E. Csapo, J.R. Green, B. Le Guen, E. Paillard, J. Stoop., P. Wilson. (Eds.), Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World (Paris: De Boccard), 2022
Varius’ Thyestes, performed at the Actian Games (or possibly the triple triumph) in 29 BC to cele... more Varius’ Thyestes, performed at the Actian Games (or possibly the triple triumph) in 29 BC to celebrate the end of the civil wars and the young Caesar’s attainment of pre-eminence at Rome, depicted a fraternal conflict of horrific violence that would have clearly symbolized the recent civil wars to a Roman audience. The figure of Thyestes, aggressive, gluttonous, drunken, bloodthirsty, cannibalistic, lustful, tyrannical, was made to correspond to Antonius, whose depiction as all of these things can be found in Cicero’s Philippics and various other hostile sources. The figure of Atreus corresponded to the young Caesar. Varius did not shy away from the horrors of the civil war or the horrors that the young Caesar had committed in that civil war but, as Virgil was simultaneously doing in the Georgics and would do again in the Aeneid, he represented that terrible violence as, like sacrifice, miraculously productive of positive ends, in short as constructive destruction. While the propagandistic (in the most sophisticated and nuanced sense) aims of the play demanded that the fratricidal/civil war nature of the conflicts and the element of fault on both sides be acknowledged and processed, Varius nevertheless used subtle hints to increase the culpability of Thyestes-Antonius and lessen or at least palliate that of Atreus-young Caesar.
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This chapter examines Lucan's depiction of femininity, masculinity, and other aspects of gender in The Civil War.
This chapter examines Lucan's intertextual engagement with Vergil, especially his Aeneid.
Pyreneus is simultaneously an invading usurper, an attempted rapist, an impious theomach, and, on the poetic plane, a talentless plagiarist or derivative imitator, who tries to appropriate others’ work but bathetically and disastrously fails. The interrelation of these four roles, each troping the others, throws light on all, and Pyreneus needs to be contextualized among the Met.’s other tyrants, rapists and theomachs, as well as its poet-figures. The episode itself, derivative and overstuffed with Ovidian motifs, is mimetic of the sort of narrative bad (would-be) poets like Pyreneus produce.
This chapter examines Lucan's depiction of femininity, masculinity, and other aspects of gender in The Civil War.
This chapter examines Lucan's intertextual engagement with Vergil, especially his Aeneid.
Pyreneus is simultaneously an invading usurper, an attempted rapist, an impious theomach, and, on the poetic plane, a talentless plagiarist or derivative imitator, who tries to appropriate others’ work but bathetically and disastrously fails. The interrelation of these four roles, each troping the others, throws light on all, and Pyreneus needs to be contextualized among the Met.’s other tyrants, rapists and theomachs, as well as its poet-figures. The episode itself, derivative and overstuffed with Ovidian motifs, is mimetic of the sort of narrative bad (would-be) poets like Pyreneus produce.