Thyestes

Abstract: In 29 B.C., at the ludi Actiaci held to celebrate the victory of Octavian over the forces of Antony and Cleopatra, Rome witnessed the first performance of one of the most celebrated of Roman tragedies, the Thyestes of Varius Rufus. Later critics are in agreement as to the quality of the piece: Curiatius Maternus in the Dialogue on Orators of Tacitus rates it equal to the Medea of Ovid; Quintilian describes it as comparable to any Greek tragedy; Philargyrius in a note to Eclogues 8.6 goes as far as to dub it the greatest of all tragedies ( omnibus tragicis praeferenda ). More intriguingly, at least one contemporary was extremely taken with the play, for a note in the eighth-century Codex Parisinus 7530 and the ninth-century Codex Casanatensis 1086 indicates that Varius was paid one million sesterces for his efforts. That that contemporary was the organiser of the Actian games, either Octavian himself or a close associate acting as intermediary, is not in dispute. What is at issue is the political and ideological significance of a tragedy on the theme of Atreus and Thyestes which could make it so valuable a part of the celebration of the victory of the new regime. It is to this problem that this paper is addressed.

Abstract: The history of Roman tragedy rests on a paradox. Not a single play performed publicly at Rome survives intact, while those that have survived-the ten plays of the Senecan corpus-lack all traces of production history. Thus, though we know that Varius' lost Thyestes was performed to public acclaim in the early 20s B.C.E. and went on to win literary renown, the when, why, where, and how of Seneca's extant Thyestes are beyond recall. Yet the fact remains that tragedy at Rome survived the loss of professional playwrights and the stultifying extravagances of the Republican stage to reemerge under the Principate as a favorite and even a potent genre for Roman aristocrats with a literary turn. How this came about, how tragedy developed between the death of Accius at some point in the 90s B.C.E. and the death of Domitian nearly two centuries later, merits attention both for the story's inherent interest and, in a larger sense, for what it reveals of the forces at work on literature in that seminal period from Republic to empire.

Abstract: S" NE day towards the end of the eighth century the scribe of cod. Paris. Lat. 7530 ... began to copy out for us, on the 28th leaf of the MS, the Thyestes of Varius. He transcribed the title and the prefatory note .... Then he changed his mind: he proceeded with a list of the notae employed by Probus and Aristarchus, and the masterpiece of Roman tragedy has rejoined its author in the shades."' So reads A. E. Housman's evocative account of the loss of Varius'

Abstract: This chapter examines three plays (Thyestes, Medea, and Troades) which feature extensive metatragic 'staging'; the internal audiences share some form of 'captive' status-some are targets of revenge, while others embody a more subtle captivity. Jason and Thyestes are the intended victims of avengers who also force them to play the role of audience. The final act of Troades presents the most intricate picture of audience captivity: a mise-en-abyme of embedded audience- and actor-figures whose responses multiply and refract off each other as they negotiate the two ‘performances’ of murder-sacrifice. The relationship between aesthetic and ethics is called into question by the rupture their disparate reactions engender. The author argues that Seneca’s internal audiences provide potential models for, and dramatize the process of, the aesthetic judgment of nefas , and that the ‘plays-within’ actively challenge Seneca’s own audience to contemplate what it means to enjoy or otherwise to respond to such representations. Keywords:Aesthetics; captive audience; Medea; nefas ; Senecan drama; Thyestes; Troades