ABSTRACT
ALTHOUGH perhaps, in Greek and Roman authors, it may be said that, strictly speaking there are-with one possible exception-no references to, or legends of vampires according to the exactest definition of the term as given in such standard works as Webster's International Dictionary and Whitney's Century Dictionary, yet there do occur frequent, if obscure, notices of cognate superstitions, esoteric rituals, and ceremonial practice, which certainly prove that vampirism was not unknown in Italy and in Greece of ancient times. Webster thus explains the word vampire : " A blood-sucking ghost or re-animated body of a dead person ; a soul or re-animated body of a dead person believed to come from the grave and wander about by night sucking the blood of persons asleep, causing their death." Whitney interprets a vampire as " A kind of spectral body which, according to a superstition existing among the Slavic and other races on the Lower Danube, leaves the grave during the night and maintains a semblance of life by sucking the warm blood of living men and women while they are asleep. Dead wizards, werewolves, heretics, and other outcasts become vampires, as do also the illegitimate offspring of parents themselves illegitimate, and anyone killed by a vampire."
