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Erichtho's reanimated soldier

Detto anche: Erichtho, Ἐριχθώ
Folklore e mitiNon mortoSi muove appenaStregoneriaMondo antico

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

⚔️ Combatterlo
Prima attestazione
61
Lucan's Pharsalia, begun around AD 61 and left unfinished at his death in AD 65
Origine
Roman (literary)
Italia, Grecia
Cosa lo causa
Stregoneria
A Thessalian witch forces a dead man's spirit back into his corpse to make it prophesy.
Come lo si diventa
A freshly killed soldier chosen from a battlefield because his lungs are intact and can still produce a voice.
Come si muove
Si muove appena
The corpse is made to speak; the surviving summaries do not describe it moving about.
Intelligenza
Un po' di intelligenza
Punti deboli
  • the rite ends with the body's burial, which releases him

Quando è comparso per la prima volta?

Mondo antico
Medioevo
Dal 1500 al 1899
Dal 1900 al 1967
Dal 1968 al 1999
Dal 2000 al 2009
Dal 2010 a oggi
61

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

appunti sul campo

Cosa dicono le fonti

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

Fonti

  1. Erichtho - Wikipedia
  2. Pharsalia - Wikipedia

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Folklore delle stesse terre

Stessa epoca: Mondo antico