, have, you know,

535
00:28:14,440 --> 00:28:17,320
Speaker 2: crimes been committed here within a certain period of time?

536
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,930
Speaker 2: That sort of thing. Mm-hmm. You know, all boring stuff,

537
00:28:21,010 --> 00:28:24,110
Speaker 2: generally the kind of stuff that we wouldn't talk about

538
00:28:24,170 --> 00:28:26,330
Speaker 2: and stuff to blow your mind. And also just kind

539
00:28:26,350 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 2: of like part of the mundane world of buying or

540
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:30,380
Speaker 2: renting property, right?

541
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: But I can imagine that hauntings would be in a

542
00:28:35,260 --> 00:28:37,800
Speaker 1: kind of middle ground, wouldn't they? It's something that most

543
00:28:37,880 --> 00:28:39,080
Speaker 1: people probably.

544
00:28:38,740 --> 00:28:40,000
Speaker 3: Would want to know about.

545
00:28:40,080 --> 00:28:43,540
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, could you really legally obligate

546
00:28:43,580 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 1: someone to report supernatural events?

547
00:28:47,220 --> 00:28:50,410
Speaker 2: Yeah, because, you know, with due respect, to any subjective

548
00:28:50,450 --> 00:28:53,660
Speaker 2: experiences of hauntings that listeners may have had, we have

549
00:28:53,680 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 2: to acknowledge that there is no objective reality to haunted

550
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 2: house stories. There's no like legal body that's going to

551
00:29:00,280 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 2: come in and say, Oh, this house it's haunted. It's

552
00:29:03,580 --> 00:29:06,660
Speaker 2: legally haunted. And that's something you have to report. Right.

553
00:29:06,900 --> 00:29:08,420
Speaker 3: How could you verify that in the court?

554
00:29:08,760 --> 00:29:12,380
Speaker 2: Yeah. But depending on state laws in the U S

555
00:29:12,830 --> 00:29:15,030
Speaker 2: at any rate, it is felt and discussed. And this

556
00:29:15,050 --> 00:29:16,810
Speaker 2: is of course, you know, many, many years old at

557
00:29:16,850 --> 00:29:19,860
Speaker 2: this point. Uh, but I'm, I'm to understand that the

558
00:29:19,890 --> 00:29:21,800
Speaker 2: laws are going to be basically the same on this,

559
00:29:22,400 --> 00:29:25,220
Speaker 2: depending on the state you're in. And then this probably

560
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:28,900
Speaker 2: applies internationally and simply in many places as well. You

561
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:32,530
Speaker 2: might have to disclose any factors about a property that

562
00:29:32,570 --> 00:29:36,370
Speaker 2: you're selling, for example, that might affect a property's value.

563
00:29:36,830 --> 00:29:39,970
Speaker 2: And that can certainly include things like murders and deaths.

564
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,500
Speaker 2: which may be covered by other laws regarding criminal history

565
00:29:43,520 --> 00:29:47,860
Speaker 2: of the location. But even the public perception that a

566
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,040
Speaker 2: place might be haunted might be, depending on where you are,

567
00:29:51,140 --> 00:29:54,310
Speaker 2: might be the kind of thing you would have to report. Though,

568
00:29:54,350 --> 00:29:57,830
Speaker 2: as Felton points out, That can cut both ways, especially

569
00:29:57,850 --> 00:30:03,020
Speaker 2: in today's world with stigmatized properties, as they're called, sometimes

570
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 2: fetching higher prices because people are drawn in by the story.

571
00:30:07,100 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 2: They're like, what? There's like a lady ghost that appears

572
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 2: on the top floor. That's exciting. That will add excitement

573
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,220
Speaker 2: to my life. I will pay a premium to have

574
00:30:16,280 --> 00:30:18,920
Speaker 2: that in my house. Other people are like, no, thank you.

575
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:21,300
Speaker 2: I'm not going to live there unless you really bring

576
00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:24,180
Speaker 2: that price down. Yeah.

577
00:30:24,260 --> 00:30:26,220
Speaker 1: So I wonder how that works out overall. Does it

578
00:30:26,260 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 1: just kind of even out or does it mean?

579
00:30:29,900 --> 00:30:32,170
Speaker 2: It sounds like if you have something that is truly,

580
00:30:32,670 --> 00:30:34,710
Speaker 2: and I'm not a real estate person, I would love

581
00:30:34,750 --> 00:30:37,910
Speaker 2: to hear from our real estate folks listening to the show.

582
00:30:38,230 --> 00:30:40,770
Speaker 2: This is your time to shine. But it's my understanding

583
00:30:40,830 --> 00:30:43,960
Speaker 2: that stigmatized properties are probably, it's probably going to be

584
00:30:44,300 --> 00:30:49,720
Speaker 2: generally more of a detriment to something than an attractive aspect.

585
00:30:50,300 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: Unless you have You know, you're dealing with, say, like

586
00:30:52,620 --> 00:30:54,660
Speaker 2: a haunted house and I don't know, a place that

587
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:58,540
Speaker 2: has a lot of value for that. Like I'm thinking

588
00:30:58,580 --> 00:31:00,020
Speaker 2: like you have a house in New Orleans and it

589
00:31:00,060 --> 00:31:02,240
Speaker 2: has a ghost story. Right. Like that seems like that

590
00:31:02,290 --> 00:31:06,590
Speaker 2: could be an advantage or something of that nature. You

591
00:31:06,630 --> 00:31:06,990
Speaker 2: want to.

592
00:31:06,910 --> 00:31:08,410
Speaker 3: Turn it into an attraction.

593
00:31:08,690 --> 00:31:11,090
Speaker 2: Yeah. Turn it into attraction or, you know, just maybe

594
00:31:11,130 --> 00:31:13,800
Speaker 2: this property would be appealing to somebody that would like

595
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:18,530
Speaker 2: that kind of story. But the crazy thing, as Felton discusses,

596
00:31:18,610 --> 00:31:21,390
Speaker 2: is that these issues were seemingly in play for ancient

597
00:31:21,430 --> 00:31:24,500
Speaker 2: haunted houses as well, or things that were seen as

598
00:31:24,540 --> 00:31:28,620
Speaker 2: haunted houses. You had stigmatized properties. The Pliny story we're

599
00:31:28,640 --> 00:31:33,290
Speaker 2: going to discuss includes details about low rent due to haunting.

600
00:31:34,770 --> 00:31:39,330
Speaker 2: Other ancient writers mentioned property disclosure issues not related to

601
00:31:40,810 --> 00:31:45,680
Speaker 2: alleged ghosts. And as far as the ghost stories are concerned,

602
00:31:46,180 --> 00:31:49,720
Speaker 2: it factors into situations as well, within the narrative of

603
00:31:49,740 --> 00:31:52,240
Speaker 2: the story. With at least one tale we're going to

604
00:31:52,300 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: discuss probably in the next episode, where the ghost claims

605
00:31:55,380 --> 00:31:59,729
Speaker 2: squatter's rights, essentially. Where the ghost is like, well, I

606
00:31:59,790 --> 00:32:03,110
Speaker 2: live here. I am the resident. This house belongs to me. Oh, yeah.

607
00:32:03,150 --> 00:32:04,790
Speaker 3: What are you going to do? Take the ghost to court?

608
00:32:05,490 --> 00:32:12,250
Speaker 2: Yeah. The other factor that she mentions is that and

609
00:32:12,270 --> 00:32:14,710
Speaker 2: this seems to be implied by plenty as well, is

610
00:32:14,750 --> 00:32:18,110
Speaker 2: the idea that occupants of a haunted house can't simply

611
00:32:18,210 --> 00:32:21,150
Speaker 2: leave because they end up squandering their investment if they

612
00:32:21,210 --> 00:32:24,020
Speaker 2: do so. Because this is always the thing, like house

613
00:32:24,060 --> 00:32:26,420
Speaker 2: is haunted, you just run away from it, right? But

614
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 2: in reality, you know, what does that mean to say, oh,

615
00:32:31,580 --> 00:32:33,160
Speaker 2: I guess I'm not going to live there? You know,

616
00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:36,300
Speaker 2: it means having to like make an argument that something

617
00:32:36,340 --> 00:32:38,700
Speaker 2: wasn't disclosed to you and legally get out of the

618
00:32:38,740 --> 00:32:42,260
Speaker 2: purchase or the rental and so forth. you know, it's

619
00:32:42,280 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: going to be a lot more complicated. It's like living

620
00:32:44,860 --> 00:32:48,550
Speaker 2: in a house with any other, like, mundane problem. Like, sure,

621
00:32:48,570 --> 00:32:50,210
Speaker 2: that problem's there. What are you going to do about it?

622
00:32:50,250 --> 00:32:51,870
Speaker 2: I guess you just got to live there and fix

623
00:32:51,930 --> 00:32:52,950
Speaker 2: it or put up with it, right?

624
00:32:53,290 --> 00:32:55,770
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it is kind of strange to think about this,

625
00:32:55,830 --> 00:33:00,210
Speaker 1: but some haunted house stories are money and class stories.

626
00:33:00,450 --> 00:33:00,670
Speaker 3: Yeah.

627
00:33:01,830 --> 00:33:05,360
Speaker 2: And finally, Felton does point out, and certainly read the

628
00:33:05,380 --> 00:33:07,780
Speaker 2: book if you want the precise examples on this, but

629
00:33:08,260 --> 00:33:10,640
Speaker 2: she does point out some examples of legal cases that

630
00:33:11,100 --> 00:33:14,180
Speaker 2: from recent decades where someone was able to get out

631
00:33:14,200 --> 00:33:19,290
Speaker 2: of a housing situation with an alleged haunted house. But

632
00:33:19,670 --> 00:33:22,090
Speaker 2: these seem to be rare today and maybe even more

633
00:33:22,150 --> 00:33:23,130
Speaker 2: rare in ancient times.

634
00:33:23,870 --> 00:33:24,670
Speaker 3: Usually you're stuck.

635
00:33:25,350 --> 00:33:27,890
Speaker 2: Yeah. One more thing that I think it's important to

636
00:33:27,930 --> 00:33:30,620
Speaker 2: think about before we dive into a specific example, and

637
00:33:30,640 --> 00:33:34,219
Speaker 2: that is, did the ancient peoples we're discussing believe in

638
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,510
Speaker 2: ghosts more than we do today? Hmm. And I think

639
00:33:37,530 --> 00:33:40,660
Speaker 2: that's a much trickier question to consider than many might think,

640
00:33:40,720 --> 00:33:44,180
Speaker 2: because on one hand, we're dealing with religious cultures that

641
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:49,660
Speaker 2: entailed the belief in household gods and ancestor veneration, like

642
00:33:49,700 --> 00:33:52,810
Speaker 2: the idea that there were spirits at work in the

643
00:33:52,870 --> 00:33:55,550
Speaker 2: home or that could be called into the home. Like

644
00:33:55,590 --> 00:33:59,130
Speaker 2: this was not like a crazy idea. It was kind

645
00:33:59,150 --> 00:34:02,490
Speaker 2: of like built into the systems of belief that people

646
00:34:02,530 --> 00:34:03,250
Speaker 2: shared with each other.

647
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,730
Speaker 1: Right. So it wasn't necessarily all or nothing on spiritual entities.

648
00:34:07,770 --> 00:34:11,090
Speaker 1: You can imagine, it seems to me, at least perfectly plausible,

649
00:34:11,130 --> 00:34:14,190
Speaker 1: that you'd have a Roman citizen in the first century

650
00:34:14,230 --> 00:34:17,779
Speaker 1: CE saying, yeah, I believe in gods, but no, I

651
00:34:17,820 --> 00:34:18,940
Speaker 1: don't believe in ghosts.

652
00:34:19,780 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think that's perfectly reasonable. And I think,

653
00:34:22,880 --> 00:34:25,819
Speaker 2: you know, it's also complicated today, obviously. We've talked about

654
00:34:25,840 --> 00:34:29,460
Speaker 2: this before when it comes to belief in the afterlife.

655
00:34:29,500 --> 00:34:32,589
Speaker 2: You know, it's entirely normal for a person to have

656
00:34:33,070 --> 00:34:35,609
Speaker 2: multiple conflicting viewpoints you know you could have somebody that

657
00:34:35,650 --> 00:34:39,790
Speaker 2: is like technically an atheist or agnostic but then you

658
00:34:39,810 --> 00:34:42,990
Speaker 2: know under the right circumstances they may entertain the idea

659
00:34:43,010 --> 00:34:45,030
Speaker 2: of ghosts it's kind of like it's a lot easier

660
00:34:45,050 --> 00:34:46,819
Speaker 2: to believe in ghosts when the lights are out and

661
00:34:46,840 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 2: there's a weird noise coming from the next room um you.

662
00:34:49,980 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 1: Don't have to rationally believe in something to be a

663
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:53,120
Speaker 1: little bit afraid of it.

664
00:34:53,380 --> 00:34:55,760
Speaker 2: Yeah and wonder if you're wrong yeah and it doesn't

665
00:34:56,020 --> 00:34:58,230
Speaker 2: uh it doesn't mean that that other like your primary

666
00:34:58,290 --> 00:35:01,759
Speaker 2: belief system is um is fraudulent or anything. It's just

667
00:35:02,060 --> 00:35:03,940
Speaker 2: the way that our minds work. You know, you can

668
00:35:03,980 --> 00:35:08,390
Speaker 2: believe in heaven and ghosts, even if like strict theology

669
00:35:08,410 --> 00:35:11,250
Speaker 2: of your faith tells you that ghost visitations are not happening.

670
00:35:12,770 --> 00:35:14,390
Speaker 2: And then I guess the next thing to think about

671
00:35:14,489 --> 00:35:17,960
Speaker 2: is if we acknowledge that, you know, various environmental and

672
00:35:18,140 --> 00:35:21,620
Speaker 2: inner conditions can lead to the experience of the supernatural,

673
00:35:21,739 --> 00:35:25,360
Speaker 2: you know, mainly through things like hallucination, we don't actually

674
00:35:25,420 --> 00:35:28,610
Speaker 2: have much reason to believe that the actual perception of

675
00:35:28,710 --> 00:35:32,529
Speaker 2: haunting sound sites or certainly specters was more common in

676
00:35:32,570 --> 00:35:35,830
Speaker 2: the ancient world. And even Pliny the Younger wrote that

677
00:35:36,010 --> 00:35:40,549
Speaker 2: actually seeing ghosts was possibly something divine in nature, but

678
00:35:40,650 --> 00:35:45,640
Speaker 2: also possibly, quote, only the visionary impressions of a terrified imagination.

679
00:35:45,780 --> 00:35:50,900
Speaker 2: So in other words, people knew then, as they know today,

680
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:54,700
Speaker 2: that it's possible to see things that are not actually

681
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:58,680
Speaker 2: there And those things may have no objective meaning whatsoever.

682
00:35:59,420 --> 00:36:02,500
Speaker 1: And there could be maybe even middle categories as far

683
00:36:02,560 --> 00:36:04,399
Speaker 1: as Pliny the Younger is concerned. We'll get to that

684
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: in just a minute. But before we do, I just

685
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: wanted to mention one thing real quickly that I was

686
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:12,910
Speaker 1: reading in a book from 1912. So this is an

687
00:36:13,050 --> 00:36:15,149
Speaker 1: older scholarship at this point, but the book is called

688
00:36:15,190 --> 00:36:18,670
Speaker 1: Greek and Roman Ghost Stories by an Oxford scholar named

689
00:36:18,750 --> 00:36:21,910
Speaker 1: Lacey Collison Morley. I just wanted to mention this because

690
00:36:22,130 --> 00:36:26,310
Speaker 1: in the first chapter of this book, Collison Morley identifies

691
00:36:26,670 --> 00:36:31,630
Speaker 1: broadly three classes of people who in the Greek and

692
00:36:31,670 --> 00:36:34,799
Speaker 1: Roman world might be thought to end up as ghosts.

693
00:36:35,360 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: And you already acknowledged two of these classes. Uh, one

694
00:36:38,960 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: is people who met violent deaths. So, you know, say

695
00:36:42,739 --> 00:36:46,860
Speaker 1: a murder victim or somebody who dies suddenly violently. And

696
00:36:46,900 --> 00:36:49,520
Speaker 1: the other thing is, uh, that you already said is

697
00:36:49,540 --> 00:36:52,980
Speaker 1: the unburied, uh, very often ancient peoples, not just Greek

698
00:36:53,020 --> 00:36:55,500
Speaker 1: and Roman peoples, but, um, You know, it's a very,

699
00:36:55,560 --> 00:36:58,100
Speaker 1: very common thing in the ancient world to find writings

700
00:36:58,140 --> 00:37:01,300
Speaker 1: where people are intensely consumed with the idea of getting

701
00:37:01,360 --> 00:37:06,500
Speaker 1: the proper burial rights. It's very important that you are disposed,

702
00:37:06,540 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 1: your body is disposed of in the way that your

703
00:37:08,700 --> 00:37:11,500
Speaker 1: culture deems is the correct way to do it. And

704
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:14,779
Speaker 1: having your body meet some fate other than the appropriate

705
00:37:14,860 --> 00:37:18,930
Speaker 1: deposition in the ground or. or cremation or whatever is

706
00:37:18,969 --> 00:37:23,410
Speaker 1: specified by your culture is thought of as a really

707
00:37:23,510 --> 00:37:27,140
Speaker 1: horrible fate. People are constantly terrified about the idea of

708
00:37:27,180 --> 00:37:29,040
Speaker 1: their body not meeting the correct end.

709
00:37:29,480 --> 00:37:30,060
Speaker 3: So those are.

710
00:37:30,020 --> 00:37:34,380
Speaker 1: Two violent deaths, the unburied. And then finally, Collison Morley

711
00:37:34,420 --> 00:37:38,620
Speaker 1: mentions those who had died before their time, quote, who

712
00:37:38,660 --> 00:37:41,540
Speaker 1: had to wander till the span of their natural life

713
00:37:41,620 --> 00:37:42,560
Speaker 1: was completed.

714
00:37:42,580 --> 00:37:42,660
Speaker 2: Yeah.

715
00:37:43,910 --> 00:37:46,469
Speaker 1: Thought that was an interesting idea too because that's more

716
00:37:46,510 --> 00:37:49,180
Speaker 1: about like uh it almost makes me think about the

717
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: greek fates you know the idea that maybe you would

718
00:37:51,219 --> 00:37:53,759
Speaker 1: have a certain amount of thread allotted to you but

719
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: something goes wrong and you die before your thread has

720
00:37:56,380 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 1: run out so you have to wander around on the

721
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: earth until you reach the end of.

722
00:38:00,140 --> 00:38:02,530
Speaker 2: It that's interesting this is one that i think maybe

723
00:38:02,550 --> 00:38:04,930
Speaker 2: in its full form we see less of today certainly

724
00:38:04,969 --> 00:38:07,089
Speaker 2: we have tales of like oh someone died too young

725
00:38:07,150 --> 00:38:08,930
Speaker 2: another ghost you know that that i think is still

726
00:38:09,010 --> 00:38:13,090
Speaker 2: very much a an in-play concept But this idea, like

727
00:38:13,410 --> 00:38:16,330
Speaker 2: you said, involving the fates, like I don't know if

728
00:38:16,370 --> 00:38:19,430
Speaker 2: it necessarily meshes as well and exists as well in

729
00:38:19,469 --> 00:38:21,859
Speaker 2: the light of, say, a lot of Christian theology where

730
00:38:21,880 --> 00:38:24,259
Speaker 2: it's like, well, you died. That is your time. Like

731
00:38:24,300 --> 00:38:27,120
Speaker 2: whatever time you died, like that was the time that

732
00:38:27,160 --> 00:38:30,759
Speaker 2: was allotted. And there was no nobody was adjusting that schedule.

733
00:38:31,239 --> 00:38:34,660
Speaker 2: But if you have a more sort of complex system that,

734
00:38:34,760 --> 00:38:38,440
Speaker 2: you know, decides like how the threat of fate is

735
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,130
Speaker 2: spun out and where it's clipped, then you could have

736
00:38:41,190 --> 00:38:44,230
Speaker 2: a scenario where, oh, loophole here. You're dead, but you

737
00:38:44,270 --> 00:38:46,469
Speaker 2: can't pass on because it's not your time yet. You're

738
00:38:46,489 --> 00:38:47,730
Speaker 2: just going to have to haunt for a little bit.

739
00:38:48,390 --> 00:38:53,070
Speaker 1: I guess it's somewhat different, I think, in Christian traditions because,

740
00:38:53,140 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: at least for the faithful, Christianity generally has a view

741
00:38:56,460 --> 00:39:00,600
Speaker 1: of a positive afterlife, whereas the Greek and Roman view

742
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:04,770
Speaker 1: of the afterlife is It's complicated. There are different visions

743
00:39:04,890 --> 00:39:06,730
Speaker 1: of it. But on the whole, it seems sort of

744
00:39:06,750 --> 00:39:11,190
Speaker 1: neutral to somewhat negative. So it's not just like, oh,

745
00:39:11,230 --> 00:39:12,180
Speaker 1: you went on to Hades.

746
00:39:12,219 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 3: That's fine. That's good, actually.

747
00:39:24,550 --> 00:39:27,550
Speaker 1: Okay, you ready to talk about this haunted house in Athens?

748
00:39:27,950 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 3: Let's do it.

749
00:39:28,590 --> 00:39:32,310
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the... this is not only the most

750
00:39:32,710 --> 00:39:35,910
Speaker 2: most well-known haunted house story from the ancient world. It

751
00:39:35,950 --> 00:39:38,370
Speaker 2: may be the most well-known ghost story from the ancient world.

752
00:39:38,410 --> 00:39:39,029
Speaker 2: So it's pretty cool.

753
00:39:39,630 --> 00:39:43,109
Speaker 1: So this story is recorded in the letters of the

754
00:39:43,260 --> 00:39:47,339
Speaker 1: first century Roman figure Pliny the Younger. We often cite

755
00:39:47,420 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: his uncle Pliny the Elder because Pliny the Elder was

756
00:39:51,070 --> 00:39:54,410
Speaker 1: was the author of an ancient Roman encyclopedia called The

757
00:39:54,450 --> 00:39:58,440
Speaker 1: Natural History that informs us of all kinds of things

758
00:39:58,500 --> 00:40:02,040
Speaker 1: that learned Romans thought about stuff in the world. Sometimes

759
00:40:02,140 --> 00:40:05,480
Speaker 1: it is fairly insightful. Other times it is quite funny. But,

760
00:40:05,660 --> 00:40:07,530
Speaker 1: you know, it's got lots of good stuff in there.

761
00:40:07,690 --> 00:40:11,049
Speaker 2: I mean, it's always insightful the way that he gets

762
00:40:11,090 --> 00:40:14,890
Speaker 2: something wrong or even if he doesn't mention something like, yeah.

763
00:40:15,550 --> 00:40:18,029
Speaker 2: Like when we're talking about horseshoe crabs, I believe that

764
00:40:18,050 --> 00:40:19,660
Speaker 2: was the one where it's like Pliny doesn't talk about

765
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:22,439
Speaker 2: horseshoe crabs. And that tells you something important about where

766
00:40:22,480 --> 00:40:23,540
Speaker 2: you find horseshoe crabs.

767
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:25,580
Speaker 3: Yeah.

768
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:28,219
Speaker 1: So we've talked about Pliny the Younger on the show

769
00:40:28,260 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: before because we actually read and discussed his harrowing firsthand

770
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:36,700
Speaker 1: account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE.

771
00:40:37,580 --> 00:40:41,490
Speaker 1: This is actually the event where Pliny the Elder died because, remember,

772
00:40:41,530 --> 00:40:45,190
Speaker 1: he led a naval mission across the Bay of Naples.

773
00:40:45,900 --> 00:40:48,359
Speaker 1: to a settlement on the other side, presumably to help

774
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:50,360
Speaker 1: people who had been trapped there by the eruption, but

775
00:40:51,580 --> 00:40:54,740
Speaker 1: died during that experience. So Pliny the Younger, years later,

776
00:40:54,860 --> 00:40:58,810
Speaker 1: writes about his observations and experiences during the eruption. I

777
00:40:59,570 --> 00:41:01,529
Speaker 1: don't remember exactly when we did that episode. It was

778
00:41:01,550 --> 00:41:03,270
Speaker 1: a few years back at this point, but I remember

779
00:41:03,310 --> 00:41:04,590
Speaker 1: that one was really interesting.

780
00:41:05,710 --> 00:41:08,149
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll find that in the audio backlogs for the show.

781
00:41:08,370 --> 00:41:10,350
Speaker 3: That was before we were doing video, definitely, yeah.

782
00:41:11,510 --> 00:41:15,250
Speaker 1: So this letter is to a Roman senator named Lucius

783
00:41:15,370 --> 00:41:20,280
Speaker 1: Licinius Sura, or just Sura. It is in the collected

784
00:41:20,320 --> 00:41:24,280
Speaker 1: letters of Pliny the Younger, Book 7, Letter No.

785
00:41:24,280 --> 00:41:24,780
Speaker 3: 27.

786
00:41:24,780 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: And the translation I'm using is one I found by J.B.

787
00:41:28,020 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: Firth from the year 1900. This was hosted on a

788
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:35,589
Speaker 1: website called Atalus or atalus.com, so shout out to them.

789
00:41:36,590 --> 00:41:39,150
Speaker 1: And the letter starts off like this. He says, hey, Sura.

790
00:41:39,830 --> 00:41:41,569
Speaker 1: He says, we've both got some leisure.

791
00:41:41,290 --> 00:41:42,030
Speaker 3: Time at the moment.

792
00:41:42,070 --> 00:41:43,950
Speaker 1: I think maybe he thought they both were, I don't know,

793
00:41:43,989 --> 00:41:47,009
Speaker 1: on vacation away from business or something. We've both got

794
00:41:47,030 --> 00:41:49,620
Speaker 1: some leisure time right now. We should use that to

795
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,680
Speaker 1: share information. What I want to know is, do you

796
00:41:52,719 --> 00:41:58,259
Speaker 1: believe in ghosts? And he asks some follow-up questions. He asks,

797
00:41:58,480 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 1: do you think ghosts have a real shape and divinity

798
00:42:02,360 --> 00:42:05,489
Speaker 1: of their own? or are they nothing but the shadows

799
00:42:05,570 --> 00:42:09,370
Speaker 1: that rise from a terrified mind? Uh, so that could,

800
00:42:09,430 --> 00:42:13,750
Speaker 1: that second option could be like, they're just hallucinations. They're

801
00:42:13,830 --> 00:42:17,149
Speaker 1: only in the mind, or it could be like, there,

802
00:42:17,290 --> 00:42:20,710
Speaker 1: there's some other thing apart from the body. And, you know,

803
00:42:20,730 --> 00:42:23,930
Speaker 1: this would be evidenced, uh, when multiple people see ghosts,

804
00:42:24,030 --> 00:42:26,680
Speaker 1: but still it's just something that arises from fear or

805
00:42:26,700 --> 00:42:31,080
Speaker 1: they could be independent entities. You know, there's something that

806
00:42:31,140 --> 00:42:35,089
Speaker 1: has a, uh, a divine spirit all of its own,

807
00:42:35,150 --> 00:42:37,330
Speaker 1: and they have their own unchanging form.

808
00:42:37,350 --> 00:42:40,710
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's very much the sort of question one

809
00:42:40,890 --> 00:42:43,410
Speaker 2: would ask today. It's like, hey, do you think ghosts

810
00:42:43,489 --> 00:42:46,050
Speaker 2: are real, or do you think it's just a product

811
00:42:46,090 --> 00:42:47,089
Speaker 2: of human imagination?

812
00:42:48,110 --> 00:42:50,840
Speaker 1: Pliny gives his own opinion in this letter. He says,

813
00:42:50,880 --> 00:42:53,180
Speaker 1: I think ghosts are real. He does think they have

814
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: a substance of their own. And he says that the

815
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:59,020
Speaker 1: main reason he believes this is because of what happened

816
00:42:59,060 --> 00:43:03,060
Speaker 1: to a guy named Curtius Rufus. So I looked this

817
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,500
Speaker 1: Curtius Rufus up, and he seems like an interesting and

818
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:10,870
Speaker 1: kind of mysterious figure himself. He was a first century

819
00:43:10,950 --> 00:43:15,350
Speaker 1: Roman magistrate and political player and social climber. He was

820
00:43:15,390 --> 00:43:18,250
Speaker 1: clearly very ambitious. He wanted to go up the ranks,

821
00:43:18,790 --> 00:43:22,299
Speaker 1: and he has somewhat obscure origins. He's mentioned in the

822
00:43:22,340 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 1: writings of both Pliny the Younger here and the historian Tacitus.

823
00:43:26,360 --> 00:43:28,400
Speaker 1: I see that there is a lot of back and

824
00:43:28,460 --> 00:43:33,050
Speaker 1: forth about his parentage. Like in Tacitus's Uh, Tacitus says,

825
00:43:33,650 --> 00:43:36,469
Speaker 1: I'm not going to comment on the rumors that he

826
00:43:36,550 --> 00:43:41,480
Speaker 1: is the son of a gladiator. Uh, so he's just

827
00:43:41,500 --> 00:43:44,339
Speaker 1: like not confirming, not denying. I'm not going to speak

828
00:43:44,380 --> 00:43:48,120
Speaker 1: at that. Uh, but I think at the time among,

829
00:43:48,219 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: you know, if you're trying to be a Roman elite,

830
00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:52,660
Speaker 1: a rumor that you were the son of a gladiator

831
00:43:52,700 --> 00:43:54,940
Speaker 1: would be, uh, not working in your favor.

832
00:43:54,960 --> 00:43:55,300
Speaker 2: Hmm.

833
00:43:55,780 --> 00:43:58,540
Speaker 1: So Pliny says that in the days when Curtius Rufus

834
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:03,140
Speaker 1: was young and still, quote, poor and obscure, he had

835
00:44:03,239 --> 00:44:07,950
Speaker 1: attached himself to the governor of the Roman province of Africa.

836
00:44:08,310 --> 00:44:12,130
Speaker 1: So he became sort of part of the general retinue

837
00:44:12,350 --> 00:44:16,790
Speaker 1: of this Roman governor of Africa. And then the ghost

838
00:44:16,850 --> 00:44:19,029
Speaker 1: part goes like this. This is before we get to

839
00:44:19,070 --> 00:44:20,200
Speaker 1: the main haunted house, by the way.

840
00:44:20,260 --> 00:44:21,380
Speaker 3: This is preamble.

841
00:44:21,420 --> 00:44:25,400
Speaker 1: He's talking about other examples of ghosts. Pliny writes, quote,

842
00:44:25,950 --> 00:44:29,130
Speaker 1: One evening at sundown, he was walking in the portico,

843
00:44:29,630 --> 00:44:32,489
Speaker 1: when the figure of a woman, but taller and more

844
00:44:32,570 --> 00:44:37,170
Speaker 1: beautiful than mortal woman, presented itself before him and told Rufus,

845
00:44:37,510 --> 00:44:42,290
Speaker 1: who was terrified with fright, that she was Africa and

846
00:44:42,350 --> 00:44:45,629
Speaker 1: could foretell the future. She declared that he would go

847
00:44:45,690 --> 00:44:49,029
Speaker 1: to Rome and hold high offices of state, and that

848
00:44:49,070 --> 00:44:52,210
Speaker 1: he would also return with plenary powers as governor to

849
00:44:52,250 --> 00:44:57,050
Speaker 1: that same province and there meet his death. So courteous

850
00:44:57,270 --> 00:45:00,230
Speaker 1: is in the portico. He sees a huge, beautiful woman.

851
00:45:00,350 --> 00:45:03,650
Speaker 1: She says, I am the spirit of Africa. You're going

852
00:45:03,670 --> 00:45:05,799
Speaker 1: to go to Rome and get a bunch of high honors.

853
00:45:05,820 --> 00:45:08,200
Speaker 1: You're going to get appointed to offices. You'll come back

854
00:45:08,280 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 1: as governor of Africa, and then you're going to die.

855
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 3: And then plenty ads.

856
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:16,359
Speaker 1: All of these prophecies would later come true. He says, uh,

857
00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:19,760
Speaker 1: when courteous came back to Africa, after his commission in Rome,

858
00:45:20,239 --> 00:45:23,279
Speaker 1: his ship landed at Carthage. And as soon as he

859
00:45:23,300 --> 00:45:26,270
Speaker 1: stepped foot on the beach, the same spirit woman, the

860
00:45:26,330 --> 00:45:29,710
Speaker 1: embodiment of Africa, was there to meet him. And soon

861
00:45:29,810 --> 00:45:33,910
Speaker 1: after this, Curtius became sick, and his symptoms did not

862
00:45:34,030 --> 00:45:38,820
Speaker 1: seem very concerning to his attendants, but Curtius himself lost

863
00:45:38,940 --> 00:45:41,779
Speaker 1: all hope of recovery because the woman had said that

864
00:45:41,820 --> 00:45:45,100
Speaker 1: he would die when he returned, and everything else she

865
00:45:45,120 --> 00:45:49,030
Speaker 1: had said came true. And then Pliny does not explicitly

866
00:45:49,090 --> 00:45:51,830
Speaker 1: say what happened next, but the way that I read it,

867
00:45:51,910 --> 00:45:54,330
Speaker 1: it's implied that he did die, according to the prophecy.

868
00:45:55,770 --> 00:45:59,310
Speaker 1: so why does plenty find the story, especially convincing? Remember

869
00:45:59,350 --> 00:46:02,790
Speaker 1: he says, this is the, the story that convinces him

870
00:46:02,850 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 1: that ghosts are real. I think the part that's convincing

871
00:46:07,400 --> 00:46:11,580
Speaker 1: is that as told, the ghost gives a series of predictions,

872
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,500
Speaker 1: which all later come true. And there is something reasonable

873
00:46:15,520 --> 00:46:19,110
Speaker 1: about that. Like correct predictions in advance are one of

874
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:24,009
Speaker 1: the ways that we can increase confidence in a theory. But, uh, Like,

875
00:46:24,070 --> 00:46:26,469
Speaker 1: do we have a clear record of what the predictions

876
00:46:26,530 --> 00:46:30,190
Speaker 1: were before the events happened? We're just told here third

877
00:46:30,270 --> 00:46:33,530
Speaker 1: hand after the fact that these events were predicted.

878
00:46:33,670 --> 00:46:34,569
Speaker 3: So I don't know.

879
00:46:34,830 --> 00:46:37,700
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the key way that prediction stories like this

880
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:40,899
Speaker 2: gain traction is either they're vague enough that they can

881
00:46:40,980 --> 00:46:44,700
Speaker 2: be later interpreted as having been correct, or they are,

882
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 2: of course, written down in reverse order. Like any prediction

883
00:46:49,280 --> 00:46:53,150
Speaker 2: can be 100% accurate. If you write it after the

884
00:46:53,190 --> 00:46:54,890
Speaker 2: thing is predicting has occurred. Right.

885
00:46:54,930 --> 00:46:57,390
Speaker 1: So it's always more impressive to make a prediction if

886
00:46:57,450 --> 00:47:00,930
Speaker 1: you like publicly log that prediction before the thing happens

887
00:47:01,030 --> 00:47:03,669
Speaker 1: saying afterwards, like I knew this was going to happen. That's,

888
00:47:03,969 --> 00:47:05,310
Speaker 1: you know, people say that all the time.

889
00:47:05,430 --> 00:47:05,609
Speaker 2: Yeah.

890
00:47:06,610 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: Anyway, this is not the haunted house in the letter.

891
00:47:09,880 --> 00:47:13,460
Speaker 1: And the interesting thing to me is that this story

892
00:47:13,500 --> 00:47:17,170
Speaker 1: of courteous Rufus. doesn't it doesn't even seem that the

893
00:47:17,350 --> 00:47:20,540
Speaker 1: spirit in question is what we would think of as

894
00:47:20,580 --> 00:47:23,819
Speaker 1: a ghost like the spirit of a dead person that

895
00:47:23,840 --> 00:47:27,120
Speaker 1: has not moved on to the underworld instead it seems

896
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: to be something more like what we would think of

897
00:47:29,320 --> 00:47:33,200
Speaker 1: as a goddess like a spiritual embodiment of a place

898
00:47:33,840 --> 00:47:38,090
Speaker 1: but obviously plenty thinks that this story is informative on

899
00:47:38,130 --> 00:47:41,390
Speaker 1: the question of whether ghosts exist so Maybe he didn't

900
00:47:41,410 --> 00:47:42,890
Speaker 1: make the same distinction I'm making.

901
00:47:42,950 --> 00:47:44,900
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know exactly what to make

902
00:47:44,940 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 3: of that.

903
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:48,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I'm to understand one of his key

904
00:47:48,580 --> 00:47:52,480
Speaker 2: interests here in this topic is kind of self-centered. Oh, yeah.

905
00:47:52,780 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 3: It's going to be, yeah.

906
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:55,990
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like, what does this mean for me? Like,

907
00:47:56,030 --> 00:47:57,950
Speaker 2: what does it mean to see a ghost as to

908
00:47:57,989 --> 00:48:00,250
Speaker 2: perhaps interact with an omen?

909
00:48:00,790 --> 00:48:01,670
Speaker 3: Yeah.

910
00:48:01,870 --> 00:48:03,549
Speaker 1: So more about that when we get to the end

911
00:48:03,590 --> 00:48:05,330
Speaker 1: of the letter. But first, we're going to tell this

912
00:48:05,550 --> 00:48:08,350
Speaker 1: haunting in Athens story. So here I'm going to read

913
00:48:08,390 --> 00:48:11,640
Speaker 1: directly from Pliny's letter. Again, this is in the Firth

914
00:48:11,719 --> 00:48:16,160
Speaker 1: translation hosted on italis.com. Now I want you to consider

915
00:48:16,239 --> 00:48:18,839
Speaker 1: whether the following story, which I shall tell you just

916
00:48:18,900 --> 00:48:22,090
Speaker 1: as I heard it, is not even more terrifying and

917
00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,210
Speaker 1: no less wonderful than the other. There stood at Athens

918
00:48:26,330 --> 00:48:29,970
Speaker 1: a spacious and roomy house, but it had an evil

919
00:48:30,070 --> 00:48:33,100
Speaker 1: reputation of being fatal to those who lived in it.

920
00:48:33,850 --> 00:48:36,759
Speaker 1: In the silence of the night, the clank of iron,

921
00:48:37,060 --> 00:48:40,250
Speaker 1: and if you listened with closer attention, the rattle of

922
00:48:40,390 --> 00:48:44,090
Speaker 1: chains were heard, the sound coming first from a distance,

923
00:48:44,350 --> 00:48:48,870
Speaker 1: and afterwards quite close at hand. Then appeared the ghostly

924
00:48:48,969 --> 00:48:53,759
Speaker 1: form of an old man, emaciated, filthy, decrepit, with a

925
00:48:53,940 --> 00:48:58,000
Speaker 1: flowing beard and hair on end, with fetters round his

926
00:48:58,080 --> 00:49:01,540
Speaker 1: legs and chains on his hands, which he kept shaking.

927
00:49:02,219 --> 00:49:06,700
Speaker 1: The terrified inmates passed sleepless nights of fearful terror, and

928
00:49:06,820 --> 00:49:10,900
Speaker 1: following upon their sleeplessness came disease and then death as

929
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:14,739
Speaker 1: their fears increased. For every now and again, though the

930
00:49:14,780 --> 00:49:18,830
Speaker 1: ghost had vanished, memory conjured up the vision before their eyes,

931
00:49:19,250 --> 00:49:11,170
Speaker 1: and their fright And then I want to give a

932
00:49:11,190 --> 00:49:13,670
Speaker 1: caveat on the next sentence that I'm going to read,

933
00:49:13,690 --> 00:49:15,810
Speaker 1: because I'm going to read it as it appears in

934
00:49:16,170 --> 00:49:18,290
Speaker 1: my translation, but I found other translations that render this

935
00:49:18,310 --> 00:49:20,830
Speaker 1: part to mean basically the opposite. So the first translation

936
00:49:20,890 --> 00:49:42,460
Speaker 1: here says, Then the house was deserted and condemned to

937
00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:46,959
Speaker 1: stand empty and was wholly abandoned to the specter, while

938
00:49:47,020 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 1: the authorities forbade that it should be sold or let

939
00:49:50,540 --> 00:49:53,839
Speaker 1: to anyone wishing to take it, not knowing under what

940
00:49:53,920 --> 00:49:58,879
Speaker 1: a curse it lay. Now, I looked up other translations

941
00:49:58,920 --> 00:50:02,640
Speaker 1: here and found that they do not mention the authorities

942
00:50:02,739 --> 00:50:06,180
Speaker 1: forbidding the sale or rent of the house. Instead, these

943
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:09,450
Speaker 1: other translations say, have it that the house was put

944
00:50:09,610 --> 00:50:12,330
Speaker 1: up for sale or rent at a very low price,

945
00:50:12,910 --> 00:50:15,680
Speaker 1: implying that they were looking for a sucker to rent

946
00:50:15,739 --> 00:50:18,580
Speaker 1: this house out without knowing what they were getting into.

947
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:21,819
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it is a stigmatized property. There you go.

948
00:50:22,700 --> 00:50:24,500
Speaker 1: So I think this may have just been an error

949
00:50:24,600 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: in this one translation I'm reading from, because I think

950
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 1: the latter translation is more common.

951
00:50:31,110 --> 00:50:34,430
Speaker 2: That's the one that I see Felton referring to specifically.

952
00:50:34,590 --> 00:50:36,710
Speaker 1: So I think Pliny is saying that the house was

953
00:50:36,770 --> 00:50:39,930
Speaker 1: put up for rent, low price. Somebody's hoping to trick

954
00:50:40,030 --> 00:50:42,950
Speaker 1: a hapless out-of-towner into lodging there.

955
00:50:42,969 --> 00:50:45,390
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think Pliny makes it clear that a

956
00:50:45,450 --> 00:50:49,270
Speaker 2: seller has a moral obligation to disclose a problem such

957
00:50:49,330 --> 00:50:50,109
Speaker 2: as the haunting here.

958
00:50:50,469 --> 00:50:53,700
Speaker 1: Yes, but the person in this story probably did not

959
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:56,260
Speaker 1: do that. But to summarize what we've got so far,

960
00:50:57,080 --> 00:51:00,390
Speaker 1: old house in Athens, you kind of wonder if it's

961
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:03,570
Speaker 1: implying that it belonged to a rich person. Pliny doesn't

962
00:51:03,630 --> 00:51:05,189
Speaker 1: say that, but he does say the house is very

963
00:51:05,290 --> 00:51:08,029
Speaker 1: large and spacious. It seems like that would probably mean

964
00:51:08,090 --> 00:51:10,670
Speaker 1: it's like a big wealthy, you know, to do. Um,

965
00:51:12,010 --> 00:51:14,330
Speaker 1: and then Pliny says, if you venture in at night,

966
00:51:14,410 --> 00:51:17,279
Speaker 1: you will hear the sound of heavy iron clattering in

967
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:19,560
Speaker 1: the dark and you will hear the shaking of chains.

968
00:51:20,140 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 3: And then the sound.

969
00:51:20,860 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 1: Gets closer and closer to you over time. And then

970
00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:25,980
Speaker 1: finally you will see a ghost.

971
00:51:26,200 --> 00:51:27,420
Speaker 3: It's an old man saying.

972
00:51:27,700 --> 00:51:29,500
Speaker 1: And then Pliny says that the people who live in

973
00:51:29,520 --> 00:51:31,719
Speaker 1: this house have encounters with the ghost that are terrifying

974
00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:34,940
Speaker 1: and unforgettable. They are haunted by memories of these encounters,

975
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: even during the daytime. And they soon fall into ill

976
00:51:53,860 --> 00:51:57,180
Speaker 1: health and eventually die. So the experience of seeing the

977
00:51:57,219 --> 00:52:01,520
Speaker 1: ghost somehow kills them. I think the mechanism of death

978
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,859
Speaker 1: is said to be fear itself, like they are so

979
00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:05,500
Speaker 1: afraid they die of fright.

980
00:52:06,640 --> 00:52:09,110
Speaker 2: One thing that Felton mentions as well is that at

981
00:52:09,140 --> 00:52:12,069
Speaker 2: least in some of these translations, it's perhaps implied that

982
00:52:12,110 --> 00:52:14,710
Speaker 2: the house is on the outskirts of town, which I

983
00:52:14,750 --> 00:52:18,069
Speaker 2: think is an interesting detail that, of course, matches up

984
00:52:18,110 --> 00:52:20,469
Speaker 2: with a lot of the haunted house stories we still

985
00:52:20,489 --> 00:52:23,759
Speaker 2: have today. the idea that it's somewhere a little off

986
00:52:23,800 --> 00:52:26,460
Speaker 2: the beaten path, somewhere where it can be forgotten, a

987
00:52:26,760 --> 00:52:30,000
Speaker 2: place where fewer eyes are upon it, that sort of thing.

988
00:52:30,980 --> 00:52:31,719
Speaker 3: That's interesting.

989
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:34,359
Speaker 1: Oh, and maybe that helps them trick the sucker who's

990
00:52:34,410 --> 00:52:36,270
Speaker 1: going to rent it next, too, because you're not going

991
00:52:36,290 --> 00:52:38,549
Speaker 1: to have as many people wandering by and saying, like,

992
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:42,469
Speaker 1: that house is haunted, you know. So I was just

993
00:52:42,510 --> 00:52:46,920
Speaker 1: thinking about how similar this is already to haunted house

994
00:52:47,000 --> 00:52:50,779
Speaker 1: stories of today. So far, is there anything that would

995
00:52:50,800 --> 00:52:54,220
Speaker 1: really make it different from a modern haunted house story?

996
00:52:54,320 --> 00:52:55,060
Speaker 3: Not a lot.

997
00:52:55,300 --> 00:52:56,040
Speaker 2: Not really, yeah.

998
00:52:57,160 --> 00:52:59,030
Speaker 1: I want to come back to those differences in a minute.

999
00:52:59,550 --> 00:53:01,490
Speaker 1: But first, I want to keep reading from the letter.

1000
00:53:01,690 --> 00:53:04,390
Speaker 1: So this part of the story is about to introduce

1001
00:53:04,450 --> 00:53:08,490
Speaker 1: a new character, a hero of the story, a philosopher

1002
00:53:08,670 --> 00:53:15,100
Speaker 1: named Athenodorus. And this is Some sources say this is probably,

1003
00:53:15,200 --> 00:53:19,620
Speaker 1: but not certainly, a reference to a historical 1st century

1004
00:53:19,680 --> 00:53:24,919
Speaker 1: BCE Stoic philosopher named Athenodorus Canaanites. So we don't know

1005
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:27,020
Speaker 1: it's this guy, but that was a guy, and a

1006
00:53:27,460 --> 00:53:29,419
Speaker 1: lot of people think that's probably who it's talking about.

1007
00:53:29,480 --> 00:53:33,339
Speaker 2: Yeah, Felton mentions that there are at least two historical

1008
00:53:33,640 --> 00:53:37,910
Speaker 2: Stoic philosophers with this name. And so it is possibly

1009
00:53:37,930 --> 00:53:42,130
Speaker 2: an historic person. And if it's not, it's certainly intended

1010
00:53:42,190 --> 00:53:44,370
Speaker 2: to give that sort of feel to it. Kind of

1011
00:53:44,410 --> 00:53:46,690
Speaker 2: like how at the beginning of a Texas Chainsaw Massacre,

1012
00:53:46,710 --> 00:53:49,670
Speaker 2: you have that little bit about how this really occurred.

1013
00:53:49,830 --> 00:53:51,430
Speaker 3: Yeah, right.

1014
00:53:51,469 --> 00:53:54,320
Speaker 1: You can connect it to a real person. And I

1015
00:53:54,360 --> 00:53:56,960
Speaker 1: think it also would make sense if this is supposed

1016
00:53:57,000 --> 00:54:00,040
Speaker 1: to be a known Stoic philosopher because the character in

1017
00:54:00,060 --> 00:54:04,380
Speaker 1: the story displays the virtues of the Stoic philosophy in

1018
00:54:04,420 --> 00:54:09,340
Speaker 1: the story. So it reads as follows. The philosopher Athenodorus

1019
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:13,380
Speaker 1: came to Athens, read the notice board, and on hearing

1020
00:54:13,420 --> 00:54:17,200
Speaker 1: the price, hesitated because the low rent made him suspicious.

1021
00:54:17,850 --> 00:54:20,910
Speaker 1: Then he was told the whole story, and so far

1022
00:54:20,950 --> 00:54:24,220
Speaker 1: from being deterred, he became the more eager to rent it.

1023
00:54:24,690 --> 00:54:26,210
Speaker 1: We've got ourselves a ghost hunter here.

1024
00:54:26,310 --> 00:54:28,810
Speaker 2: Oh, there you go. They're like, okay, yeah, tell him

1025
00:54:28,870 --> 00:54:30,130
Speaker 2: because I think he might rent it.

1026
00:54:30,130 --> 00:54:32,690
Speaker 3: Yeah. This is what you like.

1027
00:54:32,730 --> 00:54:35,549
Speaker 1: Who who does want the stigmatized property? Who's like going

1028
00:54:35,570 --> 00:54:39,180
Speaker 1: to pay extra for the haunted house? It's your stoic philosopher.

1029
00:54:39,430 --> 00:54:42,299
Speaker 2: Because I imagine then as well as now, like the

1030
00:54:42,360 --> 00:54:46,399
Speaker 2: reality of owning property is that you want somebody in there,

1031
00:54:46,580 --> 00:54:49,980
Speaker 2: even if even if they're underpaying for it. That's still

1032
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:52,740
Speaker 2: better than having nobody in the house for a variety

1033
00:54:52,780 --> 00:54:53,290
Speaker 2: of reasons.

1034
00:54:53,770 --> 00:54:56,190
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's right. And and as to like,

1035
00:54:56,510 --> 00:54:59,270
Speaker 1: why did Athena Doris like really want to get this

1036
00:54:59,310 --> 00:55:01,620
Speaker 1: haunted house? You could read it as he takes it

1037
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:03,800
Speaker 1: as a challenge. He's like, ooh, this is a challenge.

1038
00:55:03,840 --> 00:55:05,339
Speaker 1: I'm going to meet the moment. You could just take

1039
00:55:05,360 --> 00:55:09,060
Speaker 1: it as curiosity. I think either one is a fair reading.

1040
00:55:10,640 --> 00:55:14,310
Speaker 1: But anyway, the story, Pliny writes, quote, when evening began

1041
00:55:14,330 --> 00:55:17,410
Speaker 1: to fall, he ordered his people to make him up

1042
00:55:17,510 --> 00:55:20,069
Speaker 1: a bed in the front of the house and asked

1043
00:55:20,110 --> 00:55:24,239
Speaker 1: for his tablets, a pen, and a lamp. Dismissing all

1044
00:55:24,280 --> 00:55:28,419
Speaker 1: his servants to the inner rooms, he applied mind, eyes,

1045
00:55:28,540 --> 00:55:32,390
Speaker 1: and hand to the task of writing, lest by having

1046
00:55:32,469 --> 00:55:34,969
Speaker 1: nothing to think about he might begin to conjure up

1047
00:55:35,010 --> 00:55:37,730
Speaker 1: the apparition of which he had been told, and other

1048
00:55:37,870 --> 00:55:41,190
Speaker 1: idle fears. At first the night was just as still

1049
00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:45,440
Speaker 1: there as elsewhere. Then the iron was rattled, and the

1050
00:55:45,500 --> 00:55:50,040
Speaker 1: chains clanked. Athenodorus did not raise his eyes, nor cease

1051
00:55:50,080 --> 00:55:54,010
Speaker 1: to write, but fortified his resolution and closed his ears.

1052
00:55:54,570 --> 00:55:58,010
Speaker 1: The noise became louder and drew nearer, and was heard

1053
00:55:58,110 --> 00:56:01,270
Speaker 1: now on the threshold and then within the room itself.

1054
00:56:01,969 --> 00:56:05,450
Speaker 1: He turned his head and saw and recognized the ghost

1055
00:56:05,550 --> 00:56:08,730
Speaker 1: which had been described to him. It stood and beckoned

1056
00:56:08,770 --> 00:56:12,810
Speaker 1: with its finger as if calling him, but Athenodorus merely

1057
00:56:12,930 --> 00:56:15,830
Speaker 1: motioned with his hand as if to bid it wait

1058
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:19,020
Speaker 1: a little, and once more bent over his tablets and

1059
00:56:19,100 --> 00:56:22,390
Speaker 1: plied his pen. It's like, I'm busy right now. You

1060
00:56:22,430 --> 00:56:24,009
Speaker 1: can wait on me to finish writing this.

1061
00:56:24,710 --> 00:56:27,669
Speaker 2: Oh, this is such a great common detail of like,

1062
00:56:28,210 --> 00:56:30,839
Speaker 2: if you can on any level, ignore the ghost, like

1063
00:56:30,890 --> 00:56:31,930
Speaker 2: that's the power move.

1064
00:56:32,340 --> 00:56:32,719
Speaker 3: Oh yeah.

1065
00:56:32,760 --> 00:56:35,779
Speaker 2: Like there's this understanding the ghost wants to scare you

1066
00:56:36,060 --> 00:56:38,100
Speaker 2: or needs to scare you or something like that.

1067
00:56:38,700 --> 00:56:41,920
Speaker 1: And that act of making the ghost wait kind of

1068
00:56:42,020 --> 00:56:45,560
Speaker 1: changes what the ghost does because this does story doesn't

1069
00:56:45,660 --> 00:56:48,060
Speaker 1: end like the others where the ghost just terrifies people

1070
00:56:48,120 --> 00:56:51,469
Speaker 1: and then they grow ill and die. It goes on

1071
00:56:51,510 --> 00:57:21,940
Speaker 1: to say, quote, On the following day he went to

1072
00:57:21,980 --> 00:57:24,880
Speaker 1: the magistrates and advised them to give orders that the

1073
00:57:24,940 --> 00:57:29,260
Speaker 1: place should be dug up. Bones were found, with chains

1074
00:57:29,380 --> 00:57:32,960
Speaker 1: wound round them. Time and the action of the soil

1075
00:57:33,020 --> 00:57:36,460
Speaker 1: had made the flesh moulder, and left the bones bare

1076
00:57:36,640 --> 00:57:39,590
Speaker 1: and eaten away by the chains, but the remains were

1077
00:57:39,610 --> 00:57:44,270
Speaker 1: collected and given a public burial. Ever afterwards the house

1078
00:57:44,330 --> 00:57:46,850
Speaker 1: was free of the ghost, which had been thus.

1079
00:57:46,710 --> 00:57:50,770
Speaker 3: Laid with due ceremony. Oh, great story.

1080
00:57:50,830 --> 00:57:51,070
Speaker 2: Okay.

1081
00:57:51,110 --> 00:57:54,270
Speaker 1: So, so let's recap it. Uh, Athena Doris goes to Athens.

1082
00:57:54,530 --> 00:57:57,210
Speaker 1: He needs to find a house to rent. Oh, this

1083
00:57:57,290 --> 00:57:58,050
Speaker 1: one's really cheap.

1084
00:57:58,190 --> 00:57:58,770
Speaker 3: Interesting.

1085
00:57:59,330 --> 00:58:01,990
Speaker 1: He learns it's haunted. Here's the whole story. And instead

1086
00:58:02,030 --> 00:58:03,700
Speaker 1: of running away, he's like, I want to get in

1087
00:58:03,780 --> 00:58:07,060
Speaker 1: on that, please. Uh, I'm interested in this. So he

1088
00:58:07,160 --> 00:58:10,980
Speaker 1: prepares himself to meet the ghost alone, by the way,

1089
00:58:11,000 --> 00:58:13,500
Speaker 1: it says he's in the house. He's got servants with him.

1090
00:58:13,540 --> 00:58:16,050
Speaker 1: He's got people there with him, but it says he

1091
00:58:16,150 --> 00:58:19,590
Speaker 1: sends them away to the inner rooms and, I guess

1092
00:58:19,610 --> 00:58:21,510
Speaker 1: you could read that multiple ways. The way I took

1093
00:58:21,550 --> 00:58:24,470
Speaker 1: it at first is that he's telling the servants, you

1094
00:58:24,510 --> 00:58:26,860
Speaker 1: go hide in here and stay safe, and I'm going

1095
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:30,140
Speaker 1: to face the ghost alone. I'll make contact in isolation.

1096
00:58:30,160 --> 00:58:32,840
Speaker 2: I wonder if this was maybe a... We don't really

1097
00:58:32,860 --> 00:58:34,860
Speaker 2: get much in the way of the description of this house.

1098
00:58:35,360 --> 00:58:39,480
Speaker 2: I wonder if this portrays something that the intended reader...

1099
00:58:39,750 --> 00:58:43,180
Speaker 2: Would know about common house layout layouts like is the

1100
00:58:43,260 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 2: inner portion of the house like closer to a inner

1101
00:58:45,340 --> 00:58:48,760
Speaker 2: courtyard and therefore safer? Like, I don't know, because we

1102
00:58:48,800 --> 00:58:51,310
Speaker 2: think of haunted houses and it's like the deeper you

1103
00:58:51,350 --> 00:58:54,290
Speaker 2: go in, you know, the worse off you are like

1104
00:58:54,330 --> 00:58:56,230
Speaker 2: to go into the basement or the crawl space of

1105
00:58:56,250 --> 00:58:57,830
Speaker 2: the haunted house. Like that's the worst.

1106
00:58:58,090 --> 00:59:00,030
Speaker 1: This is almost like he sends them to the basement

1107
00:59:00,050 --> 00:59:00,530
Speaker 1: to be safe.

1108
00:59:00,740 --> 00:59:01,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1109
00:59:11,960 --> 00:59:13,310
Speaker 3: So the ghost shows up.

1110
00:59:13,580 --> 00:59:16,100
Speaker 1: Again, it doesn't say to be safe, but that's how

1111
00:59:16,200 --> 00:59:17,760
Speaker 1: I read it. That makes the most sense to me.

1112
00:59:17,800 --> 00:59:21,240
Speaker 1: So the ghost shows up and Athena Doris then puts

1113
00:59:21,300 --> 00:59:24,260
Speaker 1: the ghost in its place by saying, I'm not finished writing.

1114
00:59:24,420 --> 00:59:26,260
Speaker 1: You're going to wait on me. And so he writes

1115
00:59:26,300 --> 00:59:30,660
Speaker 1: at his desk. And this is explained as a self-directed

1116
00:59:30,780 --> 00:59:34,940
Speaker 1: exercise in mastering his own fears. And eventually the ghost

1117
00:59:35,200 --> 00:59:38,830
Speaker 1: beckons him to follow. So Athenodorus does. And he follows

1118
00:59:38,910 --> 00:59:42,570
Speaker 1: to a spot in the courtyard and then the ghost vanishes.

1119
00:59:42,970 --> 00:59:45,530
Speaker 1: And then the next day Athenodorus goes to the authorities.

1120
00:59:45,650 --> 00:59:47,850
Speaker 1: They come back and they have this exact spot where

1121
00:59:47,870 --> 00:59:51,580
Speaker 1: the ghost led him dug up where they find a

1122
00:59:51,760 --> 00:59:56,090
Speaker 1: buried body wrapped in chains. Pliny's retelling does not give

1123
00:59:56,140 --> 01:00:00,670
Speaker 1: instructions on exactly how to interpret this buried body wrapped

1124
01:00:00,710 --> 01:00:03,670
Speaker 1: in chains, but seems to me like some kind of

1125
01:00:03,850 --> 01:00:07,390
Speaker 1: illicit burial, maybe of somebody who died by violence or

1126
01:00:07,510 --> 01:00:09,810
Speaker 1: in some other unwholesome scenario.

1127
01:00:09,870 --> 01:00:11,840
Speaker 3: But we don't really know for sure, do we?

1128
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:17,720
Speaker 2: No, I think Ogden and Felton mentioned the beard as being,

1129
01:00:17,740 --> 01:00:21,460
Speaker 2: you know, that's a signifier that this individual was perhaps

1130
01:00:21,520 --> 01:00:24,650
Speaker 2: a captive victim. and was not able to be groomed,

1131
01:00:24,710 --> 01:00:28,200
Speaker 2: and therefore they have the long beard. And certainly the

1132
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:29,780
Speaker 2: chains speak to that as well.

1133
01:00:30,420 --> 01:00:31,580
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1134
01:00:31,660 --> 01:00:33,860
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that'll actually connect to something at the end

1135
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:37,360
Speaker 1: of the letter also. But whatever the chains mean, the

1136
01:00:37,860 --> 01:00:41,190
Speaker 1: bones are taken away and they're given a proper burial.

1137
01:00:41,290 --> 01:00:43,390
Speaker 1: So I assume this means they're buried in a public

1138
01:00:43,450 --> 01:00:47,150
Speaker 1: place that is meant for burial with appropriate funeral rites,

1139
01:00:47,630 --> 01:00:49,470
Speaker 1: and then there are no more hauntings after this.

1140
01:00:49,570 --> 01:00:50,380
Speaker 3: The ghost is gone.

1141
01:00:51,160 --> 01:00:53,560
Speaker 2: And we see this in so many haunted house and

1142
01:00:53,640 --> 01:00:56,860
Speaker 2: haunting stories today. Like, I'm instantly reminded of The Ring,

1143
01:00:57,000 --> 01:00:59,260
Speaker 2: which is not really a haunted house. Of course, it's

1144
01:00:59,300 --> 01:01:02,280
Speaker 2: a haunted media, but it involves a plot by which

1145
01:01:02,360 --> 01:01:05,990
Speaker 2: they figure out why the haunting is occurring and then

1146
01:01:06,070 --> 01:01:09,870
Speaker 2: try to solve it by doing essentially a proper burial

1147
01:01:09,930 --> 01:01:12,630
Speaker 2: of a body, or a body that is not where

1148
01:01:12,670 --> 01:01:14,800
Speaker 2: it needs to be. And of course, in The Ring,

1149
01:01:14,840 --> 01:01:17,820
Speaker 2: it doesn't quite work because it turns out some ghosts...

1150
01:01:18,060 --> 01:01:20,640
Speaker 2: don't just want to be laid to rest. Sometimes they

1151
01:01:20,660 --> 01:01:21,900
Speaker 2: just want endless vengeance.

1152
01:01:22,200 --> 01:01:24,780
Speaker 1: I mean, the ring is, I think, a twist on

1153
01:01:24,940 --> 01:01:28,580
Speaker 1: this modern version. But there are so many modern haunted

1154
01:01:28,620 --> 01:01:32,580
Speaker 1: house stories that have exactly this shape. The ghost needs

1155
01:01:32,820 --> 01:01:35,630
Speaker 1: something fixed. And this brings me back to something I

1156
01:01:35,660 --> 01:01:39,090
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about. Obviously, there are many, many ways

1157
01:01:39,130 --> 01:01:43,330
Speaker 1: that this story is similar to modern ghost stories. But

1158
01:01:43,350 --> 01:01:45,670
Speaker 1: I was thinking about what makes it different from a

1159
01:01:45,730 --> 01:01:49,570
Speaker 1: modern novel or horror movie. And the difference that occurred

1160
01:01:49,630 --> 01:01:54,010
Speaker 1: to me is the mechanism, the exact mechanism that resolves

1161
01:01:54,110 --> 01:01:57,090
Speaker 1: the haunting. So see if this makes sense to you, Rob.

1162
01:01:57,830 --> 01:02:01,630
Speaker 1: In a lot of modern haunting narratives, the ghost is

1163
01:02:01,710 --> 01:02:06,490
Speaker 1: laid to rest when they achieve some kind of narrative justice.

1164
01:02:07,090 --> 01:02:10,010
Speaker 1: For example, if the ghost was the victim of a

1165
01:02:10,070 --> 01:02:15,210
Speaker 1: crime or a betrayal, the ghost is finally able to

1166
01:02:15,290 --> 01:02:19,250
Speaker 1: rest once the Once justice is achieved, like the perpetrator

1167
01:02:19,330 --> 01:02:23,520
Speaker 1: is discovered and punished, or at least maybe, you know,

1168
01:02:23,540 --> 01:02:26,020
Speaker 1: maybe it's too late for the perpetrator to be caught.

1169
01:02:26,540 --> 01:02:30,720
Speaker 1: But there's some kind of vindication through exposure of the story,

1170
01:02:30,820 --> 01:02:33,650
Speaker 1: like the ghost is able to rest when the truth

1171
01:02:33,750 --> 01:02:37,460
Speaker 1: comes out. And there are multiple versions of this, like

1172
01:02:37,620 --> 01:02:40,600
Speaker 1: maybe the ghost is a victim whose story is unknown,

1173
01:02:41,140 --> 01:02:45,110
Speaker 1: or it's somebody who was falsely accused or misunderstood. And

1174
01:02:45,650 --> 01:02:47,470
Speaker 1: then the hero of the ghost story has to do

1175
01:02:47,530 --> 01:02:51,290
Speaker 1: some kind of investigation that exposes the truth in a

1176
01:02:51,310 --> 01:02:54,260
Speaker 1: way that vindicates the spirit, and then the spirit can rest.

1177
01:02:54,280 --> 01:02:55,300
Speaker 3: Do you know what I'm talking about?

1178
01:02:55,440 --> 01:03:00,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, pretty common to the format. The excellent BBC

1179
01:03:00,500 --> 01:03:04,030
Speaker 2: comedy series Ghosts, has the nice wrinkle on all of

1180
01:03:04,070 --> 01:03:06,990
Speaker 2: this where like a ghost, an apparition is stuck in

1181
01:03:07,010 --> 01:03:10,640
Speaker 2: this world because there's something unresolved in themselves, you know,

1182
01:03:10,680 --> 01:03:14,620
Speaker 2: like they haven't, you know, they haven't really gotten over

1183
01:03:14,660 --> 01:03:17,260
Speaker 2: a particular, you know, injustice that was done to them.

1184
01:03:17,720 --> 01:03:20,200
Speaker 2: And the way that they eventually pass on or in

1185
01:03:20,500 --> 01:03:25,260
Speaker 2: the language of the show gets sucked off is that they,

1186
01:03:25,340 --> 01:03:28,570
Speaker 2: is that they, they solve this problem within themselves. Like

1187
01:03:28,610 --> 01:03:31,430
Speaker 2: it's not, You know, it's not about any actual vengeance

1188
01:03:31,490 --> 01:03:34,310
Speaker 2: or even like public vindication, but it's like they kind

1189
01:03:34,350 --> 01:03:37,060
Speaker 2: of it's almost like a therapy, modern therapy take on it.

1190
01:03:37,090 --> 01:03:39,780
Speaker 2: Like they make some sort of important connection and that

1191
01:03:39,820 --> 01:03:41,840
Speaker 2: allows them to have the peace they need to move on.

1192
01:03:42,380 --> 01:03:46,700
Speaker 1: Interesting. OK, but that's another kind of like the ring

1193
01:03:46,780 --> 01:03:49,660
Speaker 1: is a freaky horror twist on this thing. That's like

1194
01:03:49,700 --> 01:03:51,120
Speaker 1: a comedy twist on it, I guess.

1195
01:03:51,180 --> 01:03:52,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1196
01:03:52,420 --> 01:03:55,540
Speaker 1: But the interesting thing is to contrast that with the

1197
01:03:55,560 --> 01:04:00,810
Speaker 1: story told by Pliny. No such narrative justice occurs in

1198
01:04:00,850 --> 01:04:05,290
Speaker 1: the story told by Pliny. So as told, Athenodorus never

1199
01:04:05,410 --> 01:04:09,510
Speaker 1: learns the ghost's story. Even with these tantalizing details, like

1200
01:04:09,610 --> 01:04:11,740
Speaker 1: what happened to the ghost? It's wrapped in chains. You

1201
01:04:11,760 --> 01:04:15,040
Speaker 1: want to know what the story was. And if Athenodorus

1202
01:04:15,140 --> 01:04:17,900
Speaker 1: learns anything about it, Pliny doesn't include that part. It

1203
01:04:17,940 --> 01:04:21,840
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like a crucial part of the tale. And

1204
01:04:21,860 --> 01:04:25,380
Speaker 1: he doesn't even speculate about what happened to the ghost. Instead,

1205
01:04:25,430 --> 01:04:31,080
Speaker 1: what we get is ritual rectitude. So instead of this, like,

1206
01:04:31,140 --> 01:04:34,400
Speaker 1: squalid off-the-books grave in the courtyard of the house, the

1207
01:04:34,420 --> 01:04:39,310
Speaker 1: body is given a proper public burial. And that made

1208
01:04:39,350 --> 01:04:41,669
Speaker 1: me think about, like, what does that difference mean? So

1209
01:04:41,870 --> 01:04:46,310
Speaker 1: in our modern secular world, we have to learn the

1210
01:04:46,370 --> 01:04:50,860
Speaker 1: story of the specter and, like, fix some kind of

1211
01:04:51,100 --> 01:04:53,340
Speaker 1: injustice as if in a court of law, we'd have

1212
01:04:53,360 --> 01:04:56,680
Speaker 1: to get like tangible justice or at least get the

1213
01:04:56,760 --> 01:05:00,810
Speaker 1: truth out, expose the true story. And in this Roman example,

1214
01:05:00,850 --> 01:05:03,490
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is broadly how Roman ghost

1215
01:05:03,530 --> 01:05:05,450
Speaker 1: stories would have worked because again, we have such a

1216
01:05:05,490 --> 01:05:08,350
Speaker 1: small sample size of them. Uh, but at least in

1217
01:05:08,410 --> 01:05:13,200
Speaker 1: this one story, like learning the story is not even mentioned. You, they,

1218
01:05:13,340 --> 01:05:15,400
Speaker 1: we never find out what happened to this guy because

1219
01:05:15,700 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 1: It's just that it needs.

1220
01:05:16,980 --> 01:05:18,000
Speaker 3: An honorable burial.

1221
01:05:18,340 --> 01:05:20,840
Speaker 1: It needs to be buried in the correct ways. And

1222
01:05:20,900 --> 01:05:22,980
Speaker 1: so it's like the most important thing is that the

1223
01:05:23,100 --> 01:05:24,880
Speaker 1: ritual is observed.

1224
01:05:25,420 --> 01:05:28,940
Speaker 2: That's a great point. Now, Ogden shares a couple of

1225
01:05:29,180 --> 01:05:31,990
Speaker 2: additional things I'm going to mention here real quick. One, actually,

1226
01:05:32,010 --> 01:05:34,670
Speaker 2: this is something that Felton mentions as well, and that

1227
01:05:34,710 --> 01:05:37,550
Speaker 2: is the connection with the lamp might be essential to

1228
01:05:37,590 --> 01:05:40,730
Speaker 2: the story. The idea that the light or the lantern

1229
01:05:40,770 --> 01:05:44,900
Speaker 2: that he has That this maybe draws the spirit in

1230
01:05:45,040 --> 01:05:47,780
Speaker 2: or is some way, you know, some association with lights

1231
01:05:47,880 --> 01:05:51,820
Speaker 2: leading the dead. And then this beckoning of the finger,

1232
01:05:53,240 --> 01:05:56,680
Speaker 2: the way Ogden describes it, it might have been intended

1233
01:05:56,720 --> 01:05:59,460
Speaker 2: to be sort of a twist as well with the

1234
01:05:59,560 --> 01:06:02,580
Speaker 2: idea that like you're supposed to think that the spirit

1235
01:06:02,620 --> 01:06:04,280
Speaker 2: is going to like drag him to Hades, like I'm

1236
01:06:04,300 --> 01:06:04,980
Speaker 2: coming to get you.

1237
01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:05,920
Speaker 3: Oh, OK.

1238
01:06:06,060 --> 01:06:08,380
Speaker 2: But instead he's saying, no, I want you to come

1239
01:06:08,440 --> 01:06:09,900
Speaker 2: with me. I want to show you something.

1240
01:06:10,590 --> 01:06:13,110
Speaker 1: And different kinds of beckoning or calling.

1241
01:06:13,370 --> 01:06:15,950
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. So he's, and again, he kind of like

1242
01:06:16,090 --> 01:06:20,220
Speaker 2: by his bravery, by his stoic outlook on things and

1243
01:06:20,240 --> 01:06:23,900
Speaker 2: his skeptical nature, he's able to like push through the

1244
01:06:23,980 --> 01:06:26,520
Speaker 2: fear and get to the point where he can actually

1245
01:06:26,640 --> 01:06:28,300
Speaker 2: see what the ghost is talking about.

1246
01:06:29,220 --> 01:06:31,420
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really good point. And in fact, I

1247
01:06:31,580 --> 01:06:33,650
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about stoic philosophy for a second.

1248
01:06:33,790 --> 01:06:34,170
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1249
01:06:34,450 --> 01:06:35,010
Speaker 3: You want to do that?

1250
01:06:35,110 --> 01:06:35,490
Speaker 2: Let's do it.

1251
01:06:35,810 --> 01:06:38,689
Speaker 1: Well, so I think that ghost stories are often used

1252
01:06:38,790 --> 01:06:42,030
Speaker 1: as a reflection, not just on the situation or on

1253
01:06:42,050 --> 01:06:44,630
Speaker 1: the character of the ghost, but as a reflection on

1254
01:06:44,650 --> 01:06:48,189
Speaker 1: the character of the person being haunted. And it seems

1255
01:06:48,250 --> 01:06:51,860
Speaker 1: to me that this story, uh, valorizes the character of

1256
01:06:51,910 --> 01:06:55,820
Speaker 1: Athena Doris. It's showing off his good qualities as a person. Uh,

1257
01:06:56,620 --> 01:06:59,880
Speaker 1: and this is especially interesting given that he's presented as

1258
01:06:59,900 --> 01:07:03,960
Speaker 1: a stoic philosopher. Uh, The Stoic school of philosophy is

1259
01:07:04,000 --> 01:07:06,880
Speaker 1: sometimes misunderstood in the modern day. A lot of times

1260
01:07:06,920 --> 01:07:10,890
Speaker 1: people today think it means like not caring or not

1261
01:07:10,950 --> 01:07:15,210
Speaker 1: having feelings about what happens. That's not exactly what Stoic

1262
01:07:15,250 --> 01:07:19,230
Speaker 1: philosophy meant in the ancient world. It's a complex tradition,

1263
01:07:19,310 --> 01:07:21,990
Speaker 1: but the best way to understand it, I think, is

1264
01:07:22,510 --> 01:07:24,950
Speaker 1: to start with the fact that the Stoics believed the

1265
01:07:25,050 --> 01:07:29,720
Speaker 1: most important thing in life was cultivating your own personal virtue.

1266
01:07:30,800 --> 01:07:36,520
Speaker 1: So they believed in virtues like wisdom, self-control, fairness, and courage.

1267
01:07:37,220 --> 01:07:41,120
Speaker 1: And so the way some Stoic philosophers put it was like,

1268
01:07:41,800 --> 01:07:44,360
Speaker 1: there are things in life that you cannot control and

1269
01:07:44,410 --> 01:07:47,730
Speaker 1: things that you can control. It's important to understand the

1270
01:07:47,770 --> 01:07:51,550
Speaker 1: difference between them to not worry about the things that

1271
01:07:51,590 --> 01:07:55,729
Speaker 1: you cannot control and understand that the most important thing

1272
01:07:55,750 --> 01:07:58,830
Speaker 1: that you can control is your own virtue. And so

1273
01:07:58,870 --> 01:07:59,950
Speaker 1: devote yourself to that.

1274
01:08:00,480 --> 01:08:02,980
Speaker 2: And this alone is a great concept. You see this

1275
01:08:03,020 --> 01:08:07,450
Speaker 2: in modern therapy techniques, thinking particularly of one where you

1276
01:08:07,490 --> 01:08:10,570
Speaker 2: make two circles. In the inner circle, you write down

1277
01:08:10,590 --> 01:08:12,910
Speaker 2: the things you can control. In the outer circle, you

1278
01:08:12,930 --> 01:08:15,530
Speaker 2: write down the things you don't have control over that

1279
01:08:15,770 --> 01:08:20,120
Speaker 2: may factor into your anxieties. And then it's not about

1280
01:08:20,140 --> 01:08:21,540
Speaker 2: just like lists because you're going to have a lot

1281
01:08:21,580 --> 01:08:23,300
Speaker 2: of things in that outer circle. It's not about just

1282
01:08:23,320 --> 01:08:24,840
Speaker 2: saying like, oh, wow, look at all these things I

1283
01:08:24,880 --> 01:08:27,300
Speaker 2: don't control. But it's about realizing, you know, to your

1284
01:08:27,340 --> 01:08:29,760
Speaker 2: point and to the Stokes point, that there are things

1285
01:08:29,800 --> 01:08:30,940
Speaker 2: within your control. Right.

1286
01:08:31,189 --> 01:08:32,100
Speaker 3: Focus on those.

1287
01:08:32,320 --> 01:08:34,860
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Those are the things that deserve your attention.

1288
01:08:35,320 --> 01:08:35,900
Speaker 3: Absolutely.

1289
01:08:35,939 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: And especially again, focusing on the task of cultivating your

1290
01:08:39,200 --> 01:08:42,179
Speaker 1: own virtues. So the, you know, they tried to cultivate

1291
01:08:42,660 --> 01:08:45,260
Speaker 1: attributes of character that we actually still give to a

1292
01:08:45,280 --> 01:08:46,580
Speaker 1: lot of heroes.

1293
01:08:46,180 --> 01:08:47,340
Speaker 3: In modern storytelling.

1294
01:08:47,360 --> 01:08:50,660
Speaker 1: Uh, so, you know, the ideal to a stoic philosopher

1295
01:08:50,680 --> 01:08:56,099
Speaker 1: was probably somebody who is strong, resolute, clever, and knowledgeable

1296
01:08:56,180 --> 01:09:01,360
Speaker 1: or wise, morally righteous and fair, cool and rational under pressure.

1297
01:09:02,060 --> 01:09:04,460
Speaker 1: And most of these are virtues that you could argue

1298
01:09:04,520 --> 01:09:08,940
Speaker 1: Athenodorus displays in the story. So instead of running away

1299
01:09:08,979 --> 01:09:12,450
Speaker 1: from the ghost in terror or just pawning the house

1300
01:09:12,590 --> 01:09:15,940
Speaker 1: off on somebody else and making it their problem, He's like,

1301
01:09:16,180 --> 01:09:18,160
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be afraid. This is a problem

1302
01:09:18,220 --> 01:09:21,280
Speaker 1: that can be fixed with correct action. And I'm going

1303
01:09:21,320 --> 01:09:24,150
Speaker 1: to take that action and fix it and achieve justice.

1304
01:09:24,590 --> 01:09:26,310
Speaker 2: Yeah. And in the moment, I'm not going to yell

1305
01:09:26,350 --> 01:09:29,570
Speaker 2: back at the ghost. You know, I can't control your

1306
01:09:29,630 --> 01:09:31,990
Speaker 2: raging ghost, but I can control the way I respond

1307
01:09:32,010 --> 01:09:32,550
Speaker 2: to your rage.

1308
01:09:32,990 --> 01:09:33,750
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.

1309
01:09:33,830 --> 01:09:37,830
Speaker 1: So I don't know if illustrating stoic virtues is something

1310
01:09:37,870 --> 01:09:40,430
Speaker 1: that Pliny is really consciously trying to do here, but

1311
01:09:40,470 --> 01:09:42,809
Speaker 1: it seems like an undercurrent in the telling of the story.

1312
01:09:42,830 --> 01:09:43,070
Speaker 2: Hmm.

1313
01:09:44,270 --> 01:09:48,780
Speaker 1: And then finally in this letter, Pliny says that he

1314
01:09:48,820 --> 01:09:50,400
Speaker 1: believes that story is true.

1315
01:09:50,540 --> 01:09:51,720
Speaker 3: He says, I think it happened.

1316
01:09:52,260 --> 01:09:55,660
Speaker 1: And then he adds a brief, weird ghost story from

1317
01:09:55,700 --> 01:09:58,300
Speaker 1: his own house. This, I think, is the strangest of

1318
01:09:58,340 --> 01:09:58,780
Speaker 1: the three.

1319
01:09:58,800 --> 01:10:03,420
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the least likely to be adapted for a

1320
01:10:03,439 --> 01:10:04,680
Speaker 2: major motion picture, I think.

1321
01:10:05,260 --> 01:10:08,400
Speaker 1: So basically, he sets it up. He's like, something's been

1322
01:10:08,430 --> 01:10:12,110
Speaker 1: going on in my house. And he says that multiple times,

1323
01:10:13,150 --> 01:10:16,290
Speaker 1: His slaves and other people living or sleeping in his

1324
01:10:16,330 --> 01:10:20,530
Speaker 1: house have had their hair cut by ghosts in the night.

1325
01:10:21,310 --> 01:10:24,389
Speaker 1: So in the middle of the night, whoever is involved

1326
01:10:24,450 --> 01:10:28,189
Speaker 1: in this story, they think they see someone applying shears

1327
01:10:28,430 --> 01:10:30,969
Speaker 1: to their head. And then in the morning, they find

1328
01:10:31,030 --> 01:10:32,610
Speaker 1: that their hair is actually cut off.

1329
01:10:33,330 --> 01:10:36,430
Speaker 2: This is sometimes described as being like dreams of having

1330
01:10:36,450 --> 01:10:39,410
Speaker 2: your hair cut, but then waking and there's evidence that

1331
01:10:39,450 --> 01:10:40,790
Speaker 2: your hair was cut. Yeah.

1332
01:10:41,310 --> 01:10:46,380
Speaker 1: I could imagine there's another explanation for this, though it

1333
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:48,559
Speaker 1: would be strange. I don't know why somebody in reality

1334
01:10:48,600 --> 01:10:50,300
Speaker 1: would just be cutting their hair at night, but that

1335
01:10:50,360 --> 01:10:53,920
Speaker 1: seems like the most likely explanation to me. And then

1336
01:10:53,979 --> 01:10:58,770
Speaker 1: Pliny makes a very strange interpretive connection between these events

1337
01:10:59,410 --> 01:11:03,269
Speaker 1: and the broader political environment during his life and how

1338
01:11:03,330 --> 01:11:05,250
Speaker 1: it relates to his own fate. So I'm going to

1339
01:11:05,310 --> 01:11:10,229
Speaker 1: read from the first translation of Pliny here. Quote, No

1340
01:11:10,310 --> 01:11:13,750
Speaker 1: incident of any note followed, unless it was that I

1341
01:11:13,910 --> 01:11:18,330
Speaker 1: escaped prosecution, as I should not have done if Domitian,

1342
01:11:18,729 --> 01:11:21,950
Speaker 1: in whose reign these incidents had taken place, had lived

1343
01:11:22,010 --> 01:11:25,190
Speaker 1: any longer than he did. For in his writing desk

1344
01:11:25,470 --> 01:11:29,510
Speaker 1: there was discovered a document sent in by Carus, which

1345
01:11:29,610 --> 01:11:33,210
Speaker 1: denounced me. This gives rise to the conjecture that, as

1346
01:11:33,450 --> 01:11:36,650
Speaker 1: it is the custom for accused persons to let their

1347
01:11:36,729 --> 01:11:40,800
Speaker 1: hair go untrimmed, The fact that the hair of my

1348
01:11:40,900 --> 01:11:44,960
Speaker 1: slaves was cut was a sign that the peril overhanging

1349
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:49,000
Speaker 1: me had passed away. So that's kind of hard to

1350
01:11:49,020 --> 01:11:52,300
Speaker 1: understand at first, but I parsed this out and did

1351
01:11:52,340 --> 01:11:55,800
Speaker 1: a little background research. So the political context is that

1352
01:11:55,840 --> 01:12:01,150
Speaker 1: the emperor Domitian in his later years instigated something of

1353
01:12:01,189 --> 01:12:03,750
Speaker 1: a reign of terror. I think this is one of

1354
01:12:03,790 --> 01:12:06,430
Speaker 1: those things where maybe historians debate to what extent this

1355
01:12:07,080 --> 01:12:10,019
Speaker 1: is a fair characterization or whether this is how it

1356
01:12:10,080 --> 01:12:15,610
Speaker 1: was characterized by his enemies. But anyway, uh, Domitian clearly

1357
01:12:15,670 --> 01:12:18,630
Speaker 1: was accusing people of treason. He's like, Oh, these people

1358
01:12:18,670 --> 01:12:21,530
Speaker 1: are plotting against me. And so there was a surge

1359
01:12:21,590 --> 01:12:27,230
Speaker 1: in accusations against and prosecutions of notable Roman citizens, often

1360
01:12:27,370 --> 01:12:31,480
Speaker 1: ending with exile or death for the accused. And, uh,

1361
01:12:31,880 --> 01:12:35,839
Speaker 1: apparently in plenty's time, he says at least, uh, Allowing

1362
01:12:35,900 --> 01:12:40,390
Speaker 1: your hair to grow long would be associated with being

1363
01:12:40,570 --> 01:12:44,590
Speaker 1: under suspicion or prosecution of this kind. I think the

1364
01:12:44,670 --> 01:12:48,190
Speaker 1: idea is that like distress and anxiety make you ignore

1365
01:12:48,229 --> 01:12:50,670
Speaker 1: your grooming. So your hair grows long because you're just

1366
01:12:50,750 --> 01:12:52,990
Speaker 1: worried with the fact that the emperor's got it out

1367
01:12:53,070 --> 01:12:57,420
Speaker 1: for you. And it's obviously like it would be very

1368
01:12:57,460 --> 01:12:59,520
Speaker 1: scary to have the emperor have it out for you.

1369
01:12:59,540 --> 01:13:00,880
Speaker 3: That's like a horrible thing.

1370
01:13:01,780 --> 01:13:04,720
Speaker 1: And also makes me think of classic images of just,

1371
01:13:04,900 --> 01:13:07,460
Speaker 1: you know, the prisoner forgotten in a dungeon.

1372
01:13:07,060 --> 01:13:08,220
Speaker 3: With long, filthy hair.

1373
01:13:08,240 --> 01:13:09,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

1374
01:13:09,900 --> 01:13:14,490
Speaker 1: Anyway, Pliny looks back on these ghosts just cutting people's

1375
01:13:14,550 --> 01:13:17,610
Speaker 1: hair at night in his house. And he says, ah,

1376
01:13:18,270 --> 01:13:21,490
Speaker 1: this may have been a positive omen that I would

1377
01:13:21,530 --> 01:13:25,110
Speaker 1: get lucky and escape this persecution. So I'd get lucky

1378
01:13:25,130 --> 01:13:28,280
Speaker 1: in the fact that Domitian dies before he gets around

1379
01:13:28,320 --> 01:13:28,920
Speaker 1: to getting me.

1380
01:13:29,660 --> 01:13:31,840
Speaker 2: Because he had the letter in his desk saying, hey,

1381
01:13:32,020 --> 01:13:34,280
Speaker 2: there's plenty of the younger guy. He needs to be

1382
01:13:34,360 --> 01:13:34,810
Speaker 2: on the list.

1383
01:13:35,100 --> 01:13:36,050
Speaker 3: Yes, exactly.

1384
01:13:36,750 --> 01:13:39,990
Speaker 1: So I think it works out like this. Long hair

1385
01:13:40,330 --> 01:13:45,270
Speaker 1: equals being under, you know, persecute. You are under accusation.

1386
01:13:45,300 --> 01:13:48,460
Speaker 1: The bad things are coming for you. Therefore, short hair

1387
01:13:48,560 --> 01:13:53,260
Speaker 1: would be not being under accusation. So ghosts coming and

1388
01:13:53,320 --> 01:13:56,479
Speaker 1: cutting people's hair in your house at night. means the

1389
01:13:56,520 --> 01:14:00,140
Speaker 1: danger is going away, right? Like it's an omen that

1390
01:14:00,180 --> 01:14:04,429
Speaker 1: the danger of prosecution by the emperor has gone away

1391
01:14:04,490 --> 01:14:16,710
Speaker 1: or will soon go away. It kind of makes me

1392
01:14:16,770 --> 01:14:20,090
Speaker 1: wonder if this personal story coming right at the end

1393
01:14:20,130 --> 01:14:23,670
Speaker 1: of the letter here is actually the main reason Pliny

1394
01:14:23,790 --> 01:14:26,679
Speaker 1: wants to know Sura's opinion about whether ghosts are real

1395
01:14:26,740 --> 01:14:30,500
Speaker 1: and have divinity. He ends the letter by saying, quote,

1396
01:14:30,640 --> 01:14:33,320
Speaker 1: I will let you follow your usual habit of arguing

1397
01:14:33,400 --> 01:14:35,820
Speaker 1: on both sides of the case, but be sure that

1398
01:14:35,840 --> 01:14:38,139
Speaker 1: you take up one side more strongly than the other

1399
01:14:38,620 --> 01:14:40,850
Speaker 1: so that I may not go away in suspense and

1400
01:14:40,910 --> 01:14:44,250
Speaker 1: uncertainty when the reason I asked your advice was just this,

1401
01:14:44,350 --> 01:14:47,170
Speaker 1: that you should put an end to my doubts. So

1402
01:14:47,210 --> 01:14:50,979
Speaker 1: I think for Pliny, this got personal because And that

1403
01:14:51,160 --> 01:14:54,320
Speaker 1: makes me reframe my understanding of the entire letter that

1404
01:14:54,360 --> 01:14:58,100
Speaker 1: came before, all these stories of ghosts. I think there's

1405
01:14:58,120 --> 01:15:02,720
Speaker 1: something really interesting going on here about how our epistemic

1406
01:15:03,020 --> 01:15:07,400
Speaker 1: standards really can change when the events in question mean

1407
01:15:07,479 --> 01:15:09,090
Speaker 1: something important to us.

1408
01:15:09,890 --> 01:15:13,769
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it's more often the case,

1409
01:15:13,790 --> 01:15:16,990
Speaker 2: certainly in more recent tellings from recent centuries, to have

1410
01:15:17,030 --> 01:15:20,090
Speaker 2: some sort of a like a very personal connection, like

1411
01:15:20,130 --> 01:15:23,550
Speaker 2: suddenly like someone's lost somebody. And then it generates an

1412
01:15:23,590 --> 01:15:26,330
Speaker 2: interest in the occult and spiritualism and the idea that

1413
01:15:26,370 --> 01:15:29,200
Speaker 2: they might reach that person again. But here it's a

1414
01:15:29,240 --> 01:15:34,160
Speaker 2: little more abstract. It's about seeing, sensing an omen in

1415
01:15:34,220 --> 01:15:37,340
Speaker 2: this alleged haunting that's happening in his house. And I

1416
01:15:37,360 --> 01:15:39,880
Speaker 2: think it's also kind of humorous in its own way

1417
01:15:39,920 --> 01:15:41,769
Speaker 2: that it's like, he's not at plenty. The younger is

1418
01:15:42,150 --> 01:15:44,490
Speaker 2: not actually concerned about the fact that there may be

1419
01:15:44,530 --> 01:15:47,360
Speaker 2: a ghost cutting everyone's hair and cutting the hair of

1420
01:15:47,420 --> 01:15:50,600
Speaker 2: enslaved people in his house. No, he's, he's like, he's

1421
01:15:50,640 --> 01:15:53,600
Speaker 2: made it about himself in a, in a, in a

1422
01:15:53,640 --> 01:15:55,220
Speaker 2: very like to him serious way.

1423
01:15:55,700 --> 01:15:55,939
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1424
01:15:56,740 --> 01:15:56,860
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1425
01:15:56,900 --> 01:15:58,440
Speaker 1: I don't know how to read that. I don't know

1426
01:15:58,500 --> 01:16:01,760
Speaker 1: if it is taken as threatening that the people were

1427
01:16:01,800 --> 01:16:04,360
Speaker 1: getting haircuts. Like was that, is that perceived as a

1428
01:16:04,400 --> 01:16:06,300
Speaker 1: danger to them or is that just kind of, huh?

1429
01:16:06,320 --> 01:16:06,900
Speaker 3: That's weird.

1430
01:16:08,100 --> 01:16:10,100
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like it was, it, did it just make its

1431
01:16:10,160 --> 01:16:12,660
Speaker 2: way up the chain to plenty in the form of

1432
01:16:12,700 --> 01:16:15,800
Speaker 2: just an aside? Like, Oh, by the way, the people

1433
01:16:15,860 --> 01:16:20,060
Speaker 2: are complaining about the midnight haircuts. They think it's a ghost.

1434
01:16:20,680 --> 01:16:22,979
Speaker 2: And then he kind of, like, spirals just off of that,

1435
01:16:23,060 --> 01:16:25,410
Speaker 2: or is this, like, just every night this is occurring?

1436
01:16:25,810 --> 01:16:26,309
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1437
01:16:26,330 --> 01:16:30,930
Speaker 2: Yeah. But, I mean, it does... In a way, you

1438
01:16:30,950 --> 01:16:32,830
Speaker 2: can imagine just sort of, like, the picking at the

1439
01:16:32,870 --> 01:16:36,229
Speaker 2: general idea. Are ghosts real? Are the stories that I've

1440
01:16:36,270 --> 01:16:39,040
Speaker 2: heard of ghosts real? Like, if you start following it

1441
01:16:39,100 --> 01:16:41,200
Speaker 2: enough and you start sort of, like, connecting your own

1442
01:16:41,300 --> 01:16:44,219
Speaker 2: story to it enough, it does become personal, right? Because...

1443
01:16:44,439 --> 01:16:46,700
Speaker 2: Like if these ghosts are real, then what does that

1444
01:16:46,760 --> 01:16:49,620
Speaker 2: say about like people that I know that have died?

1445
01:16:49,660 --> 01:16:51,330
Speaker 2: And then if you're wrapping it into this kind of

1446
01:16:51,790 --> 01:16:57,730
Speaker 2: idea that ghosts or non-physical apparitions have knowledge of the

1447
01:16:57,850 --> 01:17:02,059
Speaker 2: future and of secret things in the past, then it

1448
01:17:02,530 --> 01:17:06,500
Speaker 2: just adds to this as well. But whatever his reason,

1449
01:17:06,560 --> 01:17:09,919
Speaker 2: like the crazy thing is that he ends up telling

1450
01:17:09,960 --> 01:17:12,800
Speaker 2: this ghost story in a way that it is actually preserved.

1451
01:17:13,640 --> 01:17:16,320
Speaker 2: For future generations and become, you know, it has all

1452
01:17:16,340 --> 01:17:19,559
Speaker 2: these hallmarks that, as Ogden points out, like these become

1453
01:17:20,229 --> 01:17:22,030
Speaker 2: the sorts of ghost stories that are told in the

1454
01:17:22,070 --> 01:17:24,790
Speaker 2: medieval times. And then, you know, certainly looking at the

1455
01:17:24,830 --> 01:17:27,070
Speaker 2: history of all this stuff, you know, these kinds of

1456
01:17:27,189 --> 01:17:30,990
Speaker 2: stories pass on into the into Gothic and Victorian tellings

1457
01:17:31,010 --> 01:17:33,110
Speaker 2: and then become part of our ghost stories today, our

1458
01:17:33,150 --> 01:17:35,870
Speaker 2: haunted house stories that we still tell, we still make

1459
01:17:35,990 --> 01:17:38,530
Speaker 2: up and we still adapt for television and film.

1460
01:17:38,979 --> 01:17:39,679
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.

1461
01:17:40,000 --> 01:17:41,469
Speaker 1: In fact, I want to come back to something we

1462
01:17:41,479 --> 01:17:44,310
Speaker 1: were talking about earlier. The idea that the story feels

1463
01:17:44,930 --> 01:17:49,890
Speaker 1: almost too well put together to just be one random tale,

1464
01:17:50,330 --> 01:17:54,790
Speaker 1: you know, a random event that Pliny is recounting. It

1465
01:17:54,870 --> 01:17:59,730
Speaker 1: feels more like something that has a standard structure, if

1466
01:17:59,770 --> 01:18:02,230
Speaker 1: that makes sense. It feels like something that is part

1467
01:18:02,270 --> 01:18:03,050
Speaker 1: of a genre.

1468
01:18:03,450 --> 01:18:04,269
Speaker 3: Now, maybe it.

1469
01:18:04,250 --> 01:18:07,860
Speaker 1: Just feels that way to us because... a genre later

1470
01:18:07,979 --> 01:18:11,719
Speaker 1: emerged that has that borrowed things, maybe even directly from

1471
01:18:11,840 --> 01:18:15,650
Speaker 1: this letter or from things like it. Uh, but, but I,

1472
01:18:16,560 --> 01:18:18,660
Speaker 1: I don't know. I, I, it could be just that.

1473
01:18:18,729 --> 01:18:22,410
Speaker 1: And I'm like back, uh, you know, I'm, I'm retrospectively

1474
01:18:22,510 --> 01:18:25,610
Speaker 1: characterizing the letter in terms of the genre that emerged later,

1475
01:18:26,010 --> 01:18:28,090
Speaker 1: but it feels to me like something that's partaking of

1476
01:18:28,130 --> 01:18:30,350
Speaker 1: a genre, even at the time it's written, it's got

1477
01:18:30,450 --> 01:18:35,400
Speaker 1: this tight structure and a very strong, uh, narrative momentum, uh,

1478
01:18:35,770 --> 01:18:39,800
Speaker 1: And it has symmetry and it has set up and resolution.

1479
01:18:39,810 --> 01:18:44,200
Speaker 1: It just feels like a very composed story that would

1480
01:18:44,240 --> 01:18:45,439
Speaker 1: be part of a form.

1481
01:18:45,460 --> 01:18:48,570
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I think it brings us back again to

1482
01:18:48,590 --> 01:18:50,160
Speaker 2: the understanding that we don't have a whole. lot of

1483
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:53,240
Speaker 2: stories to compare it to, but as we'll get into

1484
01:18:53,280 --> 01:18:55,139
Speaker 2: in the next episode that we do in this series,

1485
01:18:55,380 --> 01:18:57,600
Speaker 2: we can compare this one to at least a couple

1486
01:18:57,620 --> 01:19:01,269
Speaker 2: of other stories, and what they have in common does

1487
01:19:01,330 --> 01:19:06,550
Speaker 2: reveal something. And overall, this story is often interpreted as

1488
01:19:06,689 --> 01:19:12,050
Speaker 2: being one that sort of clues us into what may

1489
01:19:12,090 --> 01:19:14,490
Speaker 2: have been sort of the standard ghost story of the day,

1490
01:19:14,810 --> 01:19:19,490
Speaker 2: with this being pretty much the only complete surviving example.

1491
01:19:20,810 --> 01:19:22,930
Speaker 1: It would be very interesting to me if it were

1492
01:19:22,950 --> 01:19:26,650
Speaker 1: the case that stories like this were common. There were

1493
01:19:26,670 --> 01:19:30,950
Speaker 1: tales a lot like this circulating all throughout the Roman Empire,

1494
01:19:31,729 --> 01:19:35,560
Speaker 1: but almost none of them made it into text sources

1495
01:19:35,650 --> 01:19:39,189
Speaker 1: that actually survived into the modern day. That would be

1496
01:19:39,250 --> 01:19:42,370
Speaker 1: surprising to me, I think, just because like we today

1497
01:19:42,470 --> 01:19:45,170
Speaker 1: think ghost stories are so notable and we want to

1498
01:19:45,210 --> 01:19:48,250
Speaker 1: write them down and proliferate them. But it could be

1499
01:19:48,290 --> 01:19:50,830
Speaker 1: the kind of story that was, you know, the people

1500
01:19:50,870 --> 01:19:53,270
Speaker 1: would commonly tell back then, but was not thought to

1501
01:19:53,340 --> 01:19:55,479
Speaker 1: be worthy of written literature.

1502
01:19:55,500 --> 01:19:56,160
Speaker 3: I don't know.

1503
01:19:56,700 --> 01:19:58,380
Speaker 2: Yeah. Now, to be clear, there are plenty of ghost

1504
01:19:58,439 --> 01:20:02,439
Speaker 2: stories in general. And there's, of course, there's one, at

1505
01:20:02,500 --> 01:20:05,360
Speaker 2: least one notable werewolf story. So there are other Other

1506
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:07,560
Speaker 2: tales of the supernatural from.

1507
01:20:07,680 --> 01:20:08,360
Speaker 3: Haunted houses.

1508
01:20:08,400 --> 01:20:11,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, but haunted houses specifically, that's where this one stands

1509
01:20:11,860 --> 01:20:16,800
Speaker 2: out as being either singular or one of only three,

1510
01:20:16,840 --> 01:20:19,580
Speaker 2: maybe a few more, but around three tales seem to

1511
01:20:19,620 --> 01:20:21,269
Speaker 2: be all that we have to really go on.

1512
01:20:22,060 --> 01:20:24,450
Speaker 1: So I guess we will have to explore those in

1513
01:20:24,490 --> 01:20:25,570
Speaker 1: the next part of the series.

1514
01:20:25,810 --> 01:20:28,810
Speaker 2: Yes, one more night in the haunted house, and we'll

1515
01:20:28,830 --> 01:20:33,360
Speaker 2: get into that in the next episode. All right. In

1516
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:36,059
Speaker 2: the meantime, certainly write in if you have thoughts on

1517
01:20:36,140 --> 01:20:39,400
Speaker 2: any of this and in general on haunted house houses,

1518
01:20:39,439 --> 01:20:43,200
Speaker 2: you know, send us your scary stories, I guess. And

1519
01:20:43,280 --> 01:20:45,809
Speaker 2: certainly if you have your own take on the question

1520
01:20:45,850 --> 01:20:49,790
Speaker 2: of when were you first introduced to haunted house stories,

1521
01:20:50,370 --> 01:20:52,030
Speaker 2: I want to know as well. Was it Scooby Doo

1522
01:20:52,070 --> 01:20:54,210
Speaker 2: for you as well? Was it something else? What's the

1523
01:20:54,290 --> 01:20:57,830
Speaker 2: answer across different generations and in different parts of the world? Yeah,

1524
01:20:58,170 --> 01:21:00,940
Speaker 2: I'm curious to hear all of that. Just a reminder,

1525
01:21:00,960 --> 01:21:02,519
Speaker 2: this stuff to blow your mind is primarily a science

1526
01:21:02,560 --> 01:21:05,200
Speaker 2: and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,

1527
01:21:05,460 --> 01:21:07,680
Speaker 2: short form on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We set aside

1528
01:21:07,720 --> 01:21:09,960
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film

1529
01:21:10,000 --> 01:21:12,320
Speaker 2: on Weird House Cinema. It's October, so we're doing a

1530
01:21:12,439 --> 01:21:16,459
Speaker 2: lot of spooky content. And yeah, wherever you get the podcast,

1531
01:21:16,479 --> 01:21:18,880
Speaker 2: we just ask that you rate, review and subscribe. If

1532
01:21:18,920 --> 01:21:21,160
Speaker 2: you're on Netflix, that's where you get the video version

1533
01:21:21,260 --> 01:21:23,389
Speaker 2: of our show. Give us a couple of thumbs up.

1534
01:21:23,920 --> 01:21:25,880
Speaker 2: Ask to be reminded about new episodes.

1535
01:21:26,560 --> 01:21:31,100
Speaker 1: Huge thanks, as always, to our regular excellent producer, JJ Posway,

1536
01:21:31,300 --> 01:21:34,540
Speaker 1: and to our excellent guest producer today, Max Williams.

1537
01:21:34,660 --> 01:21:35,320
Speaker 3: Thank you, Max.

1538
01:21:35,340 --> 01:21:37,820
Speaker 1: I appreciate you stepping in. If you would like to

1539
01:21:37,880 --> 01:21:40,599
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

1540
01:21:40,640 --> 01:21:43,080
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

1541
01:21:43,240 --> 01:21:45,320
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

1542
01:21:45,380 --> 01:21:57,400
Speaker 1: contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a

1543
01:21:57,439 --> 01:21:58,809
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

1544
01:21:59,189 --> 01:22:01,970
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.

1545
01:22:02,330 --> 01:22:04,900
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.