Henry Justice Ford (1860–1941)
Athenodorus and the ghost, c.1900
Athenodorus Cananites (c. 74 BC – 7 AD) was a Stoic philosopher.
Pliny the Younger, tells us of Athenodorus' renting of a haunted house in Athens. Athenodorus was wary because the house was exceptionally cheap for its size. When Athenodorus was writing a book of philosophy, late at night, a ghost is said to have come to him. The ghost, who was bound with chains, beckoned Athenodorus to follow him, leading him to a courtyard, where the ghost suddenly vanished. Athenodorus marked the spot, and the next day, with the permission of the city magistrates, he dug up the earth from that spot, where he found the skeleton of an old man, bound with chains. After the skeleton was given a proper burial, the ghost was said to have never haunted that house again.
Pliny the Younger Letters. The Harvard Classics, 1909–14. LXXXIII. To Sura