Case file · Haunting
The ghost of Pausanias in the temple at Sparta
The Spartan regent Pausanias, victor of Plataea, was starved to death after taking refuge in the temple of Athena of the Bronze House; later writers say his ghost then haunted the sanctuary.
470 BCE · 37.08, 22.43 · status: legend
The account
Plutarch reports that the Spartans brought in 'soul-guides' (psychagogoi), specialists in laying the dead, to placate the ghost, and that the Delphic oracle ordered bronze statues set up to atone for the sacrilege. It is one of the earliest recorded cases of a public exorcism of a ghost in Greece.
The sceptical view
The ghost appears only in late sources, long after the well-documented death; the story expresses Greek ideas about restless victims of a violent, impious death.