Hans-Friedrich Mueller,chair of Classics and interim chair of Modern Languages and Literature, read a paper titled, "The Manes at Night (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum 6.18817) and Visits from the Dead" in Baltimore, Md., at the annual meeting of the Classical Association of the Atlantic States. Mueller's paper examines a funerary inscription in which a widow requests nocturnal visits from her deceased husband. Roman religious rituals associated with the hours between midnight and dawn and literary representations of ancestral spirits help explain why this seemingly odd request might reflect wider popular conceptions.
