Some Ghostly Appearances in Greece: Literary and Artistic Sources

Abstract

This article aims to explore the topic of ghosts in ancient Greece, presenting as an example the cases documented in Homer and in Lucian, two authors whose treatment of the topic is sometimes similar and sometimes contrasting, but who demonstrate in any case the continuity of this theme in Greek literature, and how the idea of the soul of a dead person contacting the living was commonly accepted by the Greeks. Moreover, the information provided by iconographical representations can help us to understand the way the souls of the dead were imagined visually, although the images do not always match the literary descriptions.