Letter to Sura - Pilny the Younger

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Letter to Sura by Pliny the Younger. Our leisure furnishes
me with the opportunity of learning from you, and you
with that of instructing me accordingly. I particularly wish to
know whether you think there exists such things as phantoms
possessing an appearance peculiar to themselves and a certain supernatural power,

(00:23):
or that mere empty delusions receive a shape from our fears.
For my part, I am led to believe in their existence,
especially by what I here happened to courteous Rufus, while
still in humble circumstances and obscure. He was a hanger
on in the suite of the Governor of Africa. While

(00:44):
pacing the colonnade one afternoon, there appeared to him a
female form of superhuman size and beauty. She informed the
terrified man that she was Africa and had come to
foretell future events, for that he would go to Rome,
would fill offices of state there, and would even return
to that same province with the highest powers, and die

(01:07):
in it, all which things were fulfilled. Moreover, as he
touched at Carthage and was disembarking from his ship, the
same form is said to have presented itself to him
on the shore. It is certain that, being seized with
illness and auguring the future from the past and misfortune

(01:27):
from his previous prosperity, he himself abandoned all hope of life,
though none of those about him despaired. Is not the
following story again, still more appalling and not less marvelous.
I will relate it as it was received by me.
There was at Athens a mansion, spacious and commodious, but

(01:51):
of evil repute and dangerous to health. In the dead
of night there was a noise as of iron, and
if you listened more close, a clanking of chains was heard,
first of all from a distance, and afterwards hard by.
Presently a specter used to appear, an ancient man, sinking

(02:12):
with emaciation and squalor, with a long beard and bristly hair,
wearing shackles on his legs and fetters on his hands,
and shaking them. Hence, the inmates, by reason of their fears,
passed miserable and horrible nights in sleeplessness. This want of
sleep was followed by disease, and their terrors increasing by death.

(02:36):
For in the daytime as well, though the apparition had departed,
yet a reminiscence of it flitted before their eyes, and
their dread outlived its cause. The mansion was accordingly deserted
and condemned to solitude, was entirely abandoned to the dreadful ghost. However,
it was advertised on the chance of some one ignorant

(02:58):
of the fearful curse attached to it, being willing to
buy or rent it. Athenodorus the philosopher came to Athens
and read the advertisement. When he had been informed of
the terms, which were so low as to appear suspicious,
he made inquiries and learned the whole of the particulars.
Yet none the less on that account, Nay, all the

(03:20):
more readily did he rent the house. As evening began
to draw on, he ordered a sofa to be set
for himself in the front part of the house, and
called for his note books, writing implements, and alight the
whole of his servants. He dismissed to the interior apartments,
and for himself applied his soul, eyes and hands to composition,

(03:43):
that his mind might not, from want of occupation, picture
to itself the phantoms of which he had heard, or
any empty terrors at the commencement, there was the universal
silence of night. Soon the shaking of irons and the
clanking of chains was heard. Yet he never raised his eyes,
nor slackened his pen, but hardened his soul and deadened

(04:05):
his ears. By its help, the noise grew and approached.
Now it seemed to be heard at the door, and
next inside the door, he looked round, beheld and recognized
the figure he had been told of. It was standing
and signaling to him with its finger, as though inviting him. He,

(04:26):
in reply, made a sign with his hand that it
should wait a moment, and applied himself afresh to his
tablets and pen. Upon this, the figure kept rattling its
chains over his head as he wrote. On. Looking round again,
he saw it making the same signal as before, and
without delay, took up a light and followed it. It

(04:48):
moved with a slow step, as though oppressed by its chains,
and after turning into the courtyard of the house, vanished
suddenly and left his company. On being the thus left
to himself, he marked the spot with some grass and leaves,
which he plucked. Next day he applied to the magistrates
and urged them to have the spot in question dug up.

(05:12):
There were found there some bones attached to and intermingled
with fetters. The body to which they had belonged rotted
away by time, and soil had abandoned them. Thus, naked
and corroded to the chains, they were collected and interred
at the public expense, and the house was ever afterwards
free from the spirit which had obtained due Sepulcher the

(05:34):
above story. I believe on the strength of those who
affirm it what follows. I am myself in a position
to affirm to others I have a freedman who is
not without some knowledge of letters. A younger brother of
his was sleeping with him in the same bed. The
latter dreamed he saw some one sitting on the couch,

(05:54):
who approached a pair of scissors to his head and
even cut the hair from the crown of it. When
day dawned, he was found to be cropped round the crown,
and his locks were discovered lying about a very short
time afterwards, a fresh occurrence of the same kind confirmed
the truth of the former one. A lad of mine

(06:15):
was sleeping in company with several others in the page's apartment.
There came through the windows, so he tells the story
two figures in white tunics who cut his hair as
he lay, and departed the way they came. In his case,
too daylight exhibited him shorn and his locks scattered around.

(06:38):
Nothing remarkable followed, except perhaps this that I was not
brought under accusation, as I should have been if Domitian,
in whose reign these events happened, had lived longer. For
in his desk was found in information against me which
had been presented by Caras from which circumstance, it may
be conjectured, inasmuch as as it is the custom of

(07:00):
accused persons to let their hair grow, that the cutting
off of my slave's hair was a sign of the
danger which threatened me being averted. I beg then that
you will apply your great learning to this subject. The
matter is one which deserves long and deep consideration on
your part. Nor am I, for my part, undeserving of

(07:21):
having the fruits of your wisdom imparted to me. You
may even argue on both sides, as your way is
provided you argue more forcibly on one side than the other,
so as not to dismiss me in suspense and anxiety.
When the very cause of my consulting you has been
to have my doubts put an end to end of

(07:43):
letter to Surah by Pliny the Younger