Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Periander, tyrant of Corinth, killed his wife Melissa in a fit of anger (Herodotus’s narrative implies a brutal crime; later tradition expands the violence). When he sent messengers to the oracle of the dead on the Acheron in Thesprotia to inquire about a friend’s deposit, Melissa’s ghost appeared and refused to answer: she was cold and naked, for the clothes buried with her had not been burned. As a token of truth she added that Periander had baked his loaves in a cold oven—sign of intercourse with her corpse. Periander believed, heralded all Corinthian women to the temple of Hera, stripped them of their finest garments, and burned the clothes in a pit as offerings to Melissa; then the ghost answered. The logos condemns the tyrant’s domestic horror and shows a Greek necromantic rite binding the living to the aggrieved dead.