Pliny – Letters – Book 7 Letter 27 (On Ghosts)

Pliny the Younger asks his friend Sura for his views on whether ghosts truly exist or are merely products of frightened imagination. Pliny supports the existence of ghosts through two notable examples: the story of Curtius Rufus, who encountered a supernatural woman in Africa who accurately predicted his future rise to power and death, and an account of a haunted house in Athens where a phantom in chains terrorized inhabitants so severely that it became uninhabitable. Through these anecdotes, Pliny suggests that spectral apparitions may possess their own forms and divine nature rather than being mere illusions.