Greek and Roman Necromancy

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.