Tales of haunted places are a nearly universal part of human experience. Ghost stories can be one of the ways in which we remember the past, especially traumatic or painful parts of it. Even in ancient Greece there were legends of hauntings connected with the site of the battle of Marathon.
Normally, in ancient Greece, the bodies of fallen soldiers were brought back to their home city after the battle and buried wherever their families buried their dead, but an exception was made for the fallen of Marathon in recognition of the exceptional nature of the battle. The dead of Marathon were buried on the site of the battle and an enormous earthen mound raised over their tomb.
The travel writer Pausanias reported local legends about ghostly apparitions around the tomb mound some six centuries after the event (and a warning to any would-be ghost hunters):
Every night there can be heard the sound of horses neighing and men fighting. It has never done anyone any good to go looking for these manifestations on purpose, but those who happen upon the scene by chance do not suffer the spirits’ wrath.
Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.32.4
(My own translation)
If you’re enjoying some ghost stories this Halloween, know that you’re in good company and part of a long tradition.
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