Beyond it's age this is a fairly typical ghost story in most respects. What is particularly striking about this one particular haunting is the appearance of the ghost. This story may be responsible for the stereotype that ghosts carry chains, as well as the visual appearance of Bob Marley in Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol.

Pliny the Younger was related to his more well-known uncle, Pliny the Elder, although they both did the same thing: both were meticulous and careful recorders of what he had seen and heard. The Younger is responsible for a great deal of what we know about Rome at the height of it's empire. None of his letters seem to indicate that he was a gullible or superstitious man, and yet he vouched for the validity of a particular ghost story he had heard. The following are excepts from a letter to Lucias Sura.

"There was formerly at Athens a large and handsome house which none the less had acquired a reputation of being badly haunted. The folk told how at the dead of night horrid noises were heard: the clanking of chains that grew louder and louder until there suddenly appeared the hideous phantom of an old man who seemed the very picture of abject filth and misery. His beard was long and matted, his hair disheveled and unkempt. His thin legs were loaded with the weight of galling fetters that he dragged wearily along with a painful moaning; his wrists were shackled by long cruel links, while ever and anon he raised his arms and shook his shackles in a kind of impotent fury..."

"Some few mocking skeptics who were once bold enough to watch all night in the house had been well-nigh scared from their senses at the sight of the apparition; and what was worse; disease and even death itself proved the fate of those who after dusk had ventured within those accursed walls. The place was shunned. A placard "To Let" was posted but year succeeded year and the house fell almost to ruin and decay..."

Apparently then the philosopher Athenodorus, who was short of money, saw the house and, as he was looking for a place to live, decided to rent it, although he was told the story of the haunting. He took it anyway. And so on the first night, while he was up late at night in his study working on a particularly difficult problem, he encountered the menacing ghost.

"...but presently the noise of a rattling chain, at first distant and then growing nearer, broke his ear. However, Athenodorus being particularly occupied with his notes, was too intent to interrupt his writing until, as the clanking became more and more continuous, he looked up and there before him stood the phantom, exactly as it had been described.."

"The ghastly figure seemed to beckon with it's finger, but the philosopher signed that he was busy and again went to his writing. The chains were shaken angrily and with persistence upon which Athenodorus quietly rose from his seat and taking the lamp, motioned the specter to lead before."

The ghost led the philosopher to a garden, on which it stopped at a particular spot and pointed straight down before vanishing. Athenodorus marked the spot and, the next day, recommended that the garden be dug up. A skeleton bound in rusted iron chains was found buried only a few feet down. The remains were given a proper burial and the house underwent a series of rituals, after which no more disturbances plagued the occupants.