Classics 301B
April 17, 2025

Goya, Saturn Devouring his Children (ca. 1820)

Creative Projects?

Seneca the Younger

Seneca's life & works

• born ca. 4 BCE, Cordoba (wealthy equestrian family); Rome & public life in imperial court; death sentence under Caligula (emp. 37-41 CE), exiled to Corsica under Claudius (emp. 41-54 CE); restored to court in 49 CE through Agrippina (Nero's mother); Nero’s tutor, speechwriter & advisor; influence declines (Nero murders mother, 59 CE) & estrangement (62-65 CE)
  
  
  Rubens, Death of Seneca (1610)
  
  
• Conspiracy of Piso (65 CE), forced suicide: Tacitus, Annales 15.62-3 ("even at the last moment his eloquence remained at command, he called his secretaries, and dictated a long discourse, which has been given to the public in his own words")
  

• Neronian literature under philhellenic poet-musician (qualis artifex pereo!): shared themes of spectacle, violence, horror, autocracy in Lucan, Seneca, Petronius
  
  
• Seneca's literary production: philosophical letters (Epistulae Morales) & essays (Dialogi), Natural Questions (natural science), Apocolocyntosis (satire on Claudius' deification); tragedies
  
  
  
  Seneca: On the Creation of Earthquakes (dir. Robert Schwentke, 2023)
  
  trailer; clip
  
  

Illustrated text of Seneca's Thyestes (ca. 1410)

Tragedies of Seneca

• 8 surviving plays based on Greek myths (dates unknown), sources in classical Greek tragedy & lost Roman tragedies
  
  
• themes of destructive emotional excess (esp. anger), power, tyranny, ambition, family dysfunction, monomaniacal obsession; focus on worst human instincts & behaviors
  
  
• 5 Acts & choruses; performance – public theater? recitation only? private court performances?
  
  
  
  
• spectacle quality of plays: tragedies in age of violent entertainment (Roman amphitheaters); gothic horror, rich imagery, irony, intensity; Senecan characters metatheatrically aware they are spectacle
  

Mythical background of Thyestes: Tantalus-clan's destructive aspirations & ambitions


Assereto, Tantalus (ca. 1645)

• Tantalus (king of Phrygia & son of Zeus, ghost at Thyestes' opening) serves son Pelops to gods at banquet (test of omniscience) – punishment?
  
  
  
  
• reconstituted Pelops wins Hippodamia with help of Myrtilus the charioteer; claims Elis & much of Peloponnesus (Olympia), but cursed by Hippodamia's father (Oenomaus) & betrayed Myrtilus

  
  
  Lion Gate, Bronze Age Mycenae
  
  
• Pelops' two sons, Atreus & Thyestes: competition for throne of Mycenae; possession of the golden ram (talisman – Thyestes 220ff.); alternating rule & exile; Aerope (wife of Atreus) & Thyestes have adulterous affair
  
  
• Atreus' & Aerope's two sons, Agamemnon & Menelaus = Atreidae (Trojan War); Atreus doubts paternity in Thyestes
  
  Thyestes and Aegisthus (Dareios Painter, ca. 340 BCE)
  
  
• aftermath of Thyestes: Thyestes mates with daughter to produce Aegisthus – kills Atreus, hooks up with Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra, et al. (Aeschylus’ Oresteia)
  
  Bouguereau, Orestes Pursued by the Furies (1862)
  
  
• Thyestes, opening: Fury exhorts reluctant Ghost of Tantalus to infect house with more violence, strife & familial dysfunction, "Bring hatred, murder, death; / Let the whole house be filled with Tantalus" (52-3)
  
  
• Thyestes: study in autocracy/tyranny/anger/revenge of monstrous Atreus ("My heart is swollen with some greater thing, / something extraordinary, more than human", 267-8)
  
  
  Thyestes 190ff. (Atreus to Servant on power & revenge)
  I do not care if this great and glorious house
  falls to ruin and kills me, as long as it kills him too.
  Come on, my soul! Do deeds that history will condemn
  but never cease to speak of.

  . . . So now, before he has had time to gather his strength,
  a pre-emptive strike is needed, to stop him attacking me
  when I am off my guard. He will kill me, or I him;
  the winner is the one who gets there first.
  
  . . . The best thing about being king

  is making folks accept whatever you do,

  and even praise it.

  

  . . . Only weak kings kill. Under my rule, people beg

  for the favour of death.
  

• Seneca's unidentified chorus – who are they, what is their point of view? broad & stylized commentary on play, Stoic thought & striking poetry
  
  Chorus #1 (Thyestes 122ff.): entrance? don't acknowledge Fury/Ghost scene, but call for end to "this endless cycle of catastrophe" (133); review house's history, fate of Tantalus in underworld for "such a savage kind of dinner-party" (151), describe eternal desire & insatiable "desperate yearning hunger (158)
  Chorus #2 (Thyestes 336ff.): naive belief in reconciliation of brothers after Atreus decides to send Agamemnon & Menelaus to fetch Thyestes (Atreus & Servant scene?); reflections on true/Stoic kingship
  Chorus #3 (Thyestes 546ff.): celebratory song after brothers' apparent reconciliation ("You can pause and count the swimming fish / where recently beneath the giant storm / the shaken Cyclades were trembling at the sea", 593-5); closing Stoic thoughts on fickleness of fortune & impermanence of power ("No situation lasts . . . every kingdom lies beneath another", 596ff.)
  Chorus #4 (Thyestes 789ff.): after interacting with Messenger, troubled by day's darkness, song of horror at cosmic disorder & apocalyptic despair, ". . . one would have to be greedy for life not to want / to die when the world is dying", 883-4)
  
  
• Stoicism & Romanization in mythic Mycenae
  
  Thyestes 388-403 (Chorus on philosopher-king)

  A king is a man without fear,

  A king is a man without desire.

  Everyone makes this kingdom for himself. 

  Stand, if you wish, on the slippery
  pinnacle of power.
  But I am satisfied with sweet peace.
  Let my place be humble, let me enjoy

  quiet free time forever.

  Let my life flow by in silence,

  unmarked by the people of Rome.


  When my days have passed in this way,
  without noise, let me grow old,
  but never rise in class, and let me die.
  Death weighs more heavily on those
  who are too well known to everyone
  but who do not know themselves.
  
  Thyestes 455-70 (returned Thyestes on self-sufficiency, living in accordance with nature)

  The little low-lying town does not tremble at the house

  that stands up high above it on a mountain peak,

  nor does the ivory shine on the lofty ceilings;

  no sentry guards my bedroom while I sleep.

  I need no fleet to catch my fish, I do not need 

  to drive away the sea away with piles of rocks,

  nor glut my greedy belly with imported goods.

  No distant field in Parthia or Geta need be ploughed

  to feed me; I need no worship with incense or altars,

  replacing Jupiter with myself. No treetops sway

  up high upon my roof; no steaming baths that take 

  many hands to heat. My days are not passed in sleep,

  I do not stay awake to drink all night.

  Nobody fears me; I have no need of weapons to keep my house safe:

  Deep peace comes to those in modest circumstances.

  The ability to do without a kingdom is a kingdom. 

  
  Nosadella, Aerope & Thyestes (ca. 1565)
  

• character of Thyestes: conciliatory & contrite, genuinely conflicted, deceptive? (Atreus: "He could not be caught / unless he wished to be. He hopes to get my kingdom", 288-9)
  
  Thyestes 412-20 (Thyestes' conflicted return to Argos)
              Go back to your exile in the woods,
  the thickly tangled groves, and the life you led in the wild,
  with animals, and like them. No reason to be dazzled
  by the false, flashy brightness of royal power.
  When you look at the gift, look at the giver too.
  Just now, I had the kind of life that everyone would pity;
  but I was brave and happy. Now, on the other hand,
  I am dizzy with fear. My heart is stuck, and longs
  to carry my body back. I find myself moving, unwillingly.
  
  Thyestes 922-4 (Thyestes' shallow commitment to Stoicism exposed in celebratory banquet?)
  Away with grief, away with fear,
  away with that companion of my exile:
  bitter poverty, and shame which weighs
  heavily upon the poor.
  
  
• reunion of brothers (491ff.) & agreement to share power (534ff.) – tragic irony, e.g. "Take these sweet children / as pledges of my faith" (520-1), "I will sacrifice the designated offerings to the gods" (545)
  
  Parentini, The Banquet of Thyestes (1555-65)
  
  
• Thyestes, Act 4: horrific Messenger’s speech, ekphrasis of “an ancient grove buried in a deep valley” (651)
  
  Thyestes 684-9 (Atreus' perverse sacrifice)
  The altars are adorned—how can I say this?—
  the little princes have their hands tied back;
  he binds their poor little heads with a purple band.
  Incense was not forgotten, or the holy juices of Bacchus,
  and with the knife he daubed the victims with salted grains.
  All due ritual was observed, in case such a horrible crime
  be done improperly.
  
  cf. "he enjoys order in brutality," 715: (1) Tantalus Jr.; (2) Plisthenes (mute); (3) unnamed younger brother (mute)
  
  
• Thyestes, Act 5: revelation to Thyestes & horror
  
  Thyestes 885-8 (Atreus' exaltation)
  My steps are level with the stars, I rise above the world
  touching heaven’s axis with my exalted head.
  Now royal power and my father’s throne are mine.
  No need of gods . . .
  
  cf. "Yes! I am God! Highest of all powers, / and King of Kings!" (911-12)
  

• Atreus' awareness of his spectacle creation: Messenger, "he himself . . . acted as the audience" (694-5); "If only I could prevent the gods from leaving, / drag and force them all to watch / this vengeance feast! (893-5), "I want to watch the onset of his pain" (907)
  
  
  Rubens, Saturn Devouring his Son (1636)
  
  
• palace opened (901), wheeled platform (ekkyklêma) for grotesque banquet & prolonged irony
  
  Thyestes 976-83 (Atreus responding to Thyestes' inquiry about sons)
  Your boys are here, believe me—held by their father.
  They are here and always will be; no part of your children
  can ever be taken from you. I will give you the faces
  you long to see, I will fill you full with them all.
  Do not worry, you will be satisfied. They are mingling
  with my own boys, and enjoying a holy meal.
  But they will be summoned. Have a drink.
  This is a family cup.
  
  
• Atreus’ lack of complete satisfaction (Tantalid)
  
  Thyestes 1053ff. (Atreus’ regrets)
  Even this is too little for me.
  I should have poured hot blood into your mouth
  direct from their wounds, to make you drink them alive.
  My impatience cheated my rage. I used my sword
  to stab them. I rushed at the altars . . .
  
  . . . —But all of this
  could have been better done by their own father.
  My vengeance is a failure. The wicked father
  munched his sons, but did not know it; nor did they.

• closing affirmation of cycle of continuing violence/revenge
  
  Thyestes 1104-9 (play's lack of resolution)
  I know your complaint: you mind me doing it first!
  You are not hurt because you gulped that ghastly meal,
  but because you did not serve it. You had the plan
  to lay out the same menu for your credulous brother,
  to make their mother help attack the children
  and kill them the same way.
  
  Bernardino Mei, Orestes Slaying Clytemnestra and Aegisthus (1654)