The Witches' Book of the Dead (15 page)

The ancient classical world featured four primary oracle sites of the dead: Acheron in Thesprotia; Avernus in Campania, Italy; Heracleia Pontia on the south coast of the Black Sea; and Tainaron on the tip of the Mani Peninsula. Ghost-layings were also performed at these sites to exorcize the spirits of the dead who were attached to people and tormenting them.

The Greeks used several terms to describe these oracular places.
Nekuomanteion
, or “prophecy place of the dead”;
psuchagogion
, or “drawing place of ghosts”; and
psuchomanteion
, or “prophecy place of ghosts”; were
in use in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. The term
psuchopompeion
, or “sending place of ghosts,” was recorded around 100 CE, and in the fifth century CE we find the term
nekuor(i)on
, “seeing place of the dead,” with a variant
nekromanteion
.
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Actually, any place featuring a cave or lake could serve as an oracular site of the dead in the classical world, and probably many such places were used that have not been recorded in surviving literature. Caves especially were seen as natural openings to the underworld, and thus were an excellent place to summon up the dead. Literary references to sites were sometimes vague, and so distinguishing the details of one site over another has been open to interpretation by scholars.

The necromancers altered their physical appearance and behavior in order to meet the dead, in a supernatural place we would describe today as being between the worlds. They favored dressing in black, much as Witches have often dressed, made their complexions pale, and talked in squeaks, chirps, mutters, and howls.

Heracleia Pontia

The city of Heracleia Pontia was named after the hero Heracles, who, according to lore, descended into Hades from there, bringing back the fearsome guardian of the gates of the underworld, the three-headed dog Cerberus. When struck by sunlight, the beast foamed at the mouth in fury, spewing saliva on the ground, from which sprouted the poisonous aconite plant. A cave near the city was used as a
nekuomanteion
by the fifth century BCE. The third-century Greek poet, Quintus Smyrnaeus, said it was immense in size and that nymphs dwelt in its crystal-clear water.

The entrance to the cave was only three meters wide. A stairway descended to a central chamber measuring forty-five by twenty meters, supported by stone pillars. It was flooded with a calm pool of the crystal-clear water. A rough tunnel led to a small, unhewn chamber where human bones were found.

Heracleia Pontia was said to have been where Pausanias, the renowned Spartan general and regent of the fifth century BCE, came for a ghost-laying.
According to Plutarch, Pausanias ordered a Byzantium virgin from a prominent family, Cleonice, to come to him for sex, which would disgrace her family. She reluctantly entered his bedchamber in the dark, and stumbled over a lamp. The noise startled him awake. Thinking he was under attack, he drew out his dagger and fatally stabbed the girl. Her ghost began to torment him, telling him to “go to justice.” At the
nekuomanteion
, he begged her to go away. Cleonice came in a vision and said that he would soon find relief in Sparta, a veiled but accurate prediction of his impending death, which would come at the hands of the Spartans.
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Pausanias was buried in the forecourt of the temple, and his ghost haunted the place, frightening people away. The Spartans turned to an oracle to ascertain how to get rid of the ghost. They were told that the temple was polluted with his body, but if they erected two bronze statues of the regent at the temple altar, his ghost would leave. They did, and it left.

Tainaron

In myth, Tainaron (now Cape Matapan) has a long reputation as an entryway to the underworld. Heracles dragged Cerberus up there too, and the dog may have poisoned this area with aconite as well. The small cave that was the oracle site was located below the temple of Poseidon on the cape promontory. It once measured ten to twelve meters wide and fifteen meters deep, and was fitted with a door and walls; the roof collapsed in long ago.

Acheron

Located in Thesprotia at the confluence of the real rivers of Acheron and Cocytus, this oracular site is documented as a place to seek out the dead for prophecy. Ancient references make no mention of a cave; the actual oracular site appears to have been the Acheron lake itself, formed beyond the river confluence as the Acheron river spread out into a marshy area. Adding to the atmosphere were mysterious noises created by spring water in the soil, which were believed to come from the presence of the subterranean dead.

Several mythical descents into the underworld were said to have taken place there: Orpheus in pursuit of Eurydice; Theseus; and Heracles, who seems to have gone down twice, once for Theseus and again for Cerberus. Acheron was dedicated to the underworld god Hades and his wife Persephone and the underworld was very likely the place he kidnapped her from. Historian Daniel Ogden suggests that the underworld versions of Acheron and Cocytus spoken of in Homer's
Odyssey
may be based on this very real place. The mythical counterparts were where Odysseus was sent by Circe to summon the spirit of Tiresias.
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The Greek historian Herodotus told the story of Periander, a despotic and greedy ruler of Corinth, who sent one of his men to Acheron to ask the ghost of his wife, Melissa, where she had hidden some money from a guest prior to her death. Periander had accidentally killed the pregnant Melissa by kicking her in a fit of rage. The shade of Melissa was summoned but gave no answer, complaining that she was cold and naked in Hades because Periander had not performed the proper ritual of burning her clothes at her funeral. She also gave proof of her identity by providing a gruesome fact that only Periander could have known: she told the emissary that her husband had put his loaves into a cold oven; that is, he had sex with her corpse. In response, Periander summoned all the women in Corinth, stripped them naked, and burned their clothing with a prayer to Melissa. He sent another emissary back to Acheron, and this time, the dead Melissa revealed the location of the hidden money.
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Plato portrayed the Acherousian Lake as a repository of souls of the dead. Those who came for consultations poured their libations of milk, honey, oil, and wine, and the blood of sacrificed animals into pits dug beside the lake or into the lake itself. The dead were said to rise up out of the waters to answer the questions put to them.

Avernus

Located near Cumae in Campania, the site of Avernus features a large lake formed in a flooded volcanic crater; volcanos are often thought to be portals to the underworld. The ancients referred to the lake as “birdless,” for the
waters emitted toxic gases that killed birds, which was seen as evidence for its underworld nature. There are no historical records of necromancy being performed there, but ancient writers attested to the existence of a chamber below the lake that served such a purpose. As at Acheron, the dead were believed to rise up out of the water.

Avernus was another site associated with the rituals of necromancy performed by Odysseus, such as in Sophocles's
Odysseus Acanthoplex
. The reputed underground chamber also was associated with a Cumae Sybilline oracle, who used mirrors in her summoning of the dead. Images of the oracle show her seated with her mirror, or holding the mirror up in front of her, and with an altar of offerings of eggs and other food for the dead.

The Necromantic Rituals of Greece

In literature's most famous rite of necromancy, Homer's Odysseus was directed by the Witch Circe to journey to the underworld to consult the ghost of the blind seer Tiresias. After disembarking his ship, Odysseus walks through a grove dedicated to Persephone, full of willow and poplar trees, to where the rivers of Acheron and Cocytus meet—the place designated by Circe for the ritual. As the valley bound by the real rivers of Acheron and Cocytus at Thesprotia “is clothed in poplars and willows even today,” historian Daniel Ogden suggests that the Greeks based these underworld rivers on their real-world counterparts.
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Odysseus and his men brought out their sheep for sacrifice and dug a pit in the ground, pouring in libations of milk, honey, wine, and water, and sprinkling white barley. Odysseus made prayers to the ghosts and promised that when he got back to Ithaca, he would sacrifice his best heifer to them, and offer Tiresias his best black sheep. He slit the throats of two sheep and let their blood pour into the pit. The Greeks believed that blood especially was desired by the hungry ghosts and would give them temporary form in order to speak.

The shades of the dead did indeed arise, including those of old men, soldiers killed in battle, young women, and more. Odysseus was afraid and drew
his sword to keep them back; he would not let them near the blood until Tiresias appeared to answer his questions. The first to approach was the ghost of his fallen comrade, Elpenor, whose body remained unburied; Elpenor, of course, asked for proper burial. Odysseus's own dead mother, Anticleia, appeared. Then the blind seer Tiresias came, and Odysseus allowed him to drink the blood. The seer told Odysseus that any shade who drank the blood would speak the truth, but if the blood was denied, the shade would withdraw. He prophesied the perils that awaited Odysseus on his return home to Ithaca. Then Odysseus allowed his mother to drink the blood, and she, too, made prophecies of days to come. He tried to embrace her but could not, for she was without substance. After that, Persephone sent numerous ghosts who were the wives and daughters of famous men. He also let them drink, and questioned each of them in their turn. The ghost of King Agamemnon appeared, weeping at the circumstances of his murder. Odysseus attempted to embrace him, too, but his arms went right through him. There followed ghosts of Odysseus's comrades who were slain in the Trojan War, among them Achilles, Ajax, and Patroclus.

Finally, Odysseus was granted visions of heroes who were the children of the gods; Heracles was the last. Odysseus lingered to see more of the heroic dead, but then he was swarmed with thousands of shrieking ghosts. It was believed that Persephone chased off necromancers who stayed too long by sending a gorgon, a hideous female with hair made of poisonous snakes, whose gaze turned mortals to stone. The dreadful Medusa was just such a creature. Odysseus feared that a gorgon would not be far behind the screeching spirits, and so he quickly ushered his men back to the ship.
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Blood was not offered to the shades in all necromantic rituals. Ogden describes the use of sweet libations to evoke ghosts of the dead in Aeschylus's
Persians
. Atossa, the widow of King Darius and mother of Xerxes, the successor, was troubled by the ghost of her husband in dreams. She and a council of Persian elders evoked his ghost for prophecy. To soothe the soul of her husband, Atossa offered libations of

…white milk, good to drink, from an unyoked cow, the secretion of the flower-processing bee, gleaming honey, offerings of water from a virgin spring, and an unmixed drink from its mother in the field, this restorative from an ancient vine. The fragrant fruit of the light olive tree, which always luxuriates in leaves, is here too, as are woven garlands of flowers, children of the earth that bears everything. But, my friends, sing hymns in support of these libations to the dead below, and call up the demon Darius, while I pour these honors to the gods below into the thirsty earth.
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The ghost of Darius appeared and solemnly—and accurately—predicted that Xerses's military campaign against Greece would be crushed.

The Greeks believed that restless ghosts were effective candidates for necromancy. The victims of murders, suicides, tragic accidents, and battles were unhappy in their deaths and probably are unhappy in the afterlife. Such spirits are hungry for attention and are quick to offer answers.

The Greeks also favored battlefields and tombs for necromancy, for they believed that ghosts lingered around the places of their burials. Battlefields were said to be full of the angry dead, some buried only partially and not properly, and some thrown irreverently into mass pits or not buried at all. This also extended to tales of the Roman necromancers. The Witch Erich-tho, whom I refer to later, wandered battlefields looking for fresh corpses to reanimate.

Battlefields are heavily haunted, with the ghosts of the slain soldiers still fighting and making a horrible racket. Spectral armies and soldiers make spontaneous appearances at such sites, to make prophecies or to reenact their last battle. The Greeks used their necromantic rituals to summon ghosts from battlefields and tombs. Corpses and bones were not necessary, for even the ashes of the cremated could yield up ghosts, and rattle and groan in their prophetic answers.

When summoned in rituals, the ghosts of the dead appear in visions, and often in dreams. The funerary altar of Ammias, a priestess of a mystery cult in Thyateira (Asia Minor) in the second century CE, bears the following inscription: “If anyone wishes to learn the truth from me, let him put what he wants in a prayer at the altar and he will obtain it by means of a vision during the night or day.”
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The night vision refers to the spirit coming in a dream. To summon dreams of the dead, necromancers sometimes slept at gravesites or on top of tombs after doing their rituals.

While divination by necromancy was an acceptable practice in ancient Greece, there may have been laws and prohibitions against conjuring the dead for curses and binding spells.

The prominence of Greek oracles diminished between the third and first centuries BCE, in part because the country suffered the effects of continual warfare.
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The Romans, rising in prominence, had different ideas regarding the dead, followed by the Christians, who sought to either shut down all oracular sites or convert them into shrines dedicated to saints and angels.