Types of Greco-Roman ghosts

Brutus and Caesar's ghost

The following is a classification of the different types of ghosts present in the preserved Greco-Roman written testimonies. It is complicated to delimit them since their nature is variable according to the sources in which they are used. As always, at the end are the sources I have used.

Homeric type

Odysseus, between Eurylochus and Perimedes, consults Tiresias (lower left corner).

They appear as an intangible shadow of smoke or vapor. They received various names: psyche (Greek, "soul" or "breath of life"), eidolon (Greek, "image, idol, double, double, apparition, phantom), imago (Latin, "image"), simulacrum (Latin, "likeness"), effigies (Latin, "likeness, effigy"), facies tenuis, levis umbra and anima (Latin, "soul").

The Greeks did not usually have a specific term for each type of ghost, phasma (φάσμα) and its variant phantasma (φάντασμα) being commonly used. Eidolon was used for all kinds of apparitions, it didn't even have to be of a dead person. Daimon (δαίμων) also had a wide usage, being able to be, among other things, ghosts or spirits with the capacity for possession. More infrequent was skia (σκιά), meaning "shadow." Psyche, in addition to divinity, could refer to either the soul of the living or the ghost of the deceased.

The multitude of names responds more to the literary variety than to the specificity of the terms.

Some examples are Patroclus in the Iliad or Hector, Creusa and Anchises in the Aeneid.

Manes Type

They were ancestor spirits that were venerated as family gods in Rome since ancient times. They appeared collectively, although in Cicero (Contra Pison 16) and Augustan authors such as Livy (3.58.11), Horace (Epodos 5.92) and Virgil (Aeneid 6.743) they acted individually. They were collectively venerated at the festivals of Feralia, Parentalia and Lemuria.

The spirit of man after he has left the body becomes or is transformed into a kind of demon that the ancient Latins called lemures. The souls of those deceased who had been good and had care and vigilance over the fate of their descendants, were called family lares, but those of the restless, turbulent and maleficent ones who frightened men with nocturnal apparitions were called laruce, and when the fate of the soul of the deceased was unknown, that is, it was not known if it had been transformed into lar or larva, then it was called mane
Apuleius - De Deo Socratis

In Roman funeral epitaphs they often plead for parentatio or seek revenge in case of disturbing their tombs. Livy offers an example of vengeful manes with Verginia. They are usually chthonic deities or spirits of the underworld, being in a few cases ghosts of the deceased. Romans could beg to see apparitions of their deceased loved ones. They were usually interpreted as evil prodigies. In this case, by prodigy we understand an extraordinary fact, similar to a miracle but without the religious charge or violation of the laws of nature.

Gello type

They are cruel ghosts, capable of killing people. Sappho mentioned it in the 6th century BC, implying that it was feared by children. Zenobius told in the 2nd century AD that Gello was a young girl who died a virgin, returning as a ghost to harm the children of others. Hesychius of Alexandria defined her as a ghost (eidolon) who attacked virgins and newborn children. It developed from a single woman in ancient Greece, along with Lamia and Mormos, developing into a type of demons or apparitions. With the Latin Vulgate, Lilith would also be identified with this archetype.

They receive various designations, such as ahoros (ἄωρος, "premature"), biothanatos (Latin, "violent death, suicide") and ataphos. Ahoros was someone who died before puberty, marriage, or childbirth. Ataphos or apotaphos is one who is not buried with his or her parents. An example of this is the child sacrificed in Horace's Epodos 5, who takes revenge on the murderous witches.

His belief outlasted the Roman Empire itself. With Christianity, she went from being a virgin to an old witch. In the Byzantine Empire, she was used as a synonym for a strige who fed on the blood of the child and the mother. It was associated with the evil eye and the most varied amulets were advised against them, such as a hyena eye in a purple bag.

Nekydaimon type

Erichto reanimating a corpse

In necromancies with oriental features, ghosts of the Gello type become nekydaimons and fulfill the wishes of witches and wizards. An example is shown with Erichthon in Lucan's Farsalia and or Apuleius' Metamorphoses. It seems as if they were alive, because the witch or sorcerer binds the spirit to the body of another deceased. The Latin Lemures would hypothetically be of this type.

He also had there before him many limbs and pieces of dead bodies, as well as noses, fingers, and nails with flesh of men slain on the gallows. He had also the blood of men slain with iron, and the bones of heads, and the toothless jaws of wild beasts. Then he opened a heart, and when he saw the veins and the fibers, how they bubbled, he began to sprinkle it with various liquors: some with spring water, some with the milk of cows, some with wild honey. He also added mulsa, which is made of honey and boiled water. In this way, those twisted and knotted hairs and with many perfumed odors he put in the midst of the coals to burn. Then, with the great force and power of necromancy, and by the occult violence of the spirits pressed and constrained, those bodies, whose hairs crackled in the fire, receive human spirit and feel and hear and walk and go to the side those who carried the gold of their own spoils and came to the door of the house, struggling to enter, as if it were that Boeotian young man. At this, you, deceived by the darkness of the night and the wine you had drunk, armed with your sword in your hand and with great boldness, almost losing your wits, like that Greek Achaians, not killing sheep as he destroyed and killed many, but much more strongly and strenuously killed three swollen wineskins. So that, having vanquished the enemies without any taint of blood, I will embrace you, not as a man-slayer, but as a man-slayer.
Apuleius - The Metamorphosis. Third book. Chapter III.

Heros type

Oedipus cult

Hero worship is recorded in Greece from the Geometric period. Although in Homeric Greek it referred to any of the participants in the Trojan War, in the historical period it referred to a deceased person venerated or propitiated in his tomb or shrine, since his fame in life or unusual way of dying gave him the power to protect the living. heros-type ghosts generally behave as nekydaimones, usually being cruel and aggressive, but in cases of danger they appear in battles to defend their native polis. Some examples are the heroes of the battle of Marathon or the hero of Temesa who asked for young girls (Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.6.10):

When [Euthymos] returned to Italy he fought against the Hero. His story goes like this: they say that Odysseus in his wandering after the capture of Ilium was carried by the winds to various cities in Italy and Sicily and, among them, came to Temesa with his ships. Well, here, one of the sailors, who had become drunk, raped a girl and was stoned by the natives in punishment for this grievance. Odysseus was unconcerned about his death and sailed away by sea, but the spirit of the stoned man never ceased to put to death those of Temesa nor to attack those of all ages, until, when they were about to flee from Italy, [Apollo through] the Pythia by no means permitted them to leave Temesa and ordered them to propitiate themselves to the Hero and consecrate to him an enclosure, build him a temple and offer him every year as a wife the fairest of the maidens of Temesa. They complied with the order of the god and no longer had any fear of the spirit; but Euthymus, who had come to Temesa when the rituals of the spirit were being fulfilled, heard what was happening and felt the desire to enter the temple and see the girl. When he saw her, at first he felt compassion, then love for her. The girl swore to him that she would marry him if he would save her, and Euthymus armed himself and awaited the god's attack. He won the fight and the Hero was expelled from the country and disappeared into the sea. Euthymus had a glorious wedding, and the men there were forever free from the spirit.
Pausanias. Description of Greece VI. Chapter 6.

Guilty soul type

They appear in the philosophy of Plato and Posidonius as souls bound to their bodies and forced into metempsychosis for their sins. They fly through the air and can sometimes be seen (e.g., Plato's Phaedo). The name in Apuleius' demonology is Larvae.

Larvae

They were initially considered demons that provoked madness, being imagined in imperial times as repugnant skeletal spirits. They are the spirits that haunt houses. Although the phrase larvis infestus applies specifically to haunted houses, it is not used in any of the preserved haunted house stories.

Apotheosis

Apotheosis of Julius Caesar, entrance to Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, England.

From the Greek ἀποθέωσις, "to deify." Rather than ghosts they are human spirits who become gods after their death. Examples are Scipio Africanus in Somnium Scipionis (Scipio's Dream, sixth book of Cicero's De re publica), Romulus as Quirinus or the spirit of Julius Caesar at the battle of Philippi against Cassius in Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium (Memorable deeds and sayings of Valerius Maximus). They are glorious and magnificent gods.

Sources

• Nagy, Levente (2009) Kísértetek és kísértethit a koracsászárkori latin nyelvű történetírásban és politikai költészetben (Tesis doctoral) University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungría.
• Phillips, C. (2016, March 07). manes. Oxford Classical Dictionary. Ed. Retrieved 27 Oct. 2018, from http://classics.oxfordre.com/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-3912.
• Felton, D. (2010). Haunted Greece and Rome: ghost stories from classical antiquity. University of Texas Press.
• Pausanias (1994). Descripción de Grecia. Volumen II: Libros III-VI. Editorial Gredos. Madrid. ISBN 9788424916565.