In most of the Greek and Roman stories that survive, the wraiths of the
dead are represented as revisiting their friends on earth in sleep.
These instances I have not, as a rule, troubled to collect, for they
cannot strictly be classed as ghost stories; but since the influence of
the dead was generally considered to be exercised in this way, I shall
give a few stories which seem particularly striking. That it was widely
believed that the dead could return at night to those whom they loved is
proved by the touching inscription in which a wife begs that her husband
may sometimes be allowed to revisit her in sleep, and that she may soon
join him.

The most interesting passage that has come down to us, dealing with the
whole question of the power of the dead to appear to those whom they
love in dreams, is undoubtedly Quintilian's Tenth Declamation. The fact
that the greatest teacher of rhetoric of his day actually chose it as a
subject for one of his model speeches shows how important a part it must
have played in the feelings of educated Romans of the time. The story is
as follows.

A mother was plunged in grief at the loss of her favourite son, when,
on the night of the funeral, which had been long delayed at her earnest
request, the boy appeared to her in a vision, and remained with her all
night, kissing her and fondling her as if he were alive. He did not
leave her till daybreak. "All that survives of a son," says Quintilian,
"will remain in close communion with his mother when he dies." In her
unselfishness, she begs her son not to withhold the comfort which he has
brought to her from his father. But the father, when he hears the story,
does not at all relish the idea of a visit from his son's ghost, and is,