Greek tragedy had a profound influence on Roman theater and on Roman literature in its entirety. Establishing the history of Greek tragedy’s early reception in Rome is a daunting task, however, given that no tragedy written or performed in Rome before the time of Seneca has come down to us. Livy (7.2) tells us that Livius Andronicus presented the first drama in Rome in 240 bce, yet we are not certain of the process that led to the performance of this first tragedy. To be sure, contact with Greece was a crucial factor: the expansion associated with the Punic Wars brought commerce and arts from the Greek world to Rome and exposed the Romans to the more sophisticated art form of theater (Beacham 1992,15). Roman playwrights based their dramas on the famed Greek plays of the classical period, but the impact of Hellenistic theater (especially of that of southern Italy) on the Roman stage was just as crucial. Here too our ability to draw conclusions regarding the relationship of Hellenistic and Roman drama is impaired by the fragmentary nature of our evidence for Hellenistic tragedy.1 As a result, we need to develop alternative strategies in order to assess the dynamics of Greek tragedy’s reception in Rome.
In the last two decades scholars have illuminated the important role of religion and politics for an understanding of Greek tragedy. Religion, and ritual in particular, is key for an appreciation of the tragic context and content. I concur with scholars such as Richard Seaford who maintain that drama, as an institution sponsored by political authorities, inevitably served political ends: it helped cement a sense of civic identity and belonging in the Athenian consciousness (Seaford 1994; for the controversy on this issue see Croally, chapter 4 in this volume). In what follows, I argue that religion and politics, identity and ideology, are critical for an understanding of Roman tragedy as well. I go on to suggest that themes, motifs, and techniques used in Greek and Roman tragedy for the exploration of such issues are also manipulated by authors of other genres in Roman literature, who thus find a fresh avenue for exploring the political and social crises of their times. Finally, I consider the continuity of Seneca’s Trojan Women with both its tragic Greek predecessors and the Roman literary tradition.
In Rome as well as in Greece, theatrical performances occur within the context of religious festivals. Though the particular contours of the relationship between Roman
Religion and theater during the earlier years of the Roman republic cannot be accurately reconstructed, religious festivals and holidays set the stage for Roman drama (Conte 1994, 30). Livius’ first tragedy was performed at the Ludi Romani in honor of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. Furthermore, ritual, by its formulaic nature, its repetition of gestures, and its rich symbolism, is a type of proto-theater (Beacham 1992, 2). Scholars have not identified any direct relationship between Roman religious rituals and specific plays (Beacham 1992, 21); nevertheless, the deeply theatrical nature of ritual provides a connecting thread. A revealing example of the close relationship between ritual and theatrical performance in Rome can be seen in the practice of ‘‘instauration’’: if the performance was interrupted, or if there was an omission or other mistake, it had to be repeated from the beginning in the manner of religious ceremonies (Beacham 1992, 21). As is the case in Greece, Roman drama finds in the appropriation of ritual motifs a fruitful way to encode rich symbolic meaning.2 One can therefore argue for the existence ofa general framework, a certain symbolic vocabulary accessible to all that the theater audience would instinctively recognize and interpret.
The second important link between Athenian tragedy of the fifth century bce and the Roman stage is found in their connection with political authority. The Athenian model, with its institutionalized citizen participation, does not recur in ancient Rome; but in organizing theatrical performances (as well as games and other spectacles), Rome’s aristocratic elite found a powerful way to win the favor of the public at large. It is no coincidence that Roman drama is born at the end of the Punic wars, at a time when the plebs becomes politically important. Scholars of Roman theater believe that politicians exercised pressure on the playwrights but deny that the authorities sponsoring the plays considered them as a means for direct political debate. The audience, on the other hand, looked forward to these events for their entertainment value (Beacham 1992, 16-17; Goldberg 1996, 269-70). Yet even if the aim of the authorities was to provide escapist fare for the masses, it does not necessarily follow that the playwrights shared the same goals or that the audience would be incapable of relating what went on on stage to contemporary reality. Critics have shown that the so-called escapist literature of the Hellenistic period in fact relates to important sociopolitical issues (see, for instance, Hunter 1993, 152-69). Similarly, it has been shown that Roman comedy reflects as well as manipulates concerns and anxieties visa-vis social hierarchies and personal identity (McCarthy 2000). No literary genre stands apart from the reality that generated it; one can therefore safely extend this argument to encompass Roman tragedy as well. Varius Rufus’ Thyestes, a play staged at the games celebrating the victory at Actium in 29 bce, may be a case in point. The legendary events depicted in the play may have also served as a commentary on Rome’s recent civil wars (Hardie 1997, 319).
Even if a religious and political approach is helpful for an appreciation of the relationship between Greek and Roman tragedy, the paucity of evidence for early Roman tragedy remains a stumbling block. As an alternative strategy, we may turn to other literary genres, especially epic. Although Roman drama flourished in the early years of the republic, at the time of the late republic there was a decline in the production of new plays (Goldberg 1996, 270). We still hear of prominent figures composing tragedies, such as Julius Caesar, Asinius Pollio, Varius Rufus, Ovid, even Octavian. These plays were not produced but probably circulated among a small number of elite friends (Goldberg 1996, 271-72). Goldberg (1996, 273) posits the existence of‘‘literary drama’’ in the late republic and early principate, a type of theater heavily influenced by rhetoric and declamation, which survives in Seneca’s plays. Stage drama appears to have been replaced by literary drama. But such an exchange may also imply the opposite phenomenon: the appropriation of specifically tragic elements by other literary genres, as has long been noted, for instance, in the case of Vergil’s Aeneid (Hardie 1997).
Rome’s sociopolitical reality at the time of the late republic and early principate also contributed to the suitability of this type of appropriation. Both fifth-century Athens and first-century Rome were periods of important sociopolitical change (Hardie 1997, 314-15). Athens was in the process of developing a democratic political system, while republican Rome, devastated by a series of civil wars, gradually turned into a monarchy after Augustus’ victory at Actium in 31 bce. Greek tragedy, as a religious and political institution, served as a vehicle for negotiating and defining civic identity and ideology. In Rome, poets who were closely associated with the new emperor also engaged with issues of identity and ideology generated by the new political order. I argue that authors writing under Augustus inaugurate a practice of appropriating tragedy’s religio-political symbolism in order to problematize ideological issues, a practice that continues well into the first century ce.
More specifically, this study identifies a handful of tragic patterns and motifs characteristic of Greek tragedy that are employed by Roman authors. My analysis focuses on two areas where tragedy’s import seems paramount: the prominence of female figures as a means through which sociopolitical conflicts are explored, and the use of ritual representations to articulate problems of identity and ideology. There are many instances in Roman literature, as in Greek tragedy, where women play an especially important role in the performance of rituals. Often these rituals go awry, thereby drawing attention to the crisis operative in the plot as well as a more general crisis of Roman religious, social, and political institutions. Thus Greek tragedy’s ways of exploring issues of civic identity and ideology are put to work at the dawn of monarchy in Rome. In the interest of space, I limit my inquiry to a handful of examples of tragic themes in Vergil, Ovid, and Seneca as suggestive of an approach that could prove fruitful for our understanding of the reception of Greek tragedy in Rome.
World History
