put to it, it vanished.”  One is at once struck with the similarity of this account to those of the spiritualistic seances of the famous Eusapia in the same part of the world, not so very long ago.  In most cases those consulting the oracle would probably be satisfied with hearing the voice of the dead man, or with a vision of him in sleep, so that some knowledge of ventriloquism or power of hypnotism or suggestion would often be ample stock-in-trade for those in charge.

This consulting of the dead must have been very common in antiquity.  Both Plato[58] and Euripides[59] mention it; and the belief that the dead have a knowledge of the future, which seems to be ingrained in human nature, gave these oracles great power.  Thus, Cicero tells[60] us that Appius often consulted “soul-oracles” (psychomantia), and also mentions a man having recourse to one when his son was seriously ill.[61] The poets have, of course, made free use of this supposed prophetic power of the dead.  The shade of Polydorus, for instance, speaks the prologue of the Hecuba, while the appearance of the dead Creusa in the AEneid is known to everyone.  In the Persae, AEschylus makes the shade of Darius ignorant of all that has happened since his death, and is thus able to introduce his famous description of the battle of Salamis; but Darius, nevertheless, possesses a knowledge of the future, and can therefore give us an equally vivid account of the battle of Plataea, which had not yet taken place.  The shade of Clytemnestra in the Eumenides, however, does not prophesy.

Pliny mentions the belief that the dead had prophetic powers, but declares that they could not always be relied on, as the following instance proves.[62] During the Sicilian war, Gabienus, the bravest man in Caesar’s fleet, was captured by Sextus Pompeius, and beheaded by his orders.  For a whole day the corpse lay upon the shore, the head almost severed from the body.  Then, towards evening, a large crowd assembled, attracted by his groans and prayers; and he begged Sextus Pompeius either to come to him himself or to send some of his friends; for he had returned from the dead, and had something to tell him.  Pompeius sent friends, and Gabienus informed them that Pompeius’s cause found favour with the gods below, and was the right cause, and that he was bidden to announce that all would end as he wished.  To prove the truth of what he said, he announced that he would die immediately, as he actually did.

This knowledge of the future by the dead is to be found in more than one well-authenticated modern ghost story, where the apparition would seem to have manifested itself for the express purpose of warning those whom it has loved on earth of approaching danger.  We may take, for instance, the story[63] where a wife, who is lying in bed with her husband, suddenly sees a gentleman dressed in full naval uniform sitting on the bed.  She was too astonished for fear, and