In classical antiquity, there was much interest in
necromancy--the consultation of the dead for divination. People
could seek knowledge from the dead by sleeping on tombs, visiting
oracles, and attempting to reanimate corpses and skulls. Ranging
over many of the lands in which Greek and Roman civilizations
flourished, including Egypt, from the Greek archaic period through
the late Roman empire, this book is the first comprehensive survey
of the subject ever published in any language.
Daniel Ogden surveys the places, performers, and techniques of
necromancy as well as the reasons for turning to it. He
investigates the cave-based sites of oracles of the dead at
Heracleia Pontica and Tainaron, as well as the oracles at the
Acheron and Avernus, which probably consisted of lakeside
precincts. He argues that the Acheron oracle has been long
misidentified, and considers in detail the traditions attached to
each site. Readers meet the personnel--real or imagined--of ancient
necromancy: ghosts, zombies, the earliest vampires, evocators,
sorcerers, shamans, Persian magi, Chaldaeans, Egyptians, Roman
emperors, and witches from Circe to Medea. Ogden explains the
technologies used to evocate or reanimate the dead and to compel
them to disgorge their secrets. He concludes by examining ancient
beliefs about ghosts and their wisdom--beliefs that underpinned and
justified the practice of necromancy.
The first of its kind and filled with information, this volume
will be of central importance to those interested in the rapidly
expanding, inherently fascinating, and intellectually exciting
subjects of ghosts and magic in antiquity.
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