In keeping with the Spooky Rome theme we’ve pursued over the past few days (see previous posts on ancient Roman ghosts and ghost stories, raising demons in the Colosseum, the bone-rattling Capucin crypt, and the ghost of Nero), photographer Susan Sanders offers us a goth-y view of the Protestant Cemetery for this week’s Photo Friday.

We don’t know for certain if there are ghosts who roam the Protestant Cemetery, but it seems likely that one or two of the souls resting there haven’t yet found their way to the afterlife.

If you’d like to see more of Susan’s photographs, we invite you to visit her photo blog: Rome With A View.

In celebration of Halloween week, we’ve written a series of articles dedicated to Spooky Rome. If you’ve missed our earlier missives, which covered such topics as ancient Roman ghosts and ghost stories, raising demons in the Colosseum, and the bone-encrusted Capucin church, we invite you to indulge your inner ghoul by clicking back to those articles.

Today our daily dose of haunting comes from the Middle Ages, an era in which superstitious beliefs about Rome’s ancient past thrived in the Eternal City. Among the more interesting medieval speculations was the idea that the oculus (or hole) in the dome of the Pantheon had been created in 609 AD, at the very moment that the ancient Roman temple was consecrated and became a Christian church. Christian Romans speculated that the act of consecration had terrified resident pagan spirits, causing them to knock a perfectly circular hole in the building’s dome as they took hurried flight from their long-established home.

The Remorse of Nero by John William Waterhouse. 1878. Private collection.

Another medieval legend suggested that the city was still haunted by the restless spirit of the Roman Emperor Nero. Students of Roman history will remember that it was Nero who ruled the city when the Great Fire of 64 AD broke out in the area of the Circus Maximus and burned for six days, destroying about 2/3 of Rome in the process. Once the fire ended, Romans declared that its cause was an act of arson perpetuated by slaves of Nero. To counter their accusations, Nero accused the Christians of having started the fire, and punished this new religious group by staging the first persecution in the 60s AD.

Medieval Romans believed that Nero’s soul could not rest easy on account of his anti-Christian actions and that his malevolent ghost haunted the area near his pyramid-shaped tomb (now called Piazza del Popolo). There, a walnut tree that grew on the tomb was home to a flock of ravens. Superstitious Romans believed that the ravens had been sent by the devil to torment Nero, thereby making his ghost restless.

Spurred to action by popular demand, Pope Pascal II (1099-1118) exorcised the area by chopping down a walnut tree that had grown over Nero’s tomb, throwing the tomb into the river, and building a church on the site. Today that church (since rebuilt by Pope Sixtus IV in 1472) is called Santa Maria del Popolo and exorcism of Nero’s ghost is depicted in an gilded stucco image on the right of the chancel arches.

We at Eternally Cool have little doubt that Nero’s ghost is still roaming the city and we’re always hoping for a sighting. While we wait, we like to get our Nero fix by watching the ultra-campy Quo Vadis, a film made by MGM in 1951. Directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist, the movie is adapted from the classic 1895 novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It stars Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov, while Sophia Loren has an extra’s role as a slave girl in one of her first film appearances. Elizabeth Taylor also has a cameo.

The film tells the story of a Roman military commander, Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), returning from the wars, who falls in love with a devout Christian, Lygia (Deborah Kerr). Commander Vinicius becomes intrigued by her and her religion. Their love story is told against the broader historical background of early Christianity and its persecution by Nero (Peter Ustinov).

And, when Quo Vadis just isn’t enough and we’re in need of a real Nero fix, we turn to that fabulous 1960s series, The Time Tunnel, and in particular the episodes called “Visitors from the Stars” and “Ghost of Nero,” in which Doug and Tony encounter the Emperor’s specter:

Visitors from the Stars: The aliens land near Mullins, Arizona in 1885 in search of protein sources. Doug’s mind is taken over by the aliens. When Tony breaks the alien’s control device, Doug’s mind is restored. Aliens investigating the disappearance of their spaceship in 1885 appear at the Time Tunnel. They depart after seeing the spaceship leaving on the Time Tunnel’s projector. Cliffhanger: Tony and Doug arrive near the Italian-Austrian Alps during World War I; an explosion knocks them out and uncovers Nero’s sarcophagus; a sword floats out of the sarcophagus.

Ghost of Nero: Tony and Doug are uninjured. It is 23 October 1915 at the villa of Count Galba. The ghost of Nero seeks revenge on the Galba family. The ghost comes through the Time Tunnel to the present, but it is sent back. Tony and Doug meet a corporal Mussolini, who becomes possessed by the ghost of Nero. Cliffhanger: Tony and Doug arrive at the tent of Joshua who believes that their arrival has been prophesied.

What are these guys doing traveling through time? Determined to prove that Project Tic Toc was capable of sending humans through time, Dr. Tony Newman and Dr. Doug Phillips entered the project’s time tunnel before final tests were completed. Now, caught in time and unable to return home, the two scientists battle to stay alive as the Vortex of Time thrusts them into the middle of some of the most significant events in world history. But even more important, as the time travelers encounter famous and influential people of the past, they must make sure their actions don’t inadvertently change history and alter the future.

Happy Halloween! Here at Eternally Cool we’re celebrating the scariest of holidays with a series of articles on Spooky Rome. In the past days, we’ve heard about ghosts and ghost stories in the ancient city and we’ve accompanied the 16th-century artist, Benvenuto Cellini, on his mission to raise demons in the Colosseum with the help of a necromancer (who also happened to be a Sicilian priest).

Today we’re headed up the Via Veneto for a vist to the Capucin crypt beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione. Located just a block or so from Piazza Barberini, the Baroque facade of the church suggests nothing whatsoever about the gruesome cemetery in the crypt below.  This is a spooky site that’s not to be missed by anyone who enjoys a bit of Halloween haunting!

The crypt of the church comprises five chapels, the floors of which are covered with earth brought from the Holy Land. Friars that were part of the Capucin community at this church were buried in that holy earth, but when the space was filled, bodies of the long deceased were dug up and dismantled to make room for new occupants. The bones of the disinterred – from some 4000 bodies dating between 1528 and 1870 – were then used to create intricate designs that cover the walls and the vaults of the chapels.

Though this gruesome art is no longer practiced, visitors today can admire the handiwork of past Capucin bone artists.  Piles of skulls that form the backdrop for three fully preserved skeletons still clad in their monastic robes. Vertebrae make swirling designs on a chapel vault, while stacked thigh bones form niches from which robe-wearing skeletons peer out towards onlookers. The vault of one chapel bears the image of the Grim Reaper: His face is a real human skull, while the blade of his scythe is created with a column of coccyges (see photo above). Even the chandeliers are intricately constructed of human bones!

Some visitors find the crypt terrifying, while others are absolutely fascinated. And everyone asks about the purpose of this macabre display, which is to remind the living of the delicacy and tenuous nature of life. Thus, the crypt functions as a momento mori on the grandest scale and its purpose is reinforced by an inscription placed near the mummified remains of one monk, which reads:

“Quello che voi siete noi eravamo,
Quello che noi siamo voi sarete.”
[What you are now we were, What we are you will be]

Because the experience of visiting the Capucin crypt is so extraordinary, an endless parade of writers have remarked on the place. Yet, no one’s musings are better than those of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who sent the protagonists of The Marble Faun on a spooky visit to this church and its crypt and offered the following commentary:

Yet let us give the cemetery the praise that it deserves. There is no disagreeable scent, such as might have been expected from the decay of so many holy persons, in whatever odor of sanctity they may have taken their departure. The same number of living monks would not smell half so unexceptionably.

Via Veneto, 27 – (Piazza Barberini). Admission by donation . Open mornings until 12pm and from 3pm to 6pm.

We’re celebrating Halloween at Eternally Cool by featuring a series of stories on spooky places and events in Rome.  Yesterday we interviewed Dr. Debbie Felton about ancient Roman ghosts and ghost stories.  Today we travel forward in time to the Renaissance, where we encounter demons in the Colosseum alongside Benvenuto Cellini, a sixteenth-century goldsmith, painter, sculptor, soldier and musician, who also wrote a famous autobiography.

Benvenuto Cellini (who is the subject of an opera by Berloiz) was born on 3 November 1500 in Florence.  His father was a musical instrument maker and musician.  At the age of 16, Benvenuto was exiled from Florence following a brawl.  He then wandered between Bologna, Pisa, and Rome and studied in goldsmiths’ workshops.

Over the course of his long career (he lived to be 71 years old), Cellini would work for royalty as well as for high-ranking church magistrates and political leaders, with his work taking him to Rome, Florence, Pisa, Mantua, Ferrara, and Paris.

His personal life was at least as exciting as his professional undertakings.  In 1527, when Rome was brutally sacked by the troops of Charles V, Benvenuto fought  valiantly to defend the city from the ramparts of Castel Sant’Angelo.  He was arrested once for assault and once for embezzling gems from the Pope’s tiara.  In the case of the Papal jewels, he was imprisoned in Castel Sant’Angelo, then escaped but was recaptured and treated with great severity.  As well, he was charged with sodomy four times.

Cellini’s autobiographical memoirs, which he begun writing in Florence in 1558, provides a detailed account of his singular career, as well as his loves, hatreds, passions, and delights.  The memoir is written in an energetic, direct, and racy style. And certainly parts of his tale are fanciful, such as his scary story of conjuring up a legion of devils in the Colosseum in 1534.  We give you that passage today:

By unusual circumstances, I came to know a Siclian priest – a man of genius who was well-versed in the Greek and Latin languages.  Chatting with him one day, our conversation turned to necromancy, and I told him that I had a lifelong interest in this art.  The priest replied that a man who studies necromancy must have a strong and steady temper, and I confirmed my fortitude and my desire to be initiated into the art.  Thus, the priest said, “If you think you have the heart for it, I will satisfy your desire.”

We agreed to meet one evening and the priest told me to bring a companion or two.  I invited my very good friend, Vincenzio Romoli, and he brought with him a friend from Pistoia who was himself a practitioner of necromancy.  We went to the Colosseum; and the priest, following custom, began to draw circles on the ground amidst all kinds of impressive ceremonies.  He had brought with him precious perfumes and fire, including some compounds that diffused horrible orders.  As soon as he was ready to undertake the ritual, he created an opening in the circle he had drawn on the ground, and took us by the hand, ordering us to throw perfumes into the fire at the proper time, and then beginning his incantations.

The ceremony lasted more than 1 1/2 hours, and in the midst of it several legions of devils appeared in the amphitheater.  I was busy with the perfumes when the priest turned to me and said, “Benvenuto, ask them something.”  I answered, “Let them bring me into company with my Sicilian mistress, Angelica.”  The devils did not fulfill my request that evening, but my curiosity about necromancy was greatly indulged.

The necromancer told me that we must go a second time, and he assured me that my requests to the devils would be fulfilled if I brought along a virginal boy.  Thus, my 12-year old apprentice went with me, as did Vincenzio Romoli (who had been my companion the first time), and Agnolino Gaddi, a close friend whom I asked to assist at the ceremony.  When we came to the appointed place, the priest, having made the same preparations as the last time, placed us within his carefully drawn circle (it was more elaborate than the last time) and began his ritual.  This time the care of the perfumes and the fire was given over to my friend Vincenzio, who was assited by Gaddi, and the priest handed me a pinatcolo, or magical chart, and told me to turn it as he directed me, while holding my apprentice under the pintacolo.  Then, the necromancer began to call a multitude of demons by their name.  Each was the leader of a legion, and he questioned them in the Hebrew language, and also in Latin and Greece.  Soon the amphitheater was filled a hundred times more demons than on our first visit.  Once again I was asked to make a request, and once again I said that I desired to be in the company of my Angelica.  The necromancer turned to me and said, “The demons have declared that in the space of a month you shall be in her company.”

The necromancer then asked me to stand by him resolutely, because there were now a thousand more demons than he had summoned and most were dangerous.  As they had already answered  my question, he intended to be civil to them and to dismiss them quietly.  At the same time, my apprentice, under the pintacolo, was terribly frightened, and was crying that there were a million fierce men around who threatened to destroy us, and that there were also four enormous armed giants who were trying to break into our circle.  Though I was very much afraid of the demons, I did my best to conceal it; so that I greatly contributed to inspire the rest with resolution; but the truth is, I gave myself over for a dead man when I saw how frightened the necromancer was. 

My apprentice placed his head between his knees and said, “I will die in this position; surely we are all going to die.”  I told him that the demons were under us, and that what he saw was only smoke and shadow and that he should hold his head up and be brave.  No sooner did he look up then he screamed out, “The whole amphitheater is burning, and the fires is falling on us!”  Covering his eyes again, he cried that destruction was inevitable and that he could not stand to see any more.  

The necromancer implored me to have a good heart, and to burn the proper perfumes, so I turned to Vincenzio, and asked him burn the most precious perfumes that he had. At the same time I looked at Gaddi, who was terrified to such a degree that he could scarcely distinguish objects, and who seemed to be half dead.  Seeing him in this condition, I said to him, ‘Gaddi, upon these occasions a man should not yield to fear, but stir about to give some assistance; so come directly, and put on more of these perfumes.’

My apprentice then ventured to raise his head once more, and, seeing me laugh, began to take courage, and said, ‘The devils are flying away with a vengeance.’  We remained this way until the bell rang for morning prayers. The apprentice again told us, that there remained but few devils, and those were at a great distance. When the magician had performed the rest of his ceremonies, he stripped off his gown, and took up a bag full of books, which he had brought with him. We all went out of the circle together, keeping as close to each other as we possibly could, especially the boy, who placed himself in the middle, holding the necromancer by the coat, and me by the cloak.

As we returned to our houses in the quarter of Banchi, the boy told us that he could see two of the demons from the amphitheater leaping and skipping and running upon the roofs of the houses and on the ground.  And though he had entered magic circles often, the priest declared that nothing so extraordinary had ever happened to him.

The Salt Cellar of Benvenuto Cellini, 1539-1543, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Halloween is almost here! Last weekend’s shift to daylight savings time means that the world seems a whole lot darker than it did just a few days ago, inducing a spooky mood in all of us here at Eternally Cool. For that reason, we’ve decided to celebrate Halloween – a decidedly non-Roman holiday – by showcasing Rome’s scary side for the next few days.

We start our Haunted Rome series with an interview with Dr. Debbie Felton, a Professor of Classics at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. A fan of ghost stories since she was child, Dr. Felton began digging into the Greek and Roman horror stories when she was working on her doctorate at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She wrote her dissertation on haunted-house stories from Rome and Greece and later revised and expanded the dissertation into a book, Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity.

We asked Dr. Felton if she’d be willing to answer a few questions about ancient Roman ghosts and ghost stories and she was kind enough to agree. Her commentary is fascinating and so we’re excited to share this interview with our readers:

Did the ancient Romans believe in ghosts?
A very difficult question! Although the ancient Romans told ghost stories, it’s impossible to state with any certainty that they definitely believed in ghosts. Most likely some did and others didn’t, same as today. Their belief in ghosts would have been connected to their belief in a spirit world and an afterlife; if you believed in the latter, you were likely to believe in the former.

Whether individual Romans believed in ghosts or not, we do know that there were state-sanctioned holidays to honor and appease the spirits of the dead. The Roman poet Ovid, in his work the Fasti, describes the Roman festivals for the dead. There were two main festivals: the Parentalia and the Lemuria. The Parentalia refers to a period that began on February 13 (which is our equivalent date) and lasted at least ten days, during which business basically shut down—temples were closed for the festival, no fires burned on any altars, no marriages were contracted, and so on. The name of this festival indicates that this was a period to commemorate dead kinfolk, though the rituals of the Parentalia were conducted at the grave site and not at the family home.

The Lemuria took place over three days in the Roman equivalent of our month of May. This was another festival for bringing offerings to the spirits of ancestors, but it took place in people’s houses instead of in the cemeteries, because the ghosts were believed to return to their old homes for the days of this festival. The ritual to appease the ancestral ghosts involved the head of the family walking through the house in the middle of the night with bare feet (to acknowledge that corpses were buried with bare feet) and throwing black beans over his shoulders saying, “With these beans I buy back myself and my family”. Then the head of the family would clash bronze pans or cymbals together (this would drive the ghosts away) and say, “Spirits of my ancestors, depart!” Supposedly this ceremony would lay the ghosts to rest for the year.

These rituals for the dead generally also included leaving food offerings for the dead, in the hopes that the spirits would not trouble the family. Although our modern Halloween descends directly from the Celtic festival of Samhein, the idea of offering “treats” to the spirits to prevent them from harassing the living by pulling “tricks” does seem to be reflected as far back as the Roman rituals.

Was the belief in ghosts thought to be a superstitious one or did people in the Roman world commonly accept the presence of ghosts?
For this question, too, there is not a black-and-white answer. It’s difficult to say whether people who believed in ghosts were mocked for their beliefs and labeled as superstitious. There were certainly specific Greek and Roman authors in antiquity who satirized people for being overly superstitious and gullible—the authors Theophrastus and Lucian come to mind—but there does seem to have been a pervasive uncertainty, at the very least, as to whether the spirit might survive the body. The Roman writer Pliny the Younger, who was well regarded by his contemporaries, recorded several ghost stories, but does not seem to have held any strong specific religious beliefs about an afterlife. He sends some ghost stories in a letter to a friend of his, asking his friend’s opinion:

I should very much like to know whether you think there are such things as ghosts, and whether they have their own shapes and some divine existence, or whether they are unreal images that take their form from our own anxieties. (Letter 7.27)

Did the Romans believe – as we often do – that ghosts were the spirits of the deceased?
Yes. Finally, a question with a definite answer! And the most frequently given reason for ghosts to appear was the lack of a proper burial for the person’s body, which tended to be the case when a person was murdered, or buried hastily, or simply died unnoticed. The person’s spirit could not rest otherwise. Many of the ancient ghost stories end with the ghost disappearing once the body is given the proper burial rituals. The spirits might even be grateful for such burial. One such story of the Grateful Dead is told by Cicero, in his work On Divination:

[The poet] Simonides, having seen the body of an unknown man lying unburied, buried him. He then planned to go on a sea voyage, but was warned not to go by a vision of the man whom he had buried. The vision told him that if he were to go on the sea voyage, he would perish in a shipwreck. And so Simonides did not go, but those who sailed perished. (1.27)

Did the Romans think of cemeteries and burial places as spirit-filled and spooky sites?
Not necessarily. There’s some indication that, in general, you wouldn’t want to hang around cemeteries at night, but because anyone buried in a cemetery had presumably been given a proper burial, they weren’t known as particularly haunted places. Very few restless spirits in a cemetery. It’s only on the days of those festivals I mentioned earlier that the spirits of those buried might come out to visit the living.

We know that you published a book called Haunted Greece and Rome: Ghost Stories from Classical Antiquity and are working on another book called Things That Went Bump in the Night: Strange Stories from Ancient Greece and Rome. Would you be willing to share with us a ghost story from the ancient Roman world?
Here’s my favorite ghost story, about a haunted house. It’s from the same Letter of Pliny the Younger I mentioned before:

In Athens there was a large and roomy house, but it had a bad reputation and an unhealthy air. Through the silence of the night you could hear the sound of metal clashing and, if you listened more closely, you could make out the clanking of chains, first from far off, then from close by. Soon there appeared a phantom, an old man, emaciated and filthy, with a long beard and unkempt hair. He wore shackles on his legs and chains on his wrists, shaking them as he walked. And so the inhabitants of this house spent many dreadful nights lying awake in fear. Illness and eventually death overtook them through lack of sleep and their increasing dread. For even when the ghost was absent, the memory of that horrible apparition preyed on their minds, and their fear itself lasted longer than the initial cause of that fear. And so eventually the house was deserted and condemned to solitude, left entirely to the ghost. But the house was advertised, in case someone unaware of the evil should wish to buy or rent it.

There came to Athens the philosopher Athenodorus. He read the advertisement, and when he heard the low price, he was suspicious and made some inquiries. He soon learned the whole story and, far from being deterred, was that much more interested in renting the place. When evening began to fall, he requested a bed for himself to be set up in the front of the house, and he asked for some small writing tablets, a stylus, and a lamp. He sent all his servants to the back of the house, and concentrated his mind, eyes, and hand on his writing, lest an unoccupied mind produce foolish fears and cause him to imagine he saw the ghost he had already heard so much about.

At first, as usual, there was only the night silence. Then came the sound of iron clashing, of chains clanking; yet Athenodorus did not raise his eyes or put down his stylus. Instead he concentrated his attention on his work. Then the din grew even louder: and now it was heard at the threshold—now it was inside the room with him! Athenodorus turned, saw, and recognized the ghost. It was standing there, beckoning to him with its finger as if calling to him. Rather than answering the summons, he motioned with his hand that the ghost should wait a while, and he turned back to his writing. The ghost continued rattling its chains right over the philosopher’s head. Athenodorus looked around again: sure enough, the ghost was still there, beckoning as before. With no further delay, the philosopher picked up his lamp and followed the phantom. The specter walked very slowly, as if weighed down by the chains. Then it walked to the courtyard of the house and suddenly vanished, abandoning its comrade. Athenodorus, now alone, plucked some grass and leaves to mark the spot where the ghost had disappeared. In the morning he went to the local magistrates and advised that they order the spot to be excavated, which they did. Bones were found, entwined with chains—bones that the body, rotted by time and earth, had left bare and corroded by the chains. These bones were gathered and given a public burial. After these rites had been performed the house was no longer troubled by spirits.

What I particularly like about this story is how timeless it really is. Take out the words “Athens” and “Athenodorus” (and, I suppose, “writing tablets” and “stylus”) and this story could have taken place anywhere at any time. Pliny actually says he heard it somewhere, so he apparently recorded a story that had been circulating in society for a while via an oral tradition. He just added a literary touch to it. And the story has a nice air of mystery about it: we never do find out exactly what happened—why or how the man died, why his skeleton was in chains, buried in the courtyard. The story leaves a lot to our imagination.

Did the Romans live peacefully with their ghosts or did they attempt to exorcise them? If they did try to exorcise them, do we know anything about what the rituals were?
The ancient concept of exorcism was pretty specific, rather like today: an exorcism might be necessary if a person were possessed by a spirit. The Greek shaman Apollonius of Tyana (first century A.D.) was known to perform successful exorcisms. A man names Eleazar was said to have performed many exorcisms, delivering men of the spirits that possessed them, and doing so in front of the emperor Vespasian. Jesus and Paul, of course, were known for performing the occasional exorcism. But it’s always on people, not places.

Although haunted places could be purged of their ghosts by proper burial of the spirit’s corpse—a process known as “laying the ghost”—there’s virtually no information on exorcism rituals in ancient Rome being performed on places instead of on people. You can contrast this with stories from medieval times, such as that of St. Francis helping to drive demons out of the city of Arezzo during the war there. The demons flee, and the citizens can return to their business in peace.

You’ve told us that there are no known haunted sites in the ancient city of Rome. Are there any specific sites elsewhere in the ancient Roman world that were believed to be haunted? If so, could you give us an example or two?
The sites in the stories usually don’t get much more specific than “a house” or “the baths” and, interestingly, most of the locations are Greek rather than Roman: Athens, for example, or Corinth. One of the most specific references to a haunted place is the Greek writer Pausanias’s claim that the battlefield at Marathon was haunted by the ghosts of warriors who had died there. But the Roman writer Suetonius, in his biography of the emperor Augustus, says that a room in Augustus’s childhood home, a villa near Velitra, was rumored to be haunted:

“Because of an old rumor, no one dares enter the room unless it is necessary. . . . It is as if a certain horror and dread prevent those approaching casually from entering.. The reason for this dread was recently made plain: for when the new owner of the villa, whether by chance or to tempt fate, decided to sleep in the bed in that room one night, after a few hours he was thrown out of the bed by a sudden unknown force.”

Your research and writing is focused on ghost stories from all periods – not just the ancient world. Would you tell us how you became interested in ghost stories and why you find them so compelling?
I’ve been interested in ghost stories since I was very young; I think it was my father who introduced me to them, and his enjoyment of ghost stories influenced me. There’s something about the mysterious and often never entirely explained phenomena that is spookily attractive. And it’s interesting to speculate as to the existence of ghosts, and whether their existence might be proof of the survival of the spirit after death. I can’t honestly say that I believe in ghosts, but I would like to believe in them.