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Illustration of Erichtho's reanimated soldier
Original AI-made illustration based on the descriptions in the sources. Not an official design.
File No. 002 of 446

Erichtho's reanimated soldier

Also called: Erichtho, Ἐριχθώ
Folklore and mythUndeadBarely movesSorceryAncient world

The necromancy of Erichtho in Lucan's civil-war epic is the most elaborate corpse-raising scene in classical literature. On the eve of the battle of Pharsalus the witch picks a dead soldier, pumps the body full of blood and poisons and bullies its ghost into returning to speak. The scene made her the archetypal necromancer for Dante, Marston and Goethe. It set the pattern of the dead raised unwillingly, by one person's power, for that person's purposes.12

Battle it
First recorded
61
Lucan's Pharsalia, begun around AD 61 and left unfinished at his death in AD 65
Origin
Roman (literary)
Italy, Greece
What causes it
Sorcery
A Thessalian witch forces a dead man's spirit back into his corpse to make it prophesy.
How you become one
A freshly killed soldier chosen from a battlefield because his lungs are intact and can still produce a voice.
How it moves
Barely moves
The corpse is made to speak; the surviving summaries do not describe it moving about.
Intelligence
Some intelligence
Weak spots
  • the rite ends with the body's burial, which releases him

When did it first appear?

Ancient worldMiddle Ages1500 to 18991900 to 19671968 to 19992000 to 20092010 to today61

Lucan's Pharsalia, begun around AD 61 and left unfinished at his death in AD 65

field notes

What the sources say

1

Erichtho lives among graves, gibbets and battlefields and builds her spells from corpses12

2

She fills the body with warm blood, 'lunar poison' and other substances12

3

The spirit refuses to re-enter until she threatens the powers of the underworld12

4

The dead man describes civil war among the shades and gives an ambiguous prophecy to Sextus Pompey12

5

Scholars read the scene as a dark inversion of Aeneas's visit to the Sibyl in Virgil12

6

Dante has Virgil say Erichtho once sent him to the bottom of Hell12

Sources

  1. Erichtho - Wikipedia
  2. Pharsalia - Wikipedia

Every fact on this page comes from these sources, written in our own words. Spotted a mistake? Tell us at [email protected].

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Folklore from the same lands

VrykolakasGreek, 1645PhilinnionAncient Greek, 150The corpse of ThelyphronRoman (literary), 170Vampire of VeniceVenetian (Italy), 1576Vrykolakas of MykonosGreek, 1701BouplagosAncient Greek / Roman, 150

Same era: Ancient world

Ishtar's army of the deadMesopotamian (Akkadian), 1000 BCLugnano child burialLate Roman (Italy), 450PolykritosAncient Greek, 150
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