International conference FIEC Bordeaux (27/08/2014)

Latin Lexicon of ghosts

A. GUZMÁN ALMAGRO
Universitat de Barcelona

I’ve focused my current research in the Latin lexicon of magic and the supernatural, making
partly a revision of some central concepts and examining their origins and transformations. The scope is
providing a systematization of concepts and meanings to contribute a better understanding of
superstitions in Antiquity as well as of their continuation other historical periods. At present, I have
restricted my research to the field of supernatural apparitions, particularly to ghosts, since there are still
some terminological difficulties. In fact, in some modern languages these difficulties seem to persist.
For instance, the word “ghost” has many meanings in English (positive, such as the Holy Ghost and
negative) while one of its Latin evolutions in Spanish, fastasma, has been restricted almost to one
meaning, that is, the apparition of a dead person among the living. Nevertheless, in most cases
apparitions deal with the return of the dead or the presence of dead in the earthly dimension, even in
those cases where the nature of the apparition is not human apparently. They connect the world of the
living – that is, the natural world- to other realities, they are a link to the Underworld and hence to one
of the main human concerns, death.

Narratives on the supernatural existed in Classical literature in practically all types of

discourses, so it is also important to take into consideration the specific field in which they were
employed. In Roman literature, authors belonged to a concrete context in which the use of the vocabulary
was chosen and the use of words was deliberated indeed: while Augustan poets were particularly
accurate in avoiding explicit taboo words by using more metaphoric or generic ones, authors such as
Lucan or Pliny the Younger –not to mention the Late imperial Apuleius- recorded a wider scatological
vocabulary. In this occasion, I will focus in a well-known text by Pliny the Younger in the seventh book
of Epistles which is an unrivalled source for the study of Roman superstition about ghosts. By the time
of Pliny, the supernatural vocabulary had increased; there was a wide range of terms and meanings, the
Greek vocabulary had been totally assumed and the Roman though was enriched. Besides, it is the only
text in which such a number of designations for ghost is provided and it has different levels of reading,
from popular culture to intellectual expression. The text gathers Roman beliefs and literary traditions
from the sceptic perspective of an intellectual. Finally, Pliny’s text includes the first “ghost story” in
Western literature, in which the motif of the haunted house was settled ever after.
 The story is told in a letter entirely devoted to supernatural beliefs and addressed to his

friend Sura. Pliny wants to know his friend’s opinion of the existence of ghosts and he refers a story

that happened in Athens to a certain philosopher called Atenodorus (text 1).

I am extremely desirous therefore to know your

1:
sentiments concerning phantasmata, whether you
(To Sura) Igitur velim scire, esse phantasmata et
believe they actually exist and have their own proper
habere propriam figuram numenque aliquod putes
shapes and numen, or are only the false impressions of a
an inania et vana ex metu nostro imaginem accipere.
terrified imagination?

The philosopher buys a house infamis et pestilens attracted by its low cost because nobody

dares to live in because it is haunted (text 2 to 5).

2: immediately afterward an idolon appeared in the form of

mox apparebat idolon, senex macie et squalore an old man, extremely meagre and squalid, with a long
confectus, promissa barba horrenti capillo; cruribus beard and bristling hair; rattling the chains on his feet and
compedes, manibus catenas gerebat quatiebatque. hands.

3: The inhabitants consequently passed sleepless, dreadful

Inde inhabitantibus tristes diraeque noctes per
metum vigilabantur; vigiliam morbus et crescente
formidine mors sequebatur.
4:
Nam interdiu quoque, quamquam abscesserat imago,
memoria imaginis oculis inerrabat, longiorque
causis timoris timor erat.
5:
Deserta inde et damnata solitudine domus totaque illi
monstro relicta
nights. This, as it broke their rest, threw them into
distempers, which, as their horrors of mind increased,
proved in the end fatal to their lives
For even in the day time, though the imago did not
appear, yet the remembrance of it (memoria imaginis)
made such a strong impression on their imaginations that
it still seemed before their eyes, and their terror remained
when the cause of it was gone.
the house was at last deserted, as being judged to be
absolutely uninhabitable; so that it was now entirely
abandoned to the monstrum.

At night the ghost visits Atenodorus. It is an old man bound by chains that asks the

philosopher to follow him to a place in the house where it vanishes (text 6 and 7).

6: he applied himself to writing with all his faculties, for his

(Athenodorus) ipse ad scribendum animum oculos mind might not be open to the vain terrors of audita
manum intendit, ne vacua mens audita simulacra et simulacra.
inanes sibi metus fingeret.

7: He looked round and saw the effigies as it had been

(Ath.) Respicit, videt agnoscitque narratam sibi described to him
effigiem.

The following day, the philosopher calls a magistrate who digs in that place. They find a

corpse bound with chains which is identified as someone who might have been killed and left in the
house without a proper burial. Then the magistrate performs an official funeral in order to stop the

haunting of the house (texts 8 and 9).

8: There they found bones commingled and intertwined

Inveniuntur ossa inserta catenis et implicita, quae
corpus aevo terraque putrefactum nuda et exesa
reliquerat vinculis.
9:
Domus postea rite conditis manibus caruit.
with chains; for the body was rotten away by long lying
in the ground, leaving them bare, and corroded by the
fetters.
After the performed rites, the house was haunted by the
manes no more

The vocabulary chosen by Pliny is wide and our aim is to demonstrate that is not a random display of

synonymy, but deliberated.

§ Phasma / phantasma: The starting point is the word phantasma or secondary phasma.
It comes from the Greek and is linked to the verb φαίνω: “appear, give light, show”. The visual
perception is implied. However, it is necessary to consider another related Greek word: phantasia that
generally refers to an impression, real or hallucinatory, frequently after a visual impression in the eye of
something “real” elaborated in the mind. Nevertheless, Phasma was the title of the famous comedy by
Menander and possibly of many other popular representations involving a ghost1. When Pliny wants to
know if ghosts exist, he uses the term phantasma as real ghosts in opposition to imagination. In one
hand, phantasmata have their own shape and characteristics (propiam figuram) and furthermore, they
can have a divine nature, being numina. In opposition, Pliny uses imago to refer imagination and mind
delusion created by fear (inania et vana ex metu nostro imaginem accipere).

§ Imago: It is used in two occasions (text 1 and 4), in both cases, alluding to a mental
creation rather than an actual vision. In the first case, imago is the term chosen to designate unreality, in
the second case, imago is a mental representation of something actually seen (memoria imaginis). That
illustrates the complexity and variety of meanings of imago in Latin. From the point of view of
philosophy, there was the aristotelic tradition according to which imago was the idea of a mental
representation of something perceived with the eyes. And this is the sense we can see in Pliny’s text: the
imago is a mental representation but so vivid that can be seen with the eyes. (oculis inenarrabat).

Originally, the meaning of imago would be close to the idea of “copy”, since its etymology is shared
with imitor and the root im (perhaps –mim, gr. mimesthai). It was used as “portrait” almost exclusively
in funerary context; it was the material representation of the ancestors and hence imago was also a
funerary mask. Imago progressively acquired other meanings, yet connected to “portrait”. Despite of

1
As in Juvenal, Sat. 8.189: clamosum ageres ut Phasma Catulli.
being a synonym of simulacrum, imago was the material representation of humans2 in opposition to
simulacrum, the term for the representations of gods3. As a consequence, it was easy to extrapolate the
imagines of dead to the dead themselves in the context of apparitions, as witnessed by authors since the
Republic4. Virgil was partially “guilty” of the synonymic display for designating ghosts poetically. He
took into account the Homeric tradition but also philosophical considerations (the epicurean Lucretius
for poetry and Cicero in prose)5:

Quaerenti et tectis urbis sine fine furenti

infelix simulacrum atque ipsius umbra Creusae
visa mihi ante oculos et nota maior imago.6
As said above, in Pliny’s text the main sense of imago is mostly philosophical (the mental reconstruction
of something seen memoria imaginis) which is even more effective than the actual vision itself, it causes
more fear to the victim and lead them to death. Secondary, imago would be a real apparition, a copy, of
a dead person.

§ Idolum (eidolon). The Greek eidolon was used to designate ghosts since Homer, but it
had many other meanings related to its Greek origin (eido). In early times it was translated into Latin as
simulacrum and imago, while the grecism occurred scarcely until its wider use in Late and Christian
texts. Idolon is based upon a visual verb (eido) closer to the appearance itself rather than its subjective
perception of the viewer. Idolum as ghost is witnessed only in this text but the ghost is called idolon only
when it is totally visible and a physical description is provided (senex macie et squalore confectus).
Idolon designates the apparition when it has a correspondence with something real that can be described
inside the natural order (an old man).

§ Simulachrum/simulacrum. Being within the synonymic display of imago and idolum,

the origins of simulacrum in the verb simulo provide a perfomative sense, that is, the action of making a

2
PLIN. Nat. 35, 12, 44. 153: “hominis imaginem gypso e facie ipsa primus omnium expressit ceraque in eam formam gypsi
infusa emendare instituit Lysistratus Sicyonius”.
3
PROP. 1.19.10-11:
sed cupidus falsis attingere gaudia palmis
Thessalis antiquam venerat umbra domum.
Illic quidquid ero, semper tua dicar imago.”
4
CIC. de divin. 1.63: occurrunt plerumque imagines mortuorum.
5
VERG. Aen. 6. 290-295:
strictamque aciem venientibus offert,
et, ni docta comes tenues sine corpore vitas
admoneat volitare cava sub imagine formae,
inruat, et frustra ferro diverberet umbras.
6
VERG. Aen. 2.771-73.
thing like another; to imitate, copy, represent and, secondary, to represent a thing as being which has no
existence, to feign a thing to be what it is no, to lie7.

Simulacrum designates an art creation, such as a statue more frequently than other term, and it is the
usual way to refer representations of gods. Besides, simulacrum acquired visual connotations, especially
in early roman philosophy since the use in Lucretius and was frequent adaptation of the Greek eidolon.8
As a consequence, simulacrum could designate apparitions since republican times. Aulus Gelius quotes
a verse from the early poet Matius: An maneat specii simulacrum in morte silentum (if an image of the
appearance of those who are in silence in dead remains 9). The “image of the dead” represents the dead
themselves.

As in the case of imago, Vergil and Augustan poetry consolidated the adaptation of the Homeric eidolon
with simulacrum. Vergil also extended the meaning of simulacrum to the field of supernatural visions
along with auditions, indicating they are also manifestations perceived by the mind with an imaginative
or hallucinatory component10: multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris/et varias audit voces. This
use is given in Pliny’s text too: simulacrum does not designates the concrete apparition of a ghost, but
rather alludes to the superstitions that have been told (audita simulacra). As a philosopher, Athenodorus
does not give credit to people beliefs, so simulacrum is an illusion created by fear.

§ Monstrum: (text 5) It belongs to a series of terms that indicate concrete characteristics

of apparitions, which are not perceived visually, but rather intellectually. These terms allude to the
implicit messages of supernatural apparitions. Certainly, a ghost does not appear without a reason: they
are revengeful, or warning, they can announce victories, defeats or disasters. It seems that the origins of
monstrum come from the verb monstro (to show) but that both come from moneo (“to warn”).
Semantically, monstrum is connected to ostentum, portentum and prodigium, all of them supernatural
apparitions with an implicit message. As Raymond Bloch pointed out in his book on ancient prodigies11,
this semantic field is complex and impossible to examine in this contribution, but just to make an attempt
of preliminary systematization, the primary notion in prodigium is, that the appearance is replete with
meaning and consequences, in ostentum, that it excites wonder, and is great in its nature: in portentum,
that threatens danger and in monstrum, that it is unnatural and ugly. Monstra disrupt the natural order,

7
In Pliny himself, Epist. 3. 14.2: “Ille sive quia non sentiebat, sive quia se non sentire simulabat, immobilis et extentus fidem
peractae mortis implevit”.
8
Lucretius will be the introductory of the theories of simulacra in Roman philosophy.
9
GEL. 9. 14. 14. The quote comes from an Illiadas that Matius would have composed following the Greek, although with
some variations such as in this case, cf. E. Courtney, The fragmentary Latin poets, p. 102.
10
Aen. 7.89-90: multa modis simulacra videt volitantia miris/et varias audit voces. Hallucinatory visions also in Ovid, Met.
2. 193-194: Sparsa quoque in vario passim miracula caelo /vastarumque videt trepidus simulacra ferarum.
11
R. BLOCH, Les prodiges dans l’Antiquité Classique, Paris, 1963, pp. 25; 105-106. CIC. Div. 1, 42: quia ostendunt,
portendunt, monstrant, praedicunt, ostenta, portenta, monstra, prodigia dicuntur.
and, consequently, there are many kinds of them (unnatural creatures, deformed animals and children,
demigods such as Polyfemus), and it is obvious that a clear disruption of the natural order is the return
of a dead, so monstrum can designate, as in Pliny’s tale, a ghostly apparition. In fact, the diminutive
form mostellum was attested in early times in Plautus’s play Mostellaria, a version, on the other hand,
of the comedy Phasma. According to Emile Jobbe Duval, mostellum would designate, in Early Republic,
a series of domestic phenomena in the way of “poltergheist”12, and by extension, a concrete ghost that
causes these phenomena in a house.

§ Dirum: Although it is clearly an adjective designating noctes in text 2, we have included the
adjective dirus within the semantic field of monstrum, due to the neuter form dirum/ dira was used as a
synonym of portentum, but also such or qualifying it: dirum omen13. The translation in the text will be
dreadful nights, but the adjective alludes to what actually happens during the night, that is, the fearful
apparition of a ghost.

§ Effigies: Pliny makes use of the term effigies (text 7) when the philosopher Arignotus actually
sees the ghost before him and recognizes it according to a description. Effigies implies likeness and
imitation. It is the artistic copy of an object or individual. In that sense, effigies would be a synonym of
idolon and simulacrum14 but – in my opinion –, there is a difference based in the objectivity of the vision.
In other words, effigies designates the vision once it has been identified with a concrete individual: it is
not a creation of something similar to a ghost but the actual image of a ghost with a previous human
existence. The same Pliny uses effigies in another letter, referring the ghost of Drusus Nero appearing
before his uncle.15

§ Ossa/corpus: In Pliny’s account, a magistrate digs in the place the morning after and the bones
of a human corpse are found. Despite the use of ossa and corpus is clearly material and not supernatural,
it is necessary to include both terms within the sphere of ghosts. First, ossa and corpus are the material
counterpart of the apparition, once it is identified. Ossa is also the term par excellence in funerary
inscriptions frequently as the opposite of anima -the soul-, as in the literary epitaph of Seneca: namque
animam caelo reddimus, ossa tibi. Then, ossa and corpus mean the break in the narration: after a series

12
E. Jobbé-Duval, Les morts malfaissants, larvae, lemures apres le droit et les croyances des Romains, Paris,
1924, p. 31,
13
For instance, Val. Max. 1.6.10. See also, Livy 10.28: dira signa; Tacitus: diris avibus. But Verg. Aen. 2.752:
dirus Ulixes. Later Apuleius, Met. 1. 18: diras et truces imagines (referring ghostly apparitions).
14
Liv. 21, 40, 9: “Effigies, immo umbrae hominum”, Livy is describing an army of living men, although he is
giving them ghostly connotations.
15
Ep. 3. 5.4: “Incohavit cum in Germania militaret, somnio monitus: astitit ei quiescenti Drusi Neronis effigies, qui
Germaniae latissime victor ibi periit, commendabat memoriam suam orabatque ut se ab iniuria oblivionis assereret”. The
scene is oneiric, but its veracity is not questionable and the use of the verb adstitit (to stand) reinforces this fact. Similarly,
Silus Italicus 13, 777-782, referring to the ghost of Homer.
of terms concerning the real or hallucinatory nature of the apparition, the discovery of the corpus
identifies the ghost as someone who inhabited the house and that now is lying under the ground. For that
reason, it is also frequent the idea of unquiet bones, that is, when the body has not found a rest and, as a
consequence, it is possible to find analogies of ossa/corpus referring a ghost. We may mention the
clearest example of this analogy corpus/ghost provided by Lucan, sometimes reinforced with the use of
the term along with manes. The corporality of ghosts in Pharsalia is represented in images such as the
passage of necromancy, but also in the bones that mourn in the funerary urns as a praesagium or the
cadavera that appear in dreams.16

We may remember that the ghost leads Athenodorus to the place the corpse lies and there it
disappears, as if the apparition would be an actual projection (an effigies) of the body that is unquiet by
a violent death and an inappropriate burial.

§ Manes: That leads us to the final term, manes (text 9) that would represent the total
identification of the ghost as someone with a previous human existence; the process is completed by
humanizing the ghost, and the way to complete the humanization is to perform a proper funeral. At this
point, the reality and objectivity of the apparition are unquestionable and the chosen term to designate
the ghost is manes. Although the meaning is complex, manes is frequently used as a synonym of ghost,
along with other proper names for infernal entities such as larvae and lemures. That could explain the
use of numen at the beginning of the text, alluding to the perception of the supernatural phenomenon as
something provoked by a divine entity.

In addition, manes do not imply negativity a priori and they often refer to the dead in
general, as a collective entity that must be worshiped. However by the second half of the 1st century a.C.,
there is a considerable number of sources in which manes have a negative meaning, reinforcing the idea
of ghosts as unquiet dead: manes exite paterni is the formula given by Ovid for exorcising ghosts during
the Parentalia17. Furthermore, manes designate a well identified ghost of a concrete person, especially
in contexts when they come to give a message18. This reading should be done in the text, when the ghost
is identified, the body is found and the funeral is accomplished, the manes go out of the house, as the
verb careo indicates. Consequently, even in the case that manes are humanized, they are perceived as
something negative if they are roaming unquietly in a place.

16
See for instance 7. 775-6: Hunc agitant totis fraterna cadavera somnis: Pectore in hoc pater est: / omnes in Caesare
manes. The analogy is not only in Lucan, and we find examples in precedent sources: LIV. 31. 30, and such.
17
Fasti, 5.443.
18
Is employed, for instance by a close friend of Pliny the Younger, Suetonius, with that sense: manes Agrippinae.
 CONCLUSIONS:

It is possible to establish a distribution of terminology according to the following

considerations:

1. Terms between seeing and imaging. The main semantic field for the lexicon of ghosts
alludes visual aspects. That can be seen in the etymology of terms but also in the extended meanings
(not in Pliny’s text, but we must remember here terms such as visio, species, spectrum, and such).
However, there is a distinction between what is perceived with the eyes and what could be perceived
by the eyes by means of imagination, and this distinction corresponds with the intrinsic debate on the
existence of ghosts.

2. Ghosts as images of the living. Despite they integrate morphologically and semantically
the field of visual perceptions, some terms designate the identity of the ghost revealed by its appearance.
In these cases, it is possible to see how Romans conceived ghostly apparitions as entities with a previous
human existence. For that reason, idolon acquires in Roman sources the sense of imago, that is, a visual
copy of something that exists or has existed previously19. There is a correspondence between the actual
aspect of a person and the aspect of a ghost, and that allows to identify the apparition and make it concrete
(effigies).

3. The materiality of ghosts. The terminology alludes to the formal and material
characteristics. It is true that visual characteristics are included, but they are mostly for the point of view
of their materiality rather than to their perception by the victims.

4. The functionality of ghosts. Some terms designate the consequences and intrinsic
significance of a supernatural apparition such as ghosts.

5. The proper names. They are specific names for certain ghosts that are conceived as
supernatural entities connected to Roman religion. Despite a previous human existence, they are numina
that require specific rituals, often within the sphere of official religion, such as the manes.

In Pliny’s tale it is possible to see a gradation in the use of terms, from the illusory
poltergeist (suspect to be unreal), the apparition of the ghosts (real) to the final corpse (material). Then,
text ends with manes, once the apparition has been identified with a human individual and only when
the proper official burial has been performed.

19
In the way of Cicero N. D. 1, 37, 103: deus effigies hominis et imago.