The Grim Ghost (5 page)
Dorus knelt down and cleaned away the soil with his hands. Inside the chains were bones – the bones of a man. It was clear he had been murdered, wrapped in chains, and hidden here.
Dorus turned to the judge. “Killers wrap their victims in chains to stop the spirit rising and haunting them. But some ghosts are strong enough to escape. This is why the spirit wanders the earth at night. It needs a proper grave.”
The workmen took off the chains and laid the bones carefully in a cloth. The judge gave orders for them to be buried properly.
At last the poor, tortured spirit was laid to rest.
The ghost found peace in its grave. Dorus found peace in his house, for the spirit in chains never returned. Pertinax looked around Pliny’s fine garden. In its centre stood a young tree.
“Is that the spot?” he whispered.
Pliny rose to his feet. “This story happened in Athens, we agreed,” he smiled.
But the boy couldn’t tear his eyes from the tree. He could picture the ancient ghost wailing and rattling its chains. A bright-eyed parrot stared at him from the branches. “Poor parrot,” he sighed.
Pliny wrapped an arm around the boy’s shoulder and shook him gently. “The gods are kind, Pertinax. We all find rest in the end.”
“Not if you’re a bird,” the boy replied and went back into the kitchen.
“Ah, there you are, Pertinax,” Augusta smiled. She was stitching wings onto a boiled hare to make it look like a flying creature. “Have a slice of roast parrot!”
The boy shook his head. “No thanks, Grandma, I’m not hungry.” With his work done, Pertinax prepared to leave, as Pliny and his guests were starting their feast.
Before he went, he stood by the door and listened.
“Ah!” the guests cried over and over again. “Such fine food, Pliny. You give the best feasts in Rome!”
“I have the best cook,” said Pliny.
“That is true!” a grand lady sighed. “If only my cook could make parrot heads as fine as yours!”
Pertinax smiled and ran home happily through the dusty streets.
But that night, the boy didn’t sleep. He couldn’t. The sound of rattling chains was keeping him awake…
Pliny was a Roman lawyer who lived from AD 63–113.
He wrote lots of letters to Roman emperors, friends and people he worked with. The letters can still be read today.
Historians learned a lot about Roman life from the letters of Pliny. They told of the famous day when the Mount Vesuvius volcano erupted and swallowed the city of Pompeii. Pliny’s uncle was one of the people who died there.
Pliny also wrote about some of the fantastic feasts the rich people in Rome would eat. All the food in this story was eaten at some time in Rome – even parrot heads and pheasant tongues, hares with wings and roast boar filled with singing birds.
One of Pliny’s most famous letters contains the story about the ghost in the garden. He told it just as it’s told here. It’s one of the world’s first-ever ghost stories.
Is it true? We will never know. But Pliny was a clever man, and he believed it. The Romans believed some odd things. We can be sure most Romans would have believed Pliny’s famous ghost story. Do you?
