[83] ὕπνος ἔχει σε μάκαρ . . . , καὶ ζῇς ὡς ἥρως καὶ νέκυς οὐκ ἐγένου, Epigr. Gr. 433; where it is evident that the ἥρως is something more living than the mere νέκυς. ἀσπάζεσθ’ ἥρωα, τὸν οὐκ ἐδαμάσσατο λύπη (i.e. who has not been made nothing by death), ib., 296. The husband τιμαῖς ἰσόμοιρον ἔθηκε τὰν ὁμόλεκτρον ἥρωσιν, 189, 3. The title ἥρως still has a stronger and deeper sense in inss. such as CIG. 1627 (referring to a descendent of Plutarch’s) and 4058 (. . . ἄνδρα φιλόλογον καὶ πάσῃ ἀρετῇ κεκοσμημένον εὐδαίμονα ἥρωα). Cf. Orig., Cels. 3, 80, p. 359 Lom.: οἱ βιοῦντες ὧσθ’ ἥρωες γενέσθαι καὶ μετὰ θεῶν ἕξειν τὰς διατριβάς. In 3, 22, p. 276, he distinguishes between θεοί, ἥρωες, ἁπαξαπλῶς ψυχαί (the soul can divina fieri et a legibus mortalitatis educi, Arnob. ii, 62; cf. Corn. Labeo ap. Serv., Aen. iii, 168).
[84] ἄωροι, βιοθάνατοι, ἄταφοι see [Append. vii].—θάπτειν καὶ ὁσιοῦν τῇ Γῇ, significantly, Philostr., Her. 714, p. 182, 9 f. K.
[85] Plu., Dio, 2: some say that only children and women and foolish men see ghosts, δαίμονα πονηρὸν ἐν αὐτοῖς δεισιδαιμονίαν ἔχοντες. Plu. on the other hand thinks that he can confound the unbelieving by pointing to the fact that even Dio and Brutus had seen φάσματα shortly before their death.
[86] Cf. the story of Philinnion and Machates in Amphipolis: Phleg., Mirab. 1. Procl. in Rp., p. 64 Sch. [ii, p. 116 Kr.; see Rohde in Rh. Mus. 32, 329 ff.]. The Erinyes in Aesch. are conceived as vampire-like: Eum. 264 f.: see above, chap. v, [n. 161].—Souls of the dead as nightmare, ἐφιάλτης, incubo oppressing a man’s enemy: Soran. ap. Tert., An. 44; Cael. Aurel., Morb. Chron. 1, 3, 55 (Rh. Mus. 37, 467, 1).
[87] The Φιλοψευδής is a genuine treasure-house of typical narratives of apparitions and sorceries of every kind. δαίμονας ἀνάγειν καὶ νεκροὺς ἑώλους ἀνακαλεῖν is a mere bagatelle, according to these sage doctors, to the magician: c. 13. An example is given of this conjuration of the dead (the seven-months dead father of Glaukias): 14. Appearance of the dead wife of Eukrates whose golden sandals they had forgotten to burn with her: 27 (see above, chap. i, [n. 51]). As a rule the only haunting ghosts are αἱ τῶν βιαίως ἀποθανόντων ψυχαί not those of the κατὰ μοῖραν ἀποθανόντων as the learned Pythagorean instructs us, c. 29. Then follows the story of the ghost of Corinth (30–1), which must be taken from a widely known ghost-story, as it agrees completely in its circumstances with the story told with such simple candour by Pliny (Ep. vii, 27). δαίμονάς τινας εἶναι καὶ φάσματα καὶ νεκρῶν ψυχὰς περιπολεῖν ὑπὲρ γῆς καὶ φαίνεσθαι οἷς ἂν ἐθέλωσιν (29) is the fixed conviction of these philosophers. The living too can sometimes catch a glimpse of the underworld: 22–4. A man’s soul can be detached from his body and go down to Hades, and afterwards, again reunited to his body, relate its adventures. Thus the soul of Kleodemos, while his body lay in fever, is taken down to the lower world by a messenger but then sent back again since he had been taken by mistake for his neighbour, the smith Demylos: 25. This edifying narrative is certainly intended as a parody of the similar story told in good faith by Plu. de An. fr. 1, preserved [563] ap. Eus., PE. 11, 36, p. 563. It is certain that Plu. did not simply invent such a story; he may perhaps have found it in some older collection of miraculous ἀναβιώσεις such as, for example, Chrysippos did not disdain to make. The probability that Plu. got this story of mistaken identity from a collection of folk-tales is made all the likelier since the same story occurs again in a popular guise. Of a similar character is what Augustine has to say on the authority of Corn. Labeo: Civ. Dei 22, 28 (p. 622, 1–5 Domb.). Augustine himself, Cur. pro Mort. 15, tells a story exactly like that of Plu. (about Curma the curialis and Curma the faber ferrarius), which, of course, is supposed to happen a little before his time in Africa; and once more at the end of the sixth century Gregory the Great introduces a vision of Hell by the same formula: Dial. 4, 36, p. 384 AB Migne. The inventive powers of ghoststory-tellers is very limited: they keep on repeating the same few old and tried motifs.
[88] Plu., Dio, 2, 55: Cimon, 1; Brut. 36 f., 48.
[89] Cf. above, chap. v, [n. 23]; chap. ix, [nn. 105] ff.
[90] ψυχὰς ἡρώων ἀνακαλεῖν among the regular arts of the magician, Cels. ap. Orig., Cels. 1, 68, p. 127 Lomm.
[91] See [Append. xii].
[92] And in consequence we sometimes have the most surprising confusion of the two states of being. Lucian, e.g. (in D. Mort. frequently, cf. 18, 1, 20, 2, and Necyom. 15, 17; Char. 24) speaks of the dead in Hades as skeletons lying one upon another, Aiakos allowing them each one foot of earth, etc. (The Romans have the same confusion of ideas: nemo tam puer est, says Sen., Ep. 24, 18, ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras et larvalem habitum nudis ossibus cohaerentium. Cf. Prop. iv, 5, 3, Cerberus . . . ieiuno terreat ossa sono, etc.) There is also a confusion between the grave and Hades in such expressions as μετ’ εὐσεβέεσσι κεῖσθαι: Epigr. Gr. 259, 1; σκῆνος νῦν κεῖμαι Πλουτέος ἐμμελάθροις, 226, 4; cf. above, chap. xii, [n. 95]. Such a mixture of ideas was all the more natural seeing that Ἅιδης also occurs as a metaphor for τύμβος (see below, [n. 135]).