Ancient Greek Ghost Stories, Part Two: Simonides of Keos and the Dead Sailor

Simonides of Keos was one of the most famous ancient Greek lyric poets, but there is a very strange and unusual story about him recorded by the Roman orator Cicero in On Divination 1.27.56 and also in the Palatine Anthology.

Supposedly, one day as Simonides was walking by the shore on the island of Lesbos, he discovered a dead corpse lying in the water, apparently belonging to a man who had recently drowned. The corpse had no identification attached to it and no one had claimed it. Simonides pulled the corpse out of the water and gave it a proper funeral with full honors, even though he had no idea who it belonged to.

Then, many years later, Simonides was preparing to journey across the sea from Italy to Sicily, a journey which was considered to be very safe. Then, just before he boarded the ship, a ghostly sailor appeared standing in front of him. The sailor pointed at the ship he was about to board and warned him, “Not that one!” The sailor then promptly vanished into thin air. Simonides followed the sailor’s advice and instead boarded a different ship. Later, he learned that the ship he had been about to board had been caught in a storm and had sunk and that everyone on board had perished. Simonides realized that the sailor that had appeared to him had been the ghost of the man whose body he had buried so many years before on the island of Lesbos.

In folkloristics, this kind of story is known as a story of the “grateful dead,” because, in the story, a dead person is shown a favor by a living person and later repays the favor out of gratitude.

SOURCES
Cicero. On Divination.
Various Authors. Palatine Anthology.
IMAGE CREDITS
The featured image for this article is an ancient Roman mosaic depicting an unspecified tragic poet. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. This image is in the public domain in the United States of America.

Author: Spencer McDaniel

Hello! I am an aspiring historian mainly interested in ancient Greek cultural and social history. Some of my main historical interests include ancient religion, mythology, and folklore; gender and sexuality; ethnicity; and interactions between Greek cultures and cultures they viewed as foreign. I graduated with high distinction from Indiana University Bloomington in May 2022 with a BA in history and classical studies (Ancient Greek and Latin languages), with departmental honors in history. I am currently a student in the MA program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies at Brandeis University. View all posts by Spencer McDaniel