“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Poltergeist,” “The Amityville Horror”…living humans LOVE haunted house stories, and have ever since we moved into formal domiciles. Ghost stories are traceable back to cave drawings and Egyptian scrolls, but according to historians like Lisa Morton, the O.G. (original ghost) house story belongs to Pliny the Younger of the 1st century.
Pliny documented in a letter the experience of his friend, philosopher Athenodorus of Athens. According to his notes, Athenodorus rented a notorious home in Athens despite warnings from locals who claimed the building was haunted. They described hearing strange sounds which were audible from the outside, including the clank of metal chains and wails of misery. Those brave enough to stand at the threshold felt a palpable foreboding, and the few skeptics who had allegedly stayed inside overnight all DIED…from never being able to fall sleep ever again. Pliny described it as “a mansion, spacious and large, but of evil repute and dangerous to health.”
But Athenodorus was like, “Good real estate be good real estate tho,” and moved his brokeass in anyway. (“Philosopher” has never been a profession that comes with a sweet paycheck, and the price was very right.) What he encountered once inside was full-on Jacob Marley REALNESS.
Up late writing on his very first night in the new bachelor pad, he was interrupted by the rattling of iron in another room. Gradually the sound approached him, and soon Athenodorus was having a textbook paranormal experience. Pliny was a great documentarian but not much of a showman, so allow us to translate from his underwhelming Latin into Hottest Hell verbiage:
“So BOOM, the ghost of this old dude bursts into Athenodorus’ study looking like a meth head—rail-thin, filthy, patchy hipster beard. He’s cuffed and bound in chains like the gimp at a Dungeons and Dragons sex party. Ghost Daddy floats there moaning for a second, then starts gesturing for Athenodorus to follow him. But Athenodorus is a gangster philosopher, so tells the ghost to chill cuz he’s busy. And Ghost Daddy gets heckin’ PISSED. He starts rattling his chains right over Athenodorus’ head like a dick. Totally unable to blog under these circumstances, Athenodorus is like, ‘Fine, here’s that attention you ordered,” and agrees to go for a walk. Ghost Daddy dramatically leads his new roommate through the house, making a big show about how heavy his chainz are the whole time. When they get to the courtyard, Ghost Daddy turns to Athenodorus and just disappears like a vape cloud. Athenodorus legitimately doesn’t have time for this shit, so he marks the spot where the ghost vanished with a stick and then goes back to his Patreon post.”
The rest of the letter details how the new homeowner goes into Athens the next day, grabs the magistrates, and demands that they exhume the spot in his courtyard. And indeed, there they find a pile of human bones wrapped in chains, “putrefied and mouldered away by time and the soil.” The bones are eventually given a proper, respectful burial “at public expense”—you have to appreciate Pliny including who paid for this burial—and Athenodorus goes on to enjoy fine estate living at Motel 6 prices.
So yeah. That’s what most people agree is the very first haunted house story in recorded history. There’s accounts of ghosts that are even older than this one, but we’ll get into that on another day.