Pliny, the Younger, Epistulae

Erat Athenis spatiosa et capax domus sed infamis et pestilens. Per silentium noctis sonus ferri, et si attenderes acrius, strepitus vinculorum longius primo, deinde e proximo reddebatur: mox apparebat idolon, senex macie et squalore confectus, promissa barba horrenti capillo; cruribus compedes, manibus catenas gerebat quatiebatque.

There was at Athens a spacious and roomy house, but one of ill repute and deadly. In the silence of the night a sound of iron, and, if you listened more closely, a clanking of chains was heard, at first farther off, then from close by: soon a phantom appeared, an old man wasted by thinness and squalor, with a long beard and bristling hair; he wore fetters on his legs and chains on his hands, and shook them.

Inde inhabitantibus tristes diraeque noctes per metum vigilabantur; vigiliam morbus et crescente formidine mors sequebatur. Nam interdiu quoque, quamquam abscesserat imago, memoria imaginis oculis inerrabat, longiorque causis timoris timor erat. Deserta inde et damnata solitudine domus totaque illi monstro relicta; proscribebatur tamen, seu quis emere seu quis conducere ignarus tanti mali vellet.

As a result, those who lived there spent grim and dreadful nights awake through fear; sickness followed the sleeplessness and, as the terror grew, death. For even by day, although the apparition had gone, the memory of the apparition hovered before their eyes, and the fear lasted longer than the causes of the fear. So the house was deserted and condemned to solitude and left wholly to that monster; it was still advertised, however, in case anyone ignorant of so great an evil wished to buy or rent it.

Venit Athenas philosophus Athenodorus, legit titulum auditoque pretio, quia suspecta vilitas, percunctatus omnia docetur ac nihilo minus, immo tanto magis conducit. Ubi coepit advesperascere, iubet sterni sibi in prima domus parte, poscit pugillares stilum lumen, suos omnes in interiora dimittit; ipse ad scribendum animum oculos manum intendit, ne vacua mens audita simulacra et inanes sibi metus fingeret.

The philosopher Athenodorus came to Athens and read the notice; and when he had heard the price, because the cheapness was suspicious, he made enquiries, was told everything, and nonetheless, indeed all the more, he rented it. When evening began to come on, he ordered a couch to be spread for him in the front part of the house, asked for writing tablets, a stylus and a light, and sent all his people away into the inner rooms; he himself bent his mind, eyes and hand to writing, so that an idle mind should not invent for itself the phantoms it had heard of and empty fears.

Initio, quale ubique, silentium noctis; dein concuti ferrum, vincula moveri. Ille non tollere oculos, non remittere stilum, sed offirmare animum auribusque praetendere. Tum crebrescere fragor, adventare et iam ut in limine, iam ut intra limen audiri. Respicit, videt agnoscitque narratam sibi effigiem.

At first there was, as everywhere, the silence of the night; then iron was shaken and chains moved. He did not raise his eyes or lay down his stylus, but steeled his mind and set it as a screen before his ears. Then the din grew louder and came nearer, and was heard now as if at the threshold, now as if inside the threshold. He looked round, and saw and recognized the figure that had been described to him.

Stabat innuebatque digito similis vocanti. Hic contra ut paulum exspectaret manu significat rursusque ceris et stilo incumbit. Illa scribentis capiti catenis insonabat. Respicit rursus idem quod prius innuentem, nec moratus tollit lumen et sequitur.

It stood and beckoned with its finger, like someone calling. He in turn signalled with his hand that it should wait a little, and bent again over his wax tablets and stylus. It rattled its chains over the writer's head. He looked round again [and saw] it beckoning just as before, and without delay he took up the light and followed.

Ibat illa lento gradu quasi gravis vinculis. Postquam deflexit in aream domus, repente dilapsa deserit comitem. Desertus herbas et folia concerpta signum loco ponit.

It walked with a slow step, as though weighed down by its chains. After it turned off into the courtyard of the house, it suddenly vanished and left its companion. Left alone, he plucked grass and leaves and put them on the spot as a marker.

Postero die adit magistratus, monet ut illum locum effodi iubeant. Inveniuntur ossa inserta catenis et implicita, quae corpus aevo terraque putrefactum nuda et exesa reliquerat vinculis; collecta publice sepeliuntur. Domus postea rite conditis manibus caruit.

The next day he went to the magistrates and advised them to order that spot to be dug up. Bones were found, thrust into chains and tangled in them, which the body, rotted away by time and the earth, had left bare and eaten away in the fetters; they were gathered up and buried at public expense. After that, once the spirit had been duly laid to rest, the house was free of it.