the ingenuity of the lawyers soon devised a system of sham sales by
which this could be successfully and honourably accomplished.[25]

Greek religion, it is true, found expression to a large extent in
mythology; but the sanity of the Greek genius in its best days kept it
free from excessive superstition. Not till the invasion of the
West by the cults of the East do we find ghosts and spirits at all
common in literature.

The belief in apparitions existed, however, at all times, even among
educated people. The younger Pliny, for instance, writes to ask his
friend Sura for his opinion as to whether ghosts have a real existence,
with a form of their own, and are of divine origin, or whether they are
merely empty air, owing their definite shape to our superstitious fears.

We must not forget that Suetonius, whose superstition has become
proverbial, was a friend of Pliny, and wrote to him on one occasion,
begging him to procure the postponement of a case in which he was
engaged, as he had been frightened by a dream. Though Pliny certainly
did not possess his friend's amazing credulity, he takes the request
with becoming seriousness, and promises to do his best; but he adds that
the real question is whether Suetonius's dreams are usually true or not.
He then relates how he himself once had a vision of his mother-in-law,
of all people, appearing to him and begging him to abandon a case he had
undertaken. In spite of this awful warning he persevered, however, and
it was well that he did so, for the case proved the beginning of his
successful career at the Bar.[26] His uncle, the elder Pliny, seems to
have placed more faith in his dreams, and wrote his account of the
German wars entirely because he dreamt that Drusus appeared to him and
implored him to preserve his name from oblivion.[27]