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Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 03:41:29 -0400
To: classics@u.washington.edu
From: "James M. Pfundstein" <jmpfund@bgnet.bgsu.edu>
Subject: Afterlives of the Caesars (was: TAN: Wise Greeks)

John M. McMahon wrote (in part):

>Are there examples from Classical Antiquity for the kind of
>belief in the continued existence of a person, presumably
>famous, despite highly reliable evidence of his/her death?
>
>John McMahon
>LMC

I skip the obvious ancient example-- "'I skip forty years,' said the Baker
in tears" (<< Classical reference<<). My favorite example of a character
with an Elvis-like afterlife (and, come to think of it, an Elvis-like life)
is Nero. Nero's post mortem popularity and different reports of his
appearances after his death gave rise to a couple of Neronian pretenders
(see Suetonius, _Nero_ 57, and esp. Tacitus Histories_ 2.8), which were
taken so seriously by a certain minority group that they became intertwined
with said group's eschatology. Nero, some believed, was to re-appear at the
end of the world without ever having died, a sort of anti-John the Baptist
to the devil (Lactantius, _De Mortibus Persecutorum_ 2.7-9). Lactantius
thinks this is nuts, by the way. But, as a matter of fact, I was pretty
sure I saw Nero several times during December 1999. However, it only turned
out to be me in a mirror. What a relief!

JM("Mors, quam pertimescimus ac recusamus, intermittit vitam, non
eripit"--Seneca _Epistulae_ 36.10) P


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