The Ancient Reception of Euripides' Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium
Simon Perris and Fiachra Mac Góráin The ancient reception of Euripides’ Bacchae from Athens to Byzantium Abstract: This chapter offers a reception history of Euripides’ Bacchae from its original production until its intertextual transformation in the Byzantine Christus Patiens. It traces a broad arc from Classical Athens through the Roman Empire, taking in also Hellenistic Alexandria, the Greek-speaking East, Christianity, and Byzantine literature. By examining the cultural contexts and inflections of the different receptions of one poetic text – Greek, Roman and Italian, ‘Eastern’, and Christian – it exposes distinctions between religious or cultural attitudes to Bac- chus/Dionysus across a broad range of Greek and Latin sources. The discussion is divided into four thematic sections, within which receptions are mostly pre- sented in chronological order: Classic Bacchae; Performances; Narratives; and Christian discourse. These sections encompass drama, epic, didactic, epyllion, historiography, biography, epigram, scholarly citations, and theological texts. A selection of the most significant case studies receive in-depth discussion in the body of the chapter; for completeness, the reception history of Bacchae is filled out by listing additional receptions in summary form in an appendix. Introduction Euripides’ Bacchae was undoubtedly the single most influential literary text for constructions of Dionysus throughout Greco-Roman antiquity. In this chapter, we examine how receptions of the play across the spectrum of Greek and Roman literature act as a barometer for cultural attitudes to Dionysus. Many of the most significant and revealing receptions occur in Latin texts or in Greek texts that deal with Roman subjects, whether Plutarch’s Antony, Greek epigrams about Italian pantomime performances, or Christian writings polemicizing against Greek and Roman cults.
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