Introduction toRoman Drama

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3Introduction to Roman Tragedy

From Horace’s Letter to Augustus

“Greece, now captive, took captive its wild conqueror, and introduced the arts to rural

Latium.” (p. 276)Graecia capta ferum uictorem cepit et artes

intulit agresti Latio. (Epistles 2.156–7)

mos maiorum“way of the ancestors”

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4Introduction to Roman Tragedy

Agenda

• Frogs on Tragedy• Guide to an Ideal Type?

• City and Empire• The Briefest of Surveys of the Roman World

• Roman Theater, Roman Drama• Continuities, Developments

• Choice Quotes• Issues of Genre

• Discussion…• But Is It Tragedy?

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Frogs on Tragedy

Guide to an Ideal Type?

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Frogs on Tragedy

• Style, language, situations (153 ff.)• Aeschylean elevation• Euripidean ordinariness

• “Skill and good counsel” (education)• Euripidean sophistic• Aeschylean values

• Aeschylus’ oil bottle joke (189 ff.)• Weighing of the lines (pp. 209 ff.)• “One I consider a master, the other I enjoy” (Dio, p. 217)• Policy advice (219 ff.)

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7Introduction to Roman Tragedy

Discussion: Valid Criteria?• should it be elevated in

style?• not the style but content

• but style can help – can make it relatable

• education thing• a moral

• aeschylean value teaching• aeschyl – symbolic

emotional realism/a revealing kind play of concept

• eur realism tragic?• what really happens

• political decision making• no• no – but…

• e.g. eum and its political-judicial focus

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City and Empire

The Briefest of Surveys of the Roman World

Forum Romanum (reconstruction)

Ancient Italy Roman Empire

AugustusCapitoline Wolf

753-510 BCE Regal period

Ruled by kings.

510-27 BCE Republic

Mixed constitution: oligarchic, quasi-democratic.

27 BCE-293 CE Principate (Early Empire)

De facto monarchy (imperātor, Caesar, princeps)

Timeline

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Roman Theater, Roman Drama

Continuities, Developments

Theater at Sabratha,N. Africa, 200s CE

Satyr Play Rehearsal,Pompeii, ca. 50 CE

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Roman Drama: Fabula. . .Comedy• Palliata

• himation – i.e., Greek – comedy

• Togata• “toga” – i.e., Italian comedy

• Trabeata• upper-class comedy

• Mimus• popular farce

Tragedy

• Crepidata• “buskin” – i.e., Greek

tragedy

• Praetexta• “fringed toga” – i.e.,

Roman history play

• Pantomime• narrative dance with

chorus accompanimentca. 240 BCE-early 100s CE

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Choice Quotes

Issues of Genre

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Crepidata…

• “Again Thyestes comes, / At Atreus to grabble, now again / Approaches me to rouse me from my calm. / More moil for me! A bigger bane to brew, / That I may crush and crunch his grievous soul!”(maior mihi moles, maius miscendumst malum. Atreus, in Accius’ Atreus frr. 163-166)

• Oderint dum metuant. “Let them hate, so long as they fear”(Atreus, in Accius’ Atreus fr. 168)

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17Introduction to Roman Tragedy

Praetexta…

• “Back to his native land, happy in life never dying”(Naevius Clastidium, performed 195 BCE?)

• “It was thus most favorably foretold that the Roman state would be supreme”(Seer to Tarquin, Accius Brutus fr. 38)

• “Tullius (Servius Tullius, early Roman king), who for the citizens had made freedom firm”(Accius Brutus fr. 40)

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Discussion…

But Is It Tragedy?

“The content of Roman tragedy is not ‘tragic.’ ”

Brill’s on Roman Tragedy

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Comment

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