Athenodorus and the Haunted House of Athens: The Ghost in Chains

Athens. A large, spacious house, and a notice: for rent or for sale. The price is low. Too low.

The philosopher Athenodorus reads it and becomes suspicious. He inquires, and they tell him everything: at night, inside, you hear the sound of iron, first far away, then increasingly closer. Then appears a very thin old man, dirty, with a long beard and bristly hair, with shackles on his feet and chains on his wrists. Those who lived there lost sleep and became ill; some say someone died of fear.

Athenodorus rents it anyway.

The story is in a letter from Pliny the Younger, number 27 of book VII, written around 100 AD to his friend Licinius Sura. In the evening, the philosopher has a bed prepared in the front part of the house, asks for a lamp, a stylus, and tablets, sends the servants away. And he writes.

The chains arrive. He continues to write. The old man signals to him; Athenodorus signals him to wait. Only at the second call does he take the lamp and follow him. In the courtyard, the figure vanishes. The philosopher marks the spot with grass and leaves.

The next day the magistrates have the place dug. Under the ground are bones, wrapped in corroded chains. They are buried at public expense. Since then, Pliny writes, the house remains quiet.

The point that does not add up is Pliny himself: a senator who declares he believes the story on the word of others, and asks Sura if ghosts really exist or are born from fear. The answer has not reached us.

For scholars, it is a recurring story: Lucian tells a very similar one set in Corinth, and even Plautus, around 200 BC, joked about it.

Ancient folklore, or the memory of a real crime buried in a courtyard? What do you think?

• Pliny the Younger, Letters VII, 27 (English translation, VRoma): https://www.vroma.org/vromans/hwalker/Pliny/Pliny07-27-E.html

• Debbie Felton, The Haunted House in Athens (University of Massachusetts): https://websites.umass.edu/felton/2025/10/31/the-haunted-house-in-athens

• National Geographic, The ghost stories of ancient Rome: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ghost-stories-ancient-rome

• Wikipedia, Athenodorus Cananites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenodorus_Cananites