In his Life of Kimon, the Greek biographer and essayist Ploutarchos of Chaironeia tells one of the spookiest of all ancient Greek ghost stories.
The story is set in Ploutarchos’s own hometown of Chaironeia, a relatively small, peaceful village not far from Delphoi. The story takes place many years before Ploutarchos’s time when Chaironeia had just recently been annexed by the Roman Empire. In order to ensure that the inhabitants of the town remained docile and complicit with Roman occupation, the Romans had stationed a cohort of soldiers there.
It so happened that a very powerful, high-ranking Roman officer from that cohort lusted ferociously for a teenaged boy named Damon, who happened to live in the village. The officer wooed Damon fervently, showering him with all manner of exuberant presents and begging him relentlessly to give him what he wanted. Damon, however, spurned all of the officer’s advances and chastised him for his wanton and unrestrained behavior.
Finally, unable to control his lust any longer, the officer attempted to capture Damon and violently rape him. Fortunately, Damon managed to escape from the officer’s clutches.
This, however, thrust Damon into an exceedingly perilous situation; no matter what he did, he would be doomed. The Roman officer was the most powerful man in town and he could easily do whatever he wanted to Damon and get away with it, but if Damon took any action at all against the officer, he would be executed for it.
Damon decided that it would be safer to take action while he still could rather than wait around for the officer to try to attack him again.
Damon and sixteen of his closest friends hastily put together a plan to assassinate the Roman officer. They covered their faces with soot so that they would not be recognized. Then, the next morning, when the Roman officer went to perform his daily sacrifices to the gods in the agora, Damon and his friends leapt out and ambushed him. They managed to successfully murder not only the Roman officer, but also several of his fellow commanders. Upon their success, the seventeen youths fled the city and went into hiding out in the country.
The city council of Chaironeia was flung into panic. Chaironeia had just been annexed by Rome and if the Romans found out that one of their officers had been murdered within the town precincts, they would be certain to unleash their full wrath upon the townsfolk. The townsfolk knew that if the Romans were unhappy with them, they would be certain to show it in an especially violent manner. Desperately hoping to avert the wrath of Rome, the town council of Chaironeia immediately issued a death warrant for Damon and all of his friends.
Hearing that they had been sentenced to death, Damon and his fellow runaways began plundering the countryside, stealing whatever they needed in order to survive.
In the midst of all this chaos, the Roman general Lucius Lucullus arrived in Chaironeia. When he heard what had happened, he decided that it had not been the townsfolk’s fault and that the officer had basically gotten what he deserved.
The townsfolk issued a proclamation declaring that Damon was no longer a wanted criminal and even declaring him the new Gynasiarch (leader of the gymnasium). Damon returned to Chaironeia in triumph and was heralded as a hero. Damon went to the local bathhouse to wash up. Then, while he was in the bathhouse, a group of townsfolk ganged up on him and brutally murdered him.
After that, Damon’s ghost continued to haunt the bathhouse, groaning and wailing and even sometimes appearing to people as they bathed. The hauntings grew more and more intense until, finally, the town council of Chaironeia issued for the bathhouse to be boarded up and never used ever again.
Even after that, however, the people who lived near the bathhouse continued to see Damon’s ghost appear in the streets near the bathhouse and even occasionally inside their own homes. They would often hear loud and outrageous moans coming from inside the bathhouse.
Soon after, the neighboring town of Orchomenia hired an informant to accuse the entire town of Chaironeia for complicity in the murder of the Roman officer. The Orchomenians rallied against Chaironeia. Thankfully, at the last moment, Lucullus happened to turn up again and persuade the Orchomenians not to attack. Out of sincere gratitude, the Chaironeians set up a statue to Lucullus in the agora.
According to Ploutarchos, even during his own lifetime, strange and otherworldly howls could still be heard coming from within the boarded-up bathhouse where Damon had been killed.
SOURCES
Ploutarchos of Chaironeia. The Life of Kimon.
IMAGE CREDITS
The featured image for this article is a photograph of the lion of Chaironeia, the most famous historical monument in the town. This image was retrieved from Wikimedia Commons. The usage of this image is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Attribution: Philipp Pilhofer.
