SENECA'S 'PHOENISSAE' : INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY Marica Frank A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 1990 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/10023/15510 This item is protected by original copyright SENECA'S PHOENISSAE : INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTARY by Marica Frank Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St. Andrews, 30 September 1989 ProQuest Number: 10170842 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10170842 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 ABSTRACT The Introduction deals primarily with issues regarding Seneca's Phoenissae specifically, but includes some discussion of more general questions. It consists of the following sections: 1. Title (in which the problem of the two titles, Phoenissae and Thebais, is considered); 2. The Nature and Structure of the Work (which includes discussion of: the unity and state of completion of the Phoenissae, the question of the absence of a chorus, the possibility that the prologue is missing, the ending of the play, Seneca's dramatic purpose); 3. Seneca's Treatment of the Theban Legend (in which Seneca's debt to both his dramatic and non-dramatic precursors is discussed); 4. Philosophy, Rhetoric and Politics in the Phoenissae; 5. Staging (in which there is a general consideration of the question, followed by a discussion of the particular difficulties involved in the Phoenissae); 6. Chronology (which deals with the problem of dating Seneca's plays and the criteria for establishing a relative chronology). The Commentary is a line-by-line literary analysis of the Phoenissae, which includes discussion of syntactical, metrical, textual and philological ' questions. It is based on the 1986 OCT text of Otto Zwierlein. 8 DECLARATIONS (i) I, Marica Frank, hereby certify that this thesis, which is approximately 90,000 words in length, has been written by me, that it is the record of work carried out by me and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for a higher degree. z 30 September 1989 .(Candidate) (ii) I was admitted as a research student under Ordinance No. 12 in October 1982 and as a candidate for the degree of Ph.D in October 1982; the higher study for which this is a record was carried out in the University of St. Andrews beteween 1982 and 1989. 30 September 1989 .(Candidate) (iii) I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of Ph.D. in the University of St. Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that decree. 30 September 1989 .(Supervisor) COPYRIGHT In submitting this thesis to the University of St. Andrews, I understand that I am giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. I also understand that the title and abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker. 30 September 1989 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thanks are due to my supervisor, Professor Harry M. Hine, for his meticulous criticism and advice. I am indebted also to Mrs Elizabeth M. Craik for comments and advice in the early stages, to the late Professor F.R.D. Goodyear for broadening my understanding of textual criticism and to my colleague, Professor J.H.D. Scourfield, for helpful discussion on various matters. My typist, Mrs Jacqui Eklund, has wrestled nobly with a difficult manuscript and my husband has endured patiently throughout. 1 PREFACE 1. TEXT The text upon which this commentary is based is that of Otto Zwierlein (OCT, 1986) (for other editions consulted, see Bibliography). Zwierlein's text is a considerable improvement upon that of his immediate predecessor, Giardina (Bologna, 1966), the deficiencies of which are summarised by Tarrant (Sen. Agam., 94) In contrast to the over-inflated apparatus of Giardina, that of Zwierlein is admirably economical and concise. Indeed, at least with regard to Phoen., perhaps too much so, in that he makes no mention of the following important readings and conjectures (on which see commentary ad loc. for discussion): 2: Gronovius' lateris for patris of the MSS (Bothe's fratris is also interesting). 19: Leo's inlisum for inuisum of the MSS. 45: Gronovius' animi (influenced perhaps by the apparent genitive in E's animae, also not mentioned by Zwierlein). 126: Heinsius' quod ... lauat for quo ... latet. 140: the postulated lacuna in the text after 139. 178: Schmidt's Oedipus as an alternative to the endings in -u and -urn preserved in the MSS. 439: A's telum (E reads tectum). 456: the plausible conjectures of Avantius (donate matrem pace) and M. Muller (domate Martem pace). 2 Although, in general, I concur with Zwierlein's readings, emendations and punctuation, I differ from him in the following instances (on which, see further commentary ad loc.): 100 : I retain the verse, where Zwierlein deletes. 116 : ubi torua rapidus uoluat Ismenos uada, 117 : due ubi ferae sint, ubi fretum, ubi praeceps locus 444 : una iuuentus quaeque ab Inachio uenit 455 : donare matrem pace; si placuit scelus, 551 : hoc populus omnis, uestraque hoc uidit soror 556 : patriam ac penates neue, quas regere expetis, 571f.: haec saxa franges uictor? hinc spolia auferes? 648 : Cadmique proles, sceptra Thebano fuit. 2. ABBREVIATIONS Works referred to by short titles in the thesis can be found listed in full in the Bibliography. For ancient authors and their works, I have adopted the abbreviations used by Lewis and Short. In the case of journals, I follow, with one exception (viz. Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, which I, following common usage, shorten to HSCPh) the system of L'Annee Philologique. & 3 INTRODUCTION 1. TITLE The title by which the play is generally known, Phoenissae, is the one found in the E MSS; in the A MSS the play is entitled Thebais. Leo opined that the first editor of the corpus assigned the title Phoenissae to the collection of scenes, and that an interpolator emended this to Thebais, 1 influenced by Statius' epic of that name . There are difficulties associated with both titles. There is no evidence to suggest that Seneca, emulating Euripides, intended his play to have a chorus composed of captive Phoenician women; indeed, it is difficult to see how they could have been incorporated into the first section (1-362) when Oedipus and Antigone are wandering through 2 the wild countryside near Cithaeron . Thebais is even less promising: it is a 3 title associated not with tragedy but with epic and, moreover, it is largely inappropriate to the first part of the play, since traditionally it is applied to the story of the Seven against Thebes, with which the first section is not primarily concerned. There seem to be two possible answers to the problem of the title: either, as Leo suggested, Seneca did not give the work a title since it was never 4 completed and the two unsatisfactory titles are later accretions, or, less 1 Leo did not regard Phoen. as being either part of one play or of two, but as two separate declamatory pieces, which were put together after Seneca's death (Obs. Crit., 75ff.). 2 Leo (ibid., 78) asked: et qualem ibi [i.e. incerta inter Thebas Cithaeronemque regione] chorum sibi sumat? certe quern praeter satyros bacchasue Euripidias inuenire potuerit nullum scio. On the problem of the identity of the putative chorus, see Intro.,17ff. 3 As well as Stat. Theb., two fragments of an early Greek Thebais are preserved in Athenaeus 11.465e and the scholion on S. OC. 1375; Pausanias praises it as the best epic poem apart from the Iliad and the Odyssey, and it was often ascribed to Homer in antiquity (9.9.5). 4 On this, see Intro., 18. 4 plausibly, Seneca tentatively called the play Phoenissae after Euripides' play of that name before he had given much consideration to the problem of the chorus. 5 THE NATURE AND STRUCTURE OF THE WORK Phoen. bristles with structural problems: firstly, it appears to be incomplete, because of the absence of choral lyrics-1' and, possibly,of a o prologue , and because of the abrupt ending and the resultant unresolved dramatic situation: Oedipus is left lurking in a cave (359f.), Polyneices, exiled by Eteocles (652f.), is still at the head of a large army outside the walls of Thebes, and the future of Jocasta, who has come out in opposition to the tyrannical ambitions of Eteocles, is still uncertain. Furthermore, the other undisputedly genuine Senecan dramas all consist of five more or less connected acts'4 in iambic trimeters, divided by four choral odes5 , while the main division in Phoen. is into two distinct and, at least superficially, unintegrated sections: 1-362 in which Oedipus is the main character, and 363-664 in which Jocasta is prominent.