Introduction toRoman Drama
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Wednesday, November 30 12-2pm
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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?
6Introduction to Roman Tragedy
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
14Introduction to Roman Tragedy
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
16Introduction to Roman Tragedy
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
20Introduction to Roman Tragedy
Comment
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