Forms of Drama

My paper offers a new interpretation of a much-debated element of the finale of Euripides’s Iphigenia taurica (1391 ff.): the wave which prevents the Greek ship from leaving the Taurian land and pushes it back to the shore, thus making it necessary for the goddess Athena to intervene, in order to prevent the Taurians from capturing Orestes and Iphigenia. As regards the wave, secondary literature has divided into two interpretative trends: some scholars argue that it is a mere dramaturgical device aimed at arousing suspense in the audience (e.g. Matthiessen 1964: 57 n.

A mimographer named Catullus is mentioned by Martial (5.30, 12.83), by Juvenal (8.185-188, 13.110-111) and the scholiasts on these verses, and by Tertullian (Adv. Valentinianos 14). The mimes of Catullus included one entitled Phasma (`Ghost'), and another entitled Laureolus, featuring the capture and crucifixion of a bandit chieftain. The Laureolus and a pantomime on Myrrha's incestuous liaison with her father Cinyras (the subject of the Smyrna, the epic by Catullus' sodalis C.

This paper is an investigation of a puzzling speech in Seneca’s Thyestes, in which Atreus debates with himself whether to include Menelaus and Agamemnon in his planned revenge (321-333). After arguing with his satelles about whether to tell his sons about the revenge plot in which they will be participants, Atreus changes his mind three times. He has previously told the satelles that his sons should know (309), but now resolves to keep them unaware, before deciding to tell them, and finally concluding that his plot will remain a secret.

Seneca Tragicus?: Comic Elements in Seneca’s Troades

Freedmen are rare figures in Roman comedy. There is only one in Terence—Sosia, who appears in the opening scene of Andria—and he is entirely Terence’s creation. Donatus (ad 14) tells us that this expository scene comes from Menander’s Perinthia, where the old man enters in conversation not with a retainer but with his wife. The substitution may reflect Terence’s general lack of interest in female perspectives in Andria (itself a topic of some interest), but Sosia is a problematic character in his own right.