Pliny the Younger’s Haunted House at Athens

Record summary

Pliny the Younger recounts a large Athenian house supposedly troubled by the apparition of an old, chained man. The haunting ends after the philosopher Athenodorus rents the property, investigates the figure’s instructions, and discovers buried human remains; after proper burial, the disturbances reportedly cease. The episode is a major classical template for the identifiable haunted-house narrative and invites comparison with later location-bound apparition stories. It remains a literary account transmitted in a letter, and its first-hand status, source basis, and rhetorical construction are uncertain.