Pliny, Natural History 27.98
“For treatment against night terrors and fear of ghosts it is suggested that a string of big teeth will help”
contra nocturnos pavores umbrarumque terrorem unus e magnis dentibus lino alligatus succurrere narratur.
Seneca, Moral Epistle 82.16
“Death should be hated more than it is customarily. For we believe many things about death. There has been a struggle among geniuses to increase its bad reputation. The world below is depicted as a prison and the region is oppressed by eternal night where:
“The huge guardian of death / laying upon half-eaten bones in his gory cave / horrifies the bloodless ghosts with eternal barking”*
Even if you can persuade someone that these are stories and that there is nothing there for the dead to fear, another fright comes over you. For they fear going to the underworld no less than they fear going nowhere.”
Mors contemni debet magis quam solet. Multa enim de illa credidimus. Multorum ingeniis certatum est ad augendam eius infamiam. Descriptus est carcer infernus et perpetua nocte oppressa regio, in qua
Ingens ianitor Orci
Ossa super recubans antro semesa cruento,
Aeternum latrans exsangues terreat umbras.
Etiam cum persuaseris istas fabulas esse nec quicquam defunctis superesse, quod timeant, subit alius metus. Aeque enim timent, ne apud inferos sint, quam ne nusquam.
*From Vergil’s Aeneid.
