Seneca's Thyestes and the Political Tradition in Roman Tragedy

Seneca’s Thyestes and the Political Tradition in Roman Tragedy

P.J. Davis

In this chapter I propose to consider two long-held commonplaces of the criticism of Senecan tragedy, first, that the plays fail to engage with those of Seneca’s Republican predecessors1 and, second, that they offer no critique of the politics of Julio-Claudian Rome.2 I shall argue that Thyestes in particular constitutes a powerful critique of tyrannical rule and that it is precisely this concern with politics which links Seneca with tragedians like Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius. Let’s begin with the Republicans. Although the tragedies of the Republican period present exclusively Greek material, native subject matter being the pre- serve of a new genre, the fabula praetexta, there is no doubting Roman tragedy’s focus on contemporary issues and concerns: Ennius, Pacuvius and Accius aimed at more than producing translations of fifth-century tragedies. Even the earliest Roman tragedians, Livius Andronicus and Naevius, the authors whose fragments are the most meager, the poets whom we might expect a priori to be the most heavily dependent on Greek models, adapt their stories for Roman audiences, with Livius seeming to prefer stories drawn from the Trojan war and its aftermath3 and featuring such specifically Roman values as maiestas and virtus,4 and Naevius, author of an epic on Rome’s first war with Carthage and inventor of the praetexta, also favoring stories drawn from Trojan

1 E.g. Calder (1983: 185): “On Roman Republican sources Wilamowitz ruled once and for all in 1889. [. . .] Nero’s court did not return to the Republic for inspiration. Not a verse of Senecan tragedy reworks a Republican line in the way that Lucretius and Vergil repeatedly do”. For criticism of German statements of this position, cf. Blänsdorf (2008). 2 E.g. Ferri (2003: 70): “Some modern critics have read the tragedies of the Senecan corpus as anti-tyrannical statements in disguise. This hypothesis is probably too extreme, but Octavia may be the earliest witness in the history of political and libertarian interpretations of Senecan tragedy”. Also, Schiesaro (2003: 6): “Thus we would probably do well . . . to dispense with a political reading [of Thyestes]”. 3 Manuwald (2011: 191). Of the eight certain titles six concern Trojan legend: Achilles, Aegisthus, Aiax Mastigophorus, Equos Troianus, Hermiona, Teucer. 4 Warmington (1957: 12, 16). I cite the line numbers given in Warmington’s Remains of Old Latin (1956, 1957). Where pertinent, I give cross-references to other editions.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��5 | doi ��.��63/9789004284784_009 152 davis legend,5 and showing concern, in Lycurgus for example, with such contemporary issues as the importation of eastern cults.6 It is in the major tragedians, however, that we find the clearest evidence of what we can call the Romanization of Greek myth. We find, for example, the use of Roman constitutional language. Thus in Ennius’ Achilles we find senior Greek princes at Troy referred to as hic ordo (“this order”), an expression regu- larly used to designate members of the Roman senate,7 while Achilles is urged to protect the citizens (serva ciues), a Republican turn of phrase unimaginable in Homer.8 We find characters in the works of all three tragedians speaking of imperium, a term which, as Jocelyn notes, “belonged properly to the official language” and “had a semi-religious tone lacking in Greek words for power and authority.”9 In Hector’s Ransom (Hectoris Lytra), the Ennian Priam urges the Myrmidon guards to show mercy in accordance with their imperium,10 while in Pacuvius’ Judgment of Arms (Armorum Iudicium) a character insists that action must be taken in accordance with imperium (pro imperio agendum est),11 and in Accius’ Thyestes, Thyestes wonders whether, after devouring his sons, he will ever be able to attain imperium in Argos (Argivum imperium).12 We also find that Greek myths are rewritten to reflect Roman social struc- tures. Consider, for example, Ennius’ rewriting of these lines from Euripides:

τὸ δ’ ἀξίωμα, κἂν κακῶς λέγῃς, τὸ σὸν πείσει· λόγος γὰρ ἔκ τ’ ἀδοξούντων ἰὼν κἀκ τῶν δοκούντων αὑτὸς οὐ ταὐτὸν σθένει. (Eurides Hecuba 293–295)

In his Loeb edition Kovacs translates these lines with literal accuracy:

What is more, even if you speak without eloquence, your prestige will carry the day. For the same speech has quite a different force if it is spo- ken by a man of repute or a nobody.

5 Four of the six recorded tragedies of Naevius are linked to Troy: Equos Troianus, Hector Proficiscens, Hesiona, Iphigenia. 6 Cf. Flower (2000: 27–29); Boyle (2006: 47–48). 7 5 W; 5 Joc. For the significance of hic ordo, cf. Jocelyn 171–72. 8 6 W; 7 Joc. For the significance of cives, cf. Jocelyn 173. 9 Jocelyn (1967: 298). 10 198 W; 75 Joc. 11 46 W; 36 Schierl. 12 194 W.