CHAPTER II

DRAMA

I

THE STAGE

The drama proper had never flourished at Rome. The causes are not far

to seek. Tragic drama was dead in Greece by the time Greek influence

made itself felt, while the New Comedy which then held the stage was of

too quietly realistic a type and of too refined a wit and humour to be

attractive to the coarser and less intelligent audiences of Rome.

Terence, the _dimidiatus Menander_, as Caesar called him, though he won

himself a great name with the cultured classes by the purity and

elegance of his Latin and the fine drawing of his characters, was a

failure with popular audiences owing to his lack of broad farcical

humour. Plautus with his coarse geniality and lumbering wit made a

greater success. He had grafted the festive spirit of Roman farce on to

the more artistic comedy of Athens. Tragedy obtained but a passing

vogue. Ennius, Accius, and Pacuvius were read and enjoyed by not a few

educated readers, but for the Augustan age, as far as the stage was

concerned, they were practically dead and buried. The Roman populace

had by that period lost all taste for the highest and most refined

forms of art. The races in the circus, the variety entertainments and

bloodshed of the amphitheatre had captured the favour of the polyglot,

pampered multitude that must have formed such a large proportion of a

Roman audience.

Still, dramatic entertainments had by no means wholly disappeared by the

time of the Empire. But what remained was of a degraded type. The New

Comedy of Athens, as transferred to the Roman stage, had given ground

before the advance of the mime and the _fabula Atellana_. The history of

both these forms of comedy belongs to an earlier period. For the

post-Augustan age our evidence as to their development is very scanty.

Little is known save that they were exceedingly popular. Both were

characterized by the broadest farce and great looseness of construction;

both were brief one-act pieces and served as interludes or conclusions

to other forms of spectacle.

The Atellan was of Italian origin and contained four stock characters,

Pappus the old man or pantaloon, Dossennus the wise man, corresponding

to the _dottore_ of modern Italian popular comedy, Bucco the clown, and

Maccus the fool. It dealt with every kind of theme, parodied the legends

of the gods, laughed at the provincial's manners or at the inhabitants

of Italian country towns, or depicted in broad comic style incidents in

the life of farmer and artisan. Maccus appeared as a young girl, as a

soldier, as an innkeeper; Pappus became engaged to be married; Bucco

turned gladiator; and in the rough and tumble of these old friends the

Roman mob found rich food for laughter.[86]

The mime was of a very similar character, but freer in point of form. It

renounced the use of masks and reached, it would seem, an even greater

pitch of indecency than the Atellan. The subjects of a few mimes are

known to us. Among the most popular were the _Phasma_ or _Ghost_[87] and

the _Laureolus_[888] of Catullus, a writer of the reign of Caligula. In

the latter play was represented the death by crucifixion of the famous

brigand 'Laureolus'; so degraded was popular taste that on one occasion

it is recorded that a criminal was made to take the part of Laureolus

and was crucified in grim earnest upon the stage.[89] In another mime of

the principate of Vespasian the chief attraction was a performing

dog,[90] which, on being given a pretended opiate, went to sleep and

later feigned a gradual revival in such a realistic manner as to rouse

the wildest applause on the part of the audience.

Both Atellan and mime abounded in topical allusions and spared not even

the emperors. Allusion was made to the unnatural vices attributed to

Tiberius,[91] to the deaths of Claudius and Agrippina,[92] to the

avarice of Galba,[93] to the divorce of Domitian,[94] and on more than

one occasion heavy punishment was meted out to authors and actors

alike.[95]

Legitimate comedy led a struggling existence. An inscription at

Aeclanum[96] records the memory of a certain Pomponius Bassulus, who not

only translated certain comedies of Menander but himself wrote original

comedies; while in the letters of Pliny[97] we meet with Vergilius

Romanus, a writer of comedies of 'the old style' and of _mimiambi_. He

possessed, so Pliny writes, 'vigour, pungency, and wit. He gave honour

to virtue and attacked vice.' It is to be feared that such a form of

comedy can hardly have been intended for the public stage, and that

Vergilius, like so many poets of his age, wrote for private performance

or recitation. These two writers are the only authors of legitimate

comedies known to us during the Silver Age. But both _fabulae palliatae_

and _togatae_, that is to say, comedies representing Greek and Roman

life respectively, continued to be acted on the public stage. The

_Incendium_[98] of Afranius, a _fabula togata_, was performed in the

reign of Nero, and the evidence of Quintilian[99] and Juvenal[100] shows

that _palliatae_ also continued to be performed. But true comedy had

been relegated to a back place and the Silver Age did nothing to modify

the dictum of Quintilian,[101] _in comoedia maxime claudicamus_.

As with comedy so with tragedy. Popular taste rejected the Graeco-Roman

tragedy as tedious, and it was replaced by a more sensuous and

sensational form of entertainment. The intenser passions and emotions

were not banished from the stage, but survived in the _salticae fabulae_

and a peculiar species of dramatic recitation. Infinitely debased as

were these substitutes for true drama, the forms assumed by the

decomposition of tragedy are yet curious and interesting. The first step

was the separation of the _cantica_ from the _diverbia._ Lyric scenes or

even important iambic monologues were taken from their setting and sung

as solos upon the stage.[102] It was found difficult to combine

effective singing with effective gesture and dancing, for music had

become more florid and exacting than in the days of Euripides. A second

actor appeared who supplied the gesture to illustrate the first actor's

song.[103] From this peculiar and to us ridiculous form of entertainment

it is a small step to the _fabula saltica,_ which was at once nearer the

legitimate drama and further from it. It was nearer in that the scenes

were not isolated, but formed part of a more or less carefully

constructed whole. It was further inasmuch as the actor disappeared,

only the dancer remaining upon the stage. The words of the play were

relegated to a chorus, while the character, actions, and emotions of the

person represented by the words of the chorus were set forth by the

dress, gesticulation, and dancing of the _pantomimus_. How the various

scenes were connected is uncertain; but it is almost a necessary

inference that the connexion was provided by the chorus or, as in modern

oratorio, by recitative. To us the mimetic posturing of the _pantomimus_

appears an almost ridiculous substitute for drama; but the dancing of

the actors seems to have been extraordinarily artistic and at times to

have had a profound effect upon the emotions of the audience,[104] while

the brilliant success in our own time of plays in dumb show, such as the

famous _Enfant Prodigue,_ should be a warning against treating the

_pantomimus_ with contempt.

This form of entertainment was first introduced at Rome in 22 B.C. by

the actors Pylades and Bathyllus,[105] the former being famed for his

tragic dancing, the latter for a broader and more comic style, whose

dramatic counterpart would seem to have been the satyric drama.[106] The

satyric element seems, however, never to have become really popular, the

_fabula saltica_ as we know it dealing mainly with tragic or highly

emotional themes. Indeed, to judge from Lucian's disquisition on the art

of dancing, the subjects seem to have been drawn from almost every

conceivable source both of history and mythology.[107] Many of these

_salticae fabulae_ must have been mere adaptations of existing

tragedies. Their literary value was, according to Plutarch, by no means

high;[108] it was sacrificed to the music and the dancing, for the

emotional effect of which Lucian can scarcely find sufficiently high

terms of praise.[109] The themes appear to have been drawn from the more

lurid passages in mythology and history. If the libretto was not coarse

in itself, there is abundant evidence to show that the subjects chosen

were often highly lascivious, while the movements of the dancers--not

seldom men of the vilest character--were frequently to the last degree

obscene.[110] Inadequate as this substitute for the drama must seem to

us, we must remember that southern peoples were--and indeed are--far

more sensitive to the language of signs, to expressive gesticulation and

the sensuous movements of the body[111] than are the less quick-witted

and emotional peoples of the North; and further, even if for the most

part these _fabulae salticae_ had small literary value, distinguished

poets did not disdain to write librettos for popular actors. Passages

from the works of Vergil were adapted for such performances;[112] Lucan

wrote no less than fourteen _fabulae salticae,_[113] while the _Agave_

of Statius,[114] written for the dancer Paris, is famous from the

well-known passage in the seventh satire of Juvenal. Nothing survives of

these librettos to enlighten us as to their literary characteristics,

and the other details of the performance do not concern us here.[115] It

is sufficient to say that the _pantomimus_ had an enormous vogue in the

Silver Age, and won a rich harvest by his efforts, and that the factions

of the theatre, composed of the partisans of this or that actor, were

scarcely less notorious than the factions of the circus for the

disturbances to which they gave rise.[116]

Of the musical recitations of portions of existing tragedies or of

tragic episodes written for the occasion we possess even less knowledge.

The passages selected or composed for this purpose were in all

probability usually lyric, but we hear also of the chanting of iambics,

as, for instance, in the case of the _Oedipus in Exile,_ in which Nero

made his last appearance on the stage.[117] Of the part played by the

chorus and of the structure of the librettos we know nothing; they may

have been purely episodic and isolated or may, as in the _salticae

fabulae,_ have been loosely strung together into the form of an

ill-constructed play. That they were sometimes written in Greek is known

from the fact that the line quoted by Suetonius from the _Oedipus in

Exile_ mentioned above is in that language. Of the writers of this

debased and bastard offspring of drama we know nothing save that Nero,

who was passionately fond of appearing in them, seems also to have

written them. (Suet. Ner. 39.)

The tragic stage had indeed sunk low, when it served almost entirely for

exhibitions such as these. Nevertheless tragedy had not ceased to exist

even if it had ceased to hold the stage.[118] Varius and Ovid had won

fame in the Augustan age by their Thyestes and Medea, and the

post-Augustan decadence was not without its tragedians. One only is

mentioned by Quintilian in his survey of Roman poetry, Pomponius

Secundus. Of him he says (x. 1. 98), 'Of the tragedians whom I myself

have seen, Pomponius Secundus is by far the most eminent; a writer whom

the oldest men of the day thought not quite tragic enough, but

acknowledged that he excelled in learning and elegance of style.'

Pomponius was a man of great distinction.[119] His friendship for Aelius

Gallus, the son of Sejanus, had brought him into disgrace with Tiberius,

but he recovered his position under Claudius. He attained to the

consulship, and commanded with distinction in a war against the Chatti

in A.D. 50. Of his writings we know but very little. Of his plays

nothing is left save a brief fragment[120] from a play entitled

_Aeneas_; whether it dealt with the deeds of Aeneas in his native land

or in the land of his adoption is uncertain, though it is on the whole

probable that the scene was Italian and that the drama was therefore a

_fabula praetexta_. Whether his plays were performed on the public stage

is not quite clear. Tacitus tells us of riots in the theatre in A.D.

44,[121] when 'poems' by Pomponius were being recited on the stage. But

the words used by the historian (_is carmina scaenae dabat_) point

rather to the recitation of a dramatic solo than to a complete tragedy

of the orthodox type. Pomponius, dramatist and philologist,[122] remains

a mere name for us.

Another distinguished writer of plays was Curiatius Maternus, a

well-known orator; it is in his house that Tacitus places the scene of

the _Dialogus_, and he is the chief character of the conversation. He

had written his first tragedy under Nero,[123] and at the time of the

_Dialogus_ (A.D. 79-81) his _Cato_--a _fabula praetexta_--was the talk

of Rome.[124] He had written another historical drama on the ancestor of

Nero, L. Domitius Ahenobarbus, the persistent foe of Julius Caesar, who

perished on the field of Pharsalia.[125] He had also written plays on

the more hackneyed themes of Medea and Thyestes.[126] He had all the

opportunities and all the requisite gifts for a successful public

career, but his heart was with the Muses, and he resolved to quit public

life and to devote himself wholly to poetry, for there, in his

estimation, the truest fame was to be found.[127] Here our knowledge

ends. Of the details of his life we are as ignorant as of his plays.

A few other names of tragic poets are known to us. Paccius wrote an

_Alcithoe_,[128] Faustus a _Thebais_ and a _Tereus_,[129] Rubrenus Lappa

an _Atreus_,[130] while Scaevus Memor,[131] victor at the Agon

Capitolinus and brother of Turnus the satirist, wrote a _Hercules_ and a

_Hecuba_ or _Troades_.[132] Martial (xi. 9) styles him the 'glory of the

Roman buskin', but he too is but the shadow of an empty name. The

tragedies of the age are lost to us, all save the tragedies of the

philosopher Seneca, plays of which, save for one casual reference[133]

in Quintilian, contemporary literature gives no hint, but which, however

little they may have deserved it, were destined to have no negligible

influence on the subsequent history of the world's drama.

II

SENECA

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, one of the most striking figures among the great

writers of Rome, was born at Cordova[134] about the opening of the

Christian era, to be the most remarkable member of a remarkable family.

His father, who bore the same name, was the famous rhetorician to whom

we have already referred. His elder brother, M. Annaeus Novatus,[135]

was adopted by L. Iunius Gallio, whose name he assumed, had a

distinguished public career, and is best known to us, in his capacity of

governor of Achaea, as the 'Gallio' of the Acts. The youngest of the

family, M. Annaeus Mela,[136] remained in the equestrian order and

devoted himself to the acquisition of wealth, regarding this as the

safest path to fame. He succeeded to some extent in his object, but his

main claim upon our remembrance is as the father of the poet Lucan.

Lucius Seneca came to Rome at an early age,[137] and, in spite of the

bad health which afflicted him all his life long,[138] soon made his

mark as an orator. Indeed, so striking was his success that--although he

showed no particular eagerness for a political career--his sheer mastery

of the Roman speech wakened the jealousy of Caligula,[139] who only

spared his life on the ground that he suffered from chronic asthma and

was not likely to live long, and contented himself, therefore, with

mordant but not unjust criticism of the style of his intended

victim.[140] But though oratory provided Seneca with the readiest means

for the gratification of his not inconsiderable vanity, and for the

exercise of his marvellous powers of wit and epigram, it was not the

pursuit of rhetoric and its prizes that really held the first place in

his heart. That place was claimed by philosophy. His first love was

Pythagoreanism, which he studied under Sotion[14l] of Alexandria, whose

influence was sufficient to induce his youthful pupil to become a

convinced vegetarian. But his father, who hated fads and philosophers,

persuaded Seneca without much difficulty to 'dine better', and the

doctrines of Pythagoras were soon displaced by the more fashionable

teaching of the Stoics. From the lips of Attalus[142] he learned all the

principles of that ascetic school. 'I besieged his class-room,' he

writes; 'I was the first to come, the last to go; I would waylay him

when out walking and lead him to discuss serious problems.' Whether he

denounced vice and luxury, or extolled poverty, Attalus found a

convinced disciple in Seneca. His convictions did not possess sufficient

weight to lead him to embrace a life of austere poverty, but he at least

learned to sleep on a hard mattress, and to eschew hot baths, wine,

unguents, oysters, and mushrooms. How far his life conformed to the

highest principles of his creed, it is hard to say. If we are to believe

his detractors, he was guilty of committing adultery with the Princess

Julia Livilla, was surrounded with all the luxuries that the age could

supply, and drained the life-blood of Italy and the provinces by

extortionate usury.[143] During his long exile in Corsica he could write

a consolatory treatise to his mother on the thesis that the true

philosopher is never an exile;[144] wherever he is, there he is at home;

but little more than a year later he writes another consolatory treatise

to the imperial freedman Polybius, full of the most grovelling flattery

of Polybius himself and of the Emperor Claudius,[145] the same Claudius

whom he afterwards bespattered with the coarse, if occasionally

humorous, vulgarity of the _Apocolocyntosis_.[146] He was tutor to the

young Nero, but had not the strength to check his vices. He sought to

control him by flattery and platitudes rather than by the high example

of the philosophy which he professed.[147] The composition of the

treatise _ad Neronem de Clementia_ was a poor reply to Nero's murder of

Britannicus.[148] He could write eloquently of Stoic virtue, but when he

himself was confronted with the hard facts of life over which Stoicism

claimed to triumph, he proved no more than a 'lath painted to look like

iron'. Such is the case against Seneca. That it can be rebutted entirely

it is impossible to claim. But we must remember the age in which he

lived. Its love of debauchery was only equalled by its prurient love of

scandal. Seneca's banishment on the charge of an intrigue with Livilla

is not seriously damaging. The accusation _may_ have been true: it is at

least as likely to have been false, for it was instigated by Messalina.

That he lived in wealth and luxury is undoubted: his only defence was

that he was really indifferent to it; he could face any future; he had,

therefore, a right to enjoy the present.[149] That he ground down the

provincials by his usury is possible; the standard in such matters was

low, and the real nature of his extortions may never have come home to

him; he must have depended largely on his agents. With regard to his

management of the young princeps the case is different. Seneca was given

an almost impossible task. Neither his nature nor his surroundings made

Nero a suitable subject for moral instruction. Seneca must have been

hampered at every turn. He must either bend or break. At least he won

the respect of his pupil, and the good governance of the empire during

the first five years of Nero's reign was due largely to the fact that

the power was really in the hands of Seneca and Burrus.[150] Many of the

weaknesses of his character may be accounted for by physical debility,

and we must further remember that a Stoic of the age of Nero found

himself in a most difficult position. He could not put his principles

into full practice in public life without incurring the certain

displeasure of the emperor. The stricter Stoic, therefore, like Thrasea,

retired to the seclusion of his estates 'condemning the wicked world of

Rome by his absence from it'.[151] Seneca, weaker, but possessed of

greater common sense, chose the _via media_. He was content to sacrifice

something of his principles to the service of Rome--and of himself. It

is not necessary to regard him as wholly disinterested in his conduct;

it is unjust and absurd to regard him as a glorified Tartuffe.[152] Such

a supposition is adequately refuted by his writings. It is easy for a

writer at once so fluent and so brilliant to give the impression of

insincerity; but the philosophical works of Seneca ring surprisingly

true. We cannot doubt his faith, though his life may at times have

belied it. He reveals a warmth of human feeling, a richness of

imagination, a comprehension of human failings and sorrows, that make

him rank high among the great preachers of the world. Even here, it is

true, he has his failings; he repeats himself, has little constructive

talent, and fails at times to conceal a passion for the obvious beneath

the brilliance of his epigram. But alike in the spheres of politics and

literature he is the greatest man of his age. In literature he stands

alone: he is a prose Ovid, with the saving gift of moral fervour. His

style is terse and epigrammatic, but never obscure; it lacks the roll of

the continuous prose of the Augustan age, but its phrases have a beauty

and a music of their own: at their best they are touched with a genuine

vein of poetry, at their worst they have a hard brilliance against the

attractions of which only the most fastidious eye is proof. He towered

over all his contemporaries. In him were concentrated all the

excellences of the rhetorical schools of the day. Seneca became the

model for literary aspirants to copy. But he was a dangerous model. His

lack of connexion and rhythm became exaggerated by his followers, and

the slightest lack of dexterity in the imitator led to a flashy

tawdriness such as Seneca himself had as a rule avoided. He was too

facile and careless a composer to yield a canon for style. The reaction

came soon. Involved, whether justly or not, in the Pisonian conspiracy

of 65 A.D., he was forced to commit suicide. He died as the Stoics of

the age were wont to die, cheerfully, courageously, and with

self-conscious ostentation.[153] Within a few years of his death the

great Ciceronian reaction headed by Quintilian began. The very vehemence

with which the Senecan style was attacked, now by Quintilian[154] and

later by Fronto,[155] shows what a commanding position he held.

He was poet as well as philosopher. Quintilian tells us that he left

scarcely any branch of literature untouched. 'We possess,' he says, 'his

speeches, poems, letters, and dialogues.'[156] Two collections of poems

attributed to Seneca have come down to us, a collection of epigrams and

a collection of dramas. There is strangely little external evidence to

support either attribution, but in neither case can there be any serious

doubt as to the general correctness of the tradition.

The _Anthologia Latina_, compiled at Carthage in the sixth century,

opens with seventy-three epigrams, of which three are attributed by the

MSS. to Seneca (_Poet. Lat. Min._ 1-3, Baehrens). The first is entitled

_de qualitate temporis_ and descants on the ultimate destruction of the

world by fire--a well-known Stoical doctrine. The second and third are

fierce denunciations of Corsica, his place of exile. The rest are

nameless. But there are several which can only be attributed to Seneca.

The ninth is entitled _de se ad patriam_, and is addressed to Cordova by

one plunged in deep misfortune--a clear reference to his banishment in

Corsica. The fifty-first is a prayer that the author's two brothers may

be happier than himself, and that 'the little Marcus may rival his

uncles in eloquence'. The brothers are described one as older, the other

as younger than the author. It is an obvious inference that the brothers

referred to are Gallio and Mela, while it is possible that the little

Marcus is no other than the gifted son of Mela, Marcus Annaeus Lucanus,

the epic poet.[157] The fifteenth represents him as an exile in a barren

land: he appeals to a faithful friend named Crispus, probably the

distinguished orator Passienus Crispus, the younger, who was consul for

the second time in 44 A.D.[158] There are also other epigrams which,

though less explicit, suit the circumstances of Seneca's exile. The

fifth is written in praise of the quiet life. The author has two

brothers (l. 14), and at the opening of the poem cries, 'let others seek

the praetorship!' In this connexion it is noteworthy that at the time of

his banishment Seneca had held no higher office than the quaestorship.

The seventeenth and eighteenth are on the same subject, and contain a

solemn warning against _regum amicitiae_, appropriate enough in the

mouth of the victim of a court intrigue. Epigrams 29-36 are devoted to

the praises of Claudius for his conquest of Britain. Claudius had

banished him and was a suitable subject for flattery. For the rest the

poems are largely of the republican character so fashionable in Stoic

circles during the first century of the empire. There are many epigrams

on Cato [159] and the Pompeys. Others, again, are of a rhetorical

nature, dealing with scholastic themes;[160] others of an erotic and

even scandalous character. We can claim no certainty for the view that

all these poems are by Seneca, but there is a general resemblance of

style throughout, and probability points to the whole collection being

by the same author. The fact that the same theme is treated more than

once scarcely stands in the way. We cannot dictate the amusements of a

weary exile. It would be rash even to deny the possibility of his being

the author of the erotic poems.[161] Philosopher as he was, he had been

banished on a charge of adultery: without in any way admitting the truth

of that accusation, we may readily believe that he stooped to one of the

fashionable amusements of the day, the composition of pointed and

unsavoury verse; for the standard of morality in writing was far lower

than the standard of morals in actual life.[162]

The poems repay reading, but call for little comment. They lack

originality. The thought is thin, the expression neat, though scarcely

as pointed as we might expect from such an author, while the metre is

graceful: the treatment of the elegiac is freer than that of Ovid, but

pleasing and melodious. At times powerful lines flash out.

qua frigida semper

praefulget stellis Arctos inocciduis (xxxvi. 6)

Where the cold constellation of the heaven gleams

ever with unsetting stars.

shines out from the midst of banal flattery of the emperor with

astonishing splendour. The poem _de qualitate temporis_ (4) closes with

four fine lines with the unmistakable Senecan ring about them--

quid tam parva loquor? moles pulcerrima caeli

ardebit flammis tota repente suis.

omnia mors poscit. lex est, non poena, perire:

hic aliquo mundus tempore nullus erit.

Why speak of things so small? The glorious vault of

heaven one day shall blaze with sudden self-kindled

flame. Death calls for all creation. 'Tis a law, not

a penalty to perish. The universe itself shall one day

be as though it had never been.

Cato (9) deliberates on suicide with characteristic rhetoric, artificial

in the extreme, but not devoid of dignity--

estne aliquid, quod Cato non potuit?

dextera, me vitas? durum est iugulasse Catonem?

sed, quia liber erit, iam puto, non dubitas.

fas non est vivum cuiquam servire Catonem:

quinctiam vivit nunc Cato, si moritur.[2]

Is there then that which Cato had not the heart to do?

Right-hand, dost thou shrink from me? Is it hard to slay

Cato? Nay, methinks thou dost hesitate no more, for thou

shalt set Cato free. 'Tis a crime that Cato should live

to be any man's slave; nay, Cato truly lives if Cato die.

Cleverest of all is the treatment of the rhetorical theme of the two

brothers who meet in battle in the civil war (72). The one unwittingly

slays the other, strips the slain, and discovers what he has done--

quod fuerat virtus, factum est scelus. haeret in hoste

miles et e manibus mittere tela timet.

inde ferox: 'quid, lenta manus, nunc denique cessas?

iustius hoste tibi qui moriatur adest.

fraternam res nulla potest defendere caedem;

mors tua sola potest: morte luenda tua est,

scilicet ad patrios referes spolia ampla penates?

ad patrem victor non potes ire tuum.

sed potes ad fratrem: nunc fortiter utere telo!

impius hoc telo es, hoc potes esse pius.

vivere si poteris, potuisti occidere fratrem!

nescisti: sed scis: haec mora culpa tua est.

viximus adversis, iaccamus partibus isdem

(dixit et in dubio est utrius ense cadat).

ense meo moriar, maculato morte nefanda?

cui moreris, ferrum quo moriare dabit.'

dixit et in fratrem fraterno concidit ense:

victorem et victum condidit una manus.[163]

What had been valour now is made a crime. The soldier

halts by his foe and fears to launch his shafts. Then

his courage rekindled. 'What! coward hand, dost thou

delay _now_? There is one here whom thou shouldst slay

sooner than the foe. Naught can assoil of the guilt of

a brother's blood save only death; 'tis thy death must

atone. Shalt thou bear home to thy father's halls rich

spoil of war? Nay, victor thus, thou canst not go to meet

thy sire. But victor thou canst go to meet thy brother;

_now_ use thy weapon bravely. This weapon stained thee with

crime, 'tis this weapon shall make thee clean. If thou hast

heart to live, thou hadst the heart to slay thy brother;

thou _hadst_ no such murderous thought, but _now_ thou hast;

this thy tarrying brings thee guilt. We have lived foes, let

us lie united in the peace of the grave.' He ceased and

doubted on whose sword to fall.' Shall I die by mine own

sword, thus foul with shameful murder. He for whom thou diest

shall give thee the steel wherewith to die.' He ceased, and

fell dead upon his brother, slain by his brother's sword.

The same hand slew both victor and vanquished.

This is not poetry of the first class, if indeed it is poetry at all.

But it is trick-rhetoric of the most brilliant kind without degenerating

into bombastic absurdity. There is, in fact, a restraint in these

epigrams which provides a remarkable contrast with the turgid

extravagance that defaces so much of the dramas. This is in part due to

the difference of the moulds into which the rhetoric is run, but it is

hard to resist the belief that the epigrams--written mainly during the

exile in Corsica--are considerably later than the plays. They are in

themselves insignificant; they show no advance in dexterity upon the

dramas, but they do show a distinct increase of maturity.

The plays are ten in number; they comprise a _Hercules Furens, Troades,

Phoenissae_ (or _Thebais_), _Medea, Phaedra_ (or _Hippolytus_),

_Oedipus, Agamemnon, Thyestes, Hercules Oetaeus_, and--sole example of

the _fabula praetexta_--the _Octavia_. Despite the curious silence of

Seneca himself and of his contemporaries, there can be little doubt as

to the general correctness of the attribution which assigns to Seneca

the only Latin tragedies that grudging time has spared us. The _Medea,

Hercules Furens, Troades, Phaedra, Agamemnon_, and _Thyestes_ are all

cited by late writers, while Quintilian[164] himself cites a line from

the Medea as the work of Seneca. The name Seneca, without any further

specification, points as clearly to Seneca, the philosopher, as the name

Cicero to the great orator. The absence of any further or more explicit

reference on the part of Quintilian to Seneca's achievements as a

tragedian is easily explained on the supposition that the critic

regarded them as but an insignificant portion of his work. Yet stronger

confirmation is afforded by the internal evidence. The verse is marked

by the same brilliant but fatiguing terseness, the same polish and

point, the same sententiousness, the same succession of short stabbing

sentences, that mark the prose works of Seneca.[165] More remarkable

still is the close parallelism of thought. The plays are permeated

through and through with Stoicism, and the expression given to certain

Stoical doctrines is often almost identical with passages from the

philosophical works.[166] Against these evidences the silence of Seneca

himself counts for little. We may charitably suppose that he rated his

plays at their just value. In any case a poet is under no compulsion to

quote his own verses, or even to refer to them, in works of a totally

different nature.[167]

A more serious question is whether Seneca is the author of all the plays

transmitted to us under his name. The authenticity of four of these

dramas has been seriously questioned. That the _Octavia_ is by a later

hand may be regarded as certain. Seneca could hardly have dared to write

a play on so dangerous a theme--the brutal treatment by Nero of his

young wife Octavia. Moreover, Seneca himself is one of the dramatis

personae, and there are clear references to the death of Nero, while the

style is simple and restrained, and wholly unlike that of the other

plays. It is the work of a saner and less flamboyant age.[168] The

_Agamemnon_ and the _Oedipus_ have been suspected on the ground that

certain of the lyric portions are written in a curious patchwork metre

of a character fortunately unique in Latin lyric verse. The _Agamemnon_

further has two choruses.[169] But in all other respects the language,

technique, and metre closely resemble the other dramas. Neither

objection need carry any weight. There is no reason why Seneca should

not have introduced a double chorus or have indulged in unsuccessful

metrical experiments.[170] Far more difficult is the problem presented

by the _Hercules Oetaeus_. It presents many anomalies, of which the

least are a double chorus and a change of scene from Oechalia to

Trachis. Imitations and plagiarisms from the other plays abound, and the

work has more than its fair share of vain repetitions and tasteless

absurdities. On the other hand, metre and diction closely recall the

dramas accepted as genuine. It is hard to give any certain answer to

such a complicated problem, but it is noteworthy that all the worst

defects in this play (which among its other peculiarities possesses

abnormal length) occur after l. 705, while the earlier scenes depicting

the jealousy of Deianira show the Senecan dramatic style almost at its

best. Even in the later portion of the play there is much that may be by

the hand of Seneca. It is impossible to brand the drama as wholly

spurious. The opening lines (1-232) may not belong to the play, but may

form an entirely separate scene dealing with the capture of Oechalia:

there is no reason to suppose that they are not by Seneca, and the same

statement applies to the great bulk of ll. 233-705. The remainder has in

all probability suffered largely from interpolation, but its general

resemblance to Seneca in style and diction is too strongly marked to

permit us to reject it _en bloc_. The problem is too obscure to repay

detailed discussion.[171] The most probable solution of the question

would seem to be that the work was left in an unfinished condition with

inconsistencies, self-plagiarisms, repetitions, and absurdities which

revision would have removed; this unfinished drama was then worked over

and corrected by a stupid, but careful student of Seneca.

There is such a complete absence of evidence as to the period of

Seneca's life during which these dramas were composed, that much

ingenuity has been wasted in attempts to solve the problem. The view

most widely held--why it should be held is a mystery--is that they were

composed during Seneca's exile in Corsica (41-9 A.D.).[172] Others,

again, hold that they were written for the delectation of the young

Nero, who had early betrayed a taste for the stage. This view has

nothing to support it save the accusation mentioned by Tacitus,[173] to

the effect that the patronage and approval of Nero led Seneca to write

verse more frequently than his wont. Direct evidence there is none, but

the general crudity of the work, coupled with the pedantic hardness and

rigidity of the Stoicism which pervades the plays, points strongly to an

early date, considerably earlier than the exile in Corsica. There is no

trace of the mature experience and feeling for humanity that

characterize the later philosophical works. On the contrary, these plays

are just what might be expected of a young man fresh from the schools of

rhetoric and philosophy.[174] As to the order in which the plays were

written there is practically nothing to guide us.[175] The _Hercules

Oetaeus_ is probably the latest, for in it we find plagiarisms from the

_Hercules Furens, Oedipus, Thyestes, Phoenissae, Phaedra_, and

_Troades_. Even here, however, there is an element of uncertainty, for

it is impossible to ascertain whether any given plagiarism is due to

Seneca or to his interpolators.

Leaving such barren and unprofitable ground, what can we say of the

plays themselves? Even after making due allowance for the hopeless

decline of dramatic taste and for the ruin wrought by the schools of

rhetoric, it is hard to speak with patience of such productions, when we

recall the brilliance and charm of the prose works of Seneca. We can

forgive him being rhetorical when he speaks for himself; when he speaks

through the lips of others he is less easily tolerable.

Drama is a reading of human life: if it is to hold one's interest it

must deal with the feelings, thought, and action of genuine human beings

and represent their complex interaction: the characters must be real and

must differ one from the other, so that by force of contrast and by the

continued play of diverse aspects and developments of the human soul,

the significance, the pathos, and the power of the fragment of human

life selected for representation may be fully brought out and set before

our eyes. If these characteristics be absent, the drama must of

necessity be an artistic failure by reason of its lack of truth. But it

requires also plot, with a logical growth leading to some great climax

and developing a growing suspense in the spectator as to what shall be

the end. It is true that plot without reality may give us a successful

melodrama, that truth of character-drawing with a minimum of plot may

move and interest us. But in neither case shall we have drama in its

truest and noblest form.

Seneca gives us neither the half nor the whole. The stage is ultimately

the touchstone of dramatic excellence. But if it is to be such a

touchstone, it must have an audience with a penetration of intelligence

and a soundness of taste such as had long ceased to characterize Roman

audiences. The Senecan drama has lost touch with the stage and lacks

both unity and life. Such superficial unity as his plots possess is due

to the fact that they are ultimately imitations of Greek[176] drama. A

full discussion of the plots is neither necessary here nor possible. A

few instances of Seneca's treatment of his material must suffice.[177]

He has no sense of logical development; the lack of sequence and of

proportion traceable in the letters is more painfully evident in the

tragedies.

The _Hercules Furens_ supplies an excellent example of the weakness of

the Senecan plot. It is based on the [Greek: H_erakl_es mainomenos] of

Euripides, and such unity as it possesses is in the main due to that

fact. It is in his chief divergences from the Euripidean treatment of

the story that his deficiencies become most apparent. Theseus appears

early in the play merely that he may deliver a long rhodomontade on the

appearance of the underworld, whence Hercules has rescued him; and,

worst of all, the return of Hercules is rendered wholly ineffective.

Amphitryon hears the approaching steps of Hercules as he bursts his way

to the upper world and cries (523)--

est est sonitus Herculei gradus.

The chorus then, as if they had heard nothing, deliver themselves of a

chant that describes Hercules as still a prisoner in Hades. When

Hercules at last is allowed to appear, he appears alone, and delivers a

long ranting glorification of himself (592-617) before he is joined by

his father, wife, and children. As Leo has remarked,[178] this episode

has been tastelessly torn into two fragments merely to give Hercules an

opportunity for turgid declamation.

The _Medea_, again, is, on the whole, Euripidean in form, though it

probably owes much to the influence of Ovid.[179] It is, moreover, the

least tasteless and best constructed of his tragedies. It loses

comparatively little by the omission of the Aegeus episode, but suffers

terribly by the insertion of a bombastic description of Medea's

incantations. The love of the Silver Age for rhetoric has converted

Medea into a skilful rhetorician, its love for the black art has

degraded her to a vulgar sorceress. Nothing, again, can be cruder or

more awkward than the manner in which the news of the death of Creon and

his daughter is announced. After an interval so brief as scarcely to

suffice even for the conveyance of the poisoned gifts to the palace, in

rushes a messenger crying (879)--

periere cuncta, concidit regni status.

nata atque genitor cinere permixto iacent.

_Cho_. qua fraude capti? _Nunt_. qua solent

reges capi, donis.

_Cho_. in illis esse quis potuit dolus?

_Nunt_. et ipse miror vixque iam facto malo

potuisse fieri credo; quis cladis modus?

avidus per omnem regiae partem furit

ut iussus ignis: iam domus tota occidit,

urbi timetur.

_Cho_. unda flammas opprimat.

_Nunt_. et hoc in ista clade mirandum accidit,

alit unda flammas, quoque prohibetur magis,

magis ardet ignis: ipsa praesidia occupat.

All is lost! the kingdom's fallen! Father and

daughter lie in mingled dust!

_Ch_. By what snare taken?

_Mess_. By gifts, the snare of kings.

_Ch_. What harm could lurk in them?

_Mess_. Myself I marvel, and scarce though the deed

is done can I believe it possible. How died they?

Devouring flames rage through all the palace as at

her command. Now the whole house is fallen and men

fear for the city.

_Ch_. Let water quench the flames.

_Mess_. Nay, in this overthrow is this added wonder.

Water feeds the flames and opposition makes the fire

burn fiercer. It hath seared even that which should

have stayed its power.

That is all: if we had not read Euripides we should scarcely understand

the connexion between the gifts and the mysterious fire. Seneca, with

the lack of proportion displayed in nearly all his dramas, has spent so

much time in describing the wholly irrelevant and absurd details of

Medea's incantations that he finds no room to give what might be a

really dramatic description of the all-important catastrophe in which

Medea's vengeance finds issue. There is hardly a play which will not

provide similar instances of the lack of genuine constructive power. In

the _Oedipus_ we get the same long narrative of horror that has

disfigured the _Hercules Furens_ and the _Medea_. Creon describes to us

the dark rites of incantation used to evoke the shade of Laius.[180] In

the _Phaedra_ we find what at first would seem to be a clever piece of

stagecraft. Hippolytus, scandalized at Phaedra's avowal of her

incestuous passion, seizes her by the hair and draws his sword as though

to slay her. He changes his purpose, but the nurse has seen him and

calls for aid, denouncing Hippolytus' violence and clearly intending to

make use of it as damning evidence against him. But the chorus refuse to

credit her, and the incident falls flat.[181] Everywhere there is the

same casual workmanship. If we stop short of denying to Seneca the

possession of any dramatic talent, it is at any rate hard to resist the

conviction that he treated the plays as a _parergon_, spending little

thought or care on their _ensemble_, though at times working up a scene

or scenes with an elaboration and skill as unmistakable as it is often

misdirected.

The plays are, in fact, as Nisard has admirably put it, _drames de

recette_. The recipe consists in the employment of three

ingredients--description, declamation, and philosophic aphorism. There

is room for all these ingredients in drama as in human life, but in

Seneca there is little else: these three elements conspire together to

swamp the drama, and they do this the more effectively because, for

all their cleverness, Seneca's description and declamation are

radically bad. It is but rarely that he shows himself capable of

simple and natural language. If a tragic event enacted off the stage

requires description, it must outdo all other descriptions of the same

type. And seeing that one of the chief uses of narrative in tragedy is

to present to the imagination of the audience events which are too

horrible for their eyes, the result in Seneca's hands is often little

less than revolting. For example, the self-blinding of Oedipus is set

forth with every detail of horror, possible and impossible, till the

imagination sickens.

(961) gemuit et dirum fremens

manus in ora torsit, at contra truces

oculi steterunt et suam intenti manum

ultro insequuntur, vulneri occurrunt suo.

scrutatur avidus manibus uncis lumina,

radice ab ima funditus vulsos simul

evolvit orbes; haeret in vacuo manus

et fixa penitus unguibus lacerat cavos

alte recessus luminum et inanes sinus

saevitque frustra plusque quam satis est furit.

The last line is an epitome of Seneca's methods of description. Yet more

revolting is the speech of the messenger describing the banquet, at

which Atreus placed the flesh of Thyestes' murdered sons before their

father (623-788). Nothing is spared us, much that is impossible is

added.[182] At times, moreover, this love of horrors leads to the

introduction of descriptions wholly alien to the play. In the _Hercules

Furens_ the time during which Hercules is absent from the scene, engaged

in the slaying of the tyrant Lycus, is filled by a description of Hades

from the mouth of Theseus, who is fresh-come from the underworld. The

speech is not peculiarly bad in itself; it is only very long[183]

(658-829) and very irrelevant.

The effect of the declamation is not less unhappy. Seneca's dramatis

personae rarely speak like reasoning human beings: they rant at one

another or at the audience with such overwrought subtleties of speech

and rhetorical perversions that they give the impression of being no

more than mechanical puppets handled by a crafty but inartistic showman.

All speak the same strange language, a language born in the rhetorical

schools of Greece and Rome. Gods and mortals alike suffer the same

melancholy fate. Juno, when she declares her resolve to afflict Hercules

with madness, addresses the furies who are to be her ministers as

follows (_H.F._ 105):

concutite pectus, acrior mentem excoquat

quam qui caminis ignis Aetnaeis furit:

ut possit animo captus Alcides agi

magno furore percitus, nobis prius

insaniendum est--Iuno, cur nondum furis?

me me, sorores, mente deiectam mea

versate primam, facere si quicquam apparo

dignum noverca; vota mutentur mea:

natos reversus videat incolumes precor

manuque fortis redeat: inveni diem

invisa quo nos Herculis virtus iuvet.

me vicit et se vincat et cupiat mori

ab inferis reversus....

pugnanti Herculi

tandem favebo.

Distract his heart with madness: let his soul

More fiercely burn than that hot fire which glows

On Aetna's forge. But first, that Hercules

May be to madness driven, smitten through

With mighty passion, I must be insane.

Why rav'st thou not, O Juno? Me, oh, me,

Ye sisters, first of sanity deprive,

That something worthy of a stepdame's wrath

I may prepare. Let all my hate be change

To favour. Now I pray that he may come

To earth again, and see his sons unharmed;

May he return with all his old time strength.

Now have I found a day when Hercules

May help me with his strength that I deplore.

Now let him equally o'ercome himself

And me; and let him, late escaped from death,

Desire to die... And so at last I'll help

Alcides in his wars. MILLER.

She is clearly a near relative of that Oedipus who, in the _Phoenissae_,

begs Antigone to lead him to the rock where the Sphinx sat of old (120):

dirige huc gressus pedum,

hic siste patrem. dira ne sedes vacet.

monstrum repone maius. hoc saxum insidens

obscura nostrae verba fortunae loquar,

quae nemo solvat.

... saeva Thebarum lues

luctifica caecis verba committens modis

quid simile posuit? quid tam inextricabile?

avi gener patrisque rivalis sui

frater suorum liberum et fratrum parens;

uno avia partu liberos. peperit viro,

sibi et nepotes. monstra quis tanta explicat?

ego ipse, victae spolia qui Sphingis tuli,

haerebo fati tardus interpres mei.

Direct me thither, set thy father there.

Let not that dreadful seat be empty long,

But place me there a greater monster still.

There will I sit and of my fate propose

A riddle dark that no man shall resolve.

* * * * *

What riddle like to this could she propose,

That curse of Thebes, who wove destructive words

In puzzling measures? What so dark as this?

_He was his grandsire's son-in-law, and yet

His father's rival; brother of his sons,

And father of his brothers: at one birth

The grandame bore unto her husband sons,

And grandsons to herself_. Who can unwind

A tangle such as this? E'en I myself,

Who bore the spoils of triumph o'er the Sphinx,

Stand mute before the riddle of my fate.

MILLER.

There is no need to multiply instances; each play will supply many. Only

in the _Troades_[184] and the _Phaedra_ does this declamatory rhetoric

rise to something higher than mere declamation and near akin to true

poetry. In these plays there are two speeches standing on a different

plane to anything else in Seneca's iambics. In the _Troades_ Agamemnon

is protesting against the proposed sacrifice of Polyxena to the spirit

of the dead Achilles (255).

quid caede dira nobiles clari ducis

aspergis umbras? noscere hoc primum decet,

quid facere victor debeat, victus pati.

violenta nemo imperia continuit diu,

moderata durant; ...

magna momento obrui

vincendo didici. Troia nos tumidos facit

nimium ac feroces? stamus hoc Danai loco,

unde illa cecidit. fateor, aliquando impotens

regno ac superbus altius memet tuli;

sed fregit illos spiritus haec quae dare

potuisset aliis causa, Fortunae favor.

tu me superbum, Priame, tu timidum facis.

ego esse quicquam sceptra nisi vano putem

fulgore tectum nomen et falso comam

vinclo decentem? casus haec rapiet brevis,

nec mille forsan ratibus aut annis decem.

... fatebor ... affligi Phrygas

vincique volui; ruere et aequari solo

utinam arcuissem.

Why besmirch with murder foul the noble shade of that

renowned chief? First must thou learn the bounds of a

victor's power, of the vanquished's suffering. No man

for long has held unbridled sway; only self-control may

endure ... I myself have conquered and have learned

thereby that man's mightiness may fall in the twinkling

of an eye. Shall Troy o'erthrown exalt our pride and make

us overbold? Here we the Danaans stand on the spot whence

she has fallen. Of old, I own, I have borne myself too

haughtily, self-willed and proud of my power. But Fortune's

favour, which had made another proud, has broken my pride.

Priam, thou makest me proud, thou makest me tremble. I count

the sceptre naught save a glory bright with worthless tinsel

that sets the vain splendour of a crown upon my brow. All

this the chance of one short hour may take from me without

the aid of a thousand ships and ten long years of siege ...

I will own my fault ... I desired to crush and conquer Troy.

Would I had forbidden to lay her low and raze her walls to

the ground!

The thought is not deep: the speech might serve for a model for a

_suasoria_ in the schools of rhetoric. But there is a stateliness and

dignity about it that is most rare in these plays. At last after dreary

tracts of empty rant we meet Seneca, the spiritual guide of the epistles

and the treatises.

Far more striking, however, from the dramatic standpoint, are the great

speeches in the _Phaedra_, where the heroine makes known her passion for

Hippolytus (600 sqq.). They are frankly rhetorical, but direct,

passionate, and to the point. They contain few striking lines or

sentiments, but they are clear and comparatively free from affectation.

Theseus has maddened Phaedra by his infidelities, and has long been

absent from her, imprisoned in the underworld. An uncontrollable passion

for her stepson has come upon her. She appeals to the unsuspecting

Hippolytus for pity and protection (619):

muliebre non est regna tutari urbium;

tu qui iuventae flore primaevo viges

cives paterno fortis imperio rege,

sinu receptam supplicem ac servam tege.

miserere viduae.

_Hipp_. Summus hoc omen deus avertat.

aderit sospes actutum parens.

'Tis no woman's task to rule cities. Do thou,

strong in the flower of thy first youth, flinch

not, but govern the state by the power thy father

held. Take me and shield me in thy bosom, thy

suppliant and thy slave! Pity thy father's widow.

_Hipp_. Nay, high heaven avert the omen. Soon shall

my father return unscathed.

Phaedra then begins to show her true colours. 'Nay!' she replies, 'he

will not come. Pluto holds him fast, the would-be ravisher of his bride,

unless indeed Pluto, like others I wot of, is indifferent to love.'

Hippolytus attempts to console her: he will do all in his power to make

life easy for her:

et te merebor esse ne viduam putes

ac tibi parentis ipse supplebo locum.

I shall prove me worthy of thee: so thou shalt not deem

thyself a widow. I will fill up my absent father's room.

These innocent words are as fuel to Phaedra's passion. She turns to him

again appealing for pity, pity for an ill she dare not name--

quod in novercam cadere vix credas malum.

He bids her speak out. She replies, 'Love consumes me with an

all-devouring flame. 'He still fails to catch her meaning, supposing

that the passion of which she speaks is for the absent Theseus. She can

restrain herself no longer: 'Aye, 'tis for Theseus!' she cries (646):

Hippolyte, sic est; Thesei vultus amo [185]

illos priores quos tulit quondam puer,

cum prima puras barba signaret genas

monstrique caecam Cnosii vidit domum

et longa curva fila collegit via.

quis tum ille fulsit! presserant vittae comam

et ora flavus tenera tinguebat pudor;

inerant lacertis mollibus fortes tori;

tuaeque Phoebes vultus aut Phoebi mei,

tuusque potius--talis, en talis fuit

cum placuit hosti, sic tulit celsum caput:

in te magis refulget incomptus decor;

est genitor in te totus et torvae tamen

pars aliqua matris miscet ex aequo decus;

in ore Graio Scythicus apparet rigor.

si cum parente Creticum intrasses fretum,

tibi fila potius nostra nevisset soror.

te te, soror, quacumque siderei poli

in parte fulges, invoco ad causam parem:

domus sorores una corripuit duas,

te genitor, at me natus. en supplex iacet

adlapsa genibus regiae proles domus,

respersa nulla labe et intacta, innocens

tibi mutor uni. certa descendi ad preces:

finem hic dolori faciet aut vitae dies,

miserere amantis.[186]

Even so, Hippolytus; I love the face that Theseus wore,

in the days of old while yet he was a boy, when the first

down marked his bright cheeks and he looked on the dark

home of the Cretan monster and gathered the long magic

thread along the winding way. Ah! how then he shone upon my

eyes. A wreath was about his hair and his delicate cheeks

glowed with the golden bloom of modesty. Strong sinews stood

out upon his shapely arms and his countenance was the

countenance of the goddess that thou servest or of mine own

bright sun-god; nay, rather 'twas as thine own. Even so, even

so looked he when he won the heart of her that was his foe,

and lofty was his carriage like to thine. But in thee still

brighter shines an artless glory, and on thee is all thy

father's beauty. Yet mingled therewith in equal portion is

something of thy wild mother's fairness. On thy Greek face is

seen the fierceness of the Scythian. Hadst thou sailed o'er

the sea with thy sire to Crete, for thee rather had my sister

spun the magic thread. On thee, on thee, my sister, I call

where'er thou shinest in the starry heaven, on thee I call

to aid my cause. Lo! sisters twain hath one house brought to

naught--thee did the father ruin, me the son. Lo! suppliant at

thy knees I fall, the daughter of a king, stainless and pure

and innocent. For thee alone I swerve from my course. I have

steeled my soul and stooped to beg of thee. Today shall end

either my sorrow or my life. Pity, have pity, on her that

loves thee.

Then the storm of Hippolytus' anger breaks. Here at least Seneca has

used his great rhetorical gifts to good effect. The passion may be

highly artificial when compared with the passion of the genuinely human

Phaedra of Euripides, but it is nevertheless passion and not bombast:

crudity there may be, but there is no real irrelevance.

There is less to praise and more to wonder at in Seneca's dialogue.

Instead of rational conversation or controversy, he gives us a brilliant

but meretricious display of epigram, the mechanical nature of which is

often emphasized by a curious symmetry of structure. For line after line

one character takes up the words of another and turns them against him

with dexterity as extraordinary as it is monotonous. The resulting

artificiality is almost incredible. It appears in its most extravagant

form in the _Thyestes_.[187] Scarcely less strained, though from the

nature of the subject the extravagance is less repellent, is a passage

in the _Troades_. Achilles' ghost has demanded the sacrifice of

Polyxena. Agamemnon hesitates to give orders for the sacrifice. Pyrrhus,

Achilles' son, enumerates the great deeds of his father, and asks,

indignantly, if such glory is to win naught save neglect after death.

Agamemnon has sacrificed his own daughter, why should he not sacrifice

Priam's? Agamemnon--in the speech quoted above--refuses indignantly.

'Sacrifice oxen if you will: no human blood shall be shed!' Pyrrhus

replies (306):

hac dextra Achilli victimam reddam suam.

quam si negas retinesque, maiorem dabo

dignamque quam det Pyrrhus; et nimium diu

a caede nostra regia cessat manus

paremque poscit Priamus.

_Agam_. haud equidem nego hoc esse Pyrrhi

maximum in bello decus, saevo peremptus

ense quod Priamus iacet, _supplex paternus.

_Pyrrh_. _supplices_ nostri _patris_

hostesque eosdem novimus. Priamus tamen

praesens rogavit; tu gravi pavidus metu,

nec ad rogandum fortis Aiaci preces

Ithacoque mandas clausus atque hostem tremens.

By this right hand he shall receive his own.

And if thou dost refuse and keep the maid,

A greater victim will I slay, and one

More worthy Pyrrhus' gift: for all too long

From royal slaughter hath my hand been free,

And Priam asks an equal sacrifice.

_Agam_. Far be it from my wish to dim the praise

That thou dost claim for this most glorious deed--

Old Priam slain by thy barbaric sword,

Thy father's suppliant.

_Pyrrh_. I know full well

My father's suppliants--and well I know

His enemies. Yet royal Priam came

And made his plea before my father's face;

But thou, o'ercome with fear, not brave enough

Thyself to make request, within thy tent

Did trembling hide, and thy desires consign

To braver men, that they might plead for thee.

MILLER.

Agamemnon retorts, 'What of your father, when he shirked the toils of

war and lay idly in his tent?'--

levi canoram verberans plectro chelyn.

_Pyrrh_. tunc magnus Hector, arma contemnens tua,

cantus Achillis timuit et tanto in metu

_navalibus pax alta Thessalicis fuit_.

_Agam_. nempe isdem in _istis Thessalis navalibus

pax alta_ rursus Hectoris patri _fuit_.

_Pyrrh_. est _regis_ alti _spiritum_ regi dare.

_Agam_. cur dextra _regi spiritum_ eripuit tua?

_Pyrrh_. mortem _misericors_ saepe pro vita dabit.

_Agam_. et nunc _misericors_ virginem busto petis?

_Pyrrh_. iamne immolari virgines credis nefas?

_Agam_. praeferre patriam liberis regem decet.

_Pyrrh_. _lex_ nulla capto parcit aut poenam impedit.

_Agam_. quod non vetat _lex_, hoc vetat fieri pudor.

_Pyrrh_. quodcumque _libuit_ facere victori _licet_.

_Agam_. minimum decet _libere_ cui multum _licet_.

Idly strumming on his tuneful lyre.

_Pyrrh_. Then mighty Hector, scornful of thy arms,

Yet felt such wholesome fear of that same lyre,

That our _Thessalian ships_ were left in _peace_.

_Agam_. An equal _peace_ did Hector's father find,

When he betook him to Achilles' _ships_.

_Pyrrh_. 'Tis regal thus to spare a _kingly life_.

_Agam_. Why then didst thou a _kingly life_ despoil?

_Pyrrh_. But _mercy_ oft doth offer death for life.

_Agam_. Doth _mercy_ now demand a maiden's blood?

_Pyrrh_. Canst thou proclaim such sacrifice a sin?

_Agam_. A king must love his country more than child.

_Pyrrh_. No _law_ the wretched captive's life doth spare.

_Agam_. What _law_ forbids not, yet may shame forbid.

_Pyrrh_. 'Tis victor's right to do whate'er he _will_.

_Agam_. Then should he _will_ the least, who most can do.

MILLER.

The cleverness of this is undeniable: individual lines (e.g. the last)

are striking. Taken collectively they are ineffective; we feel,

moreover, that the cleverness is mere knack: the continued picking up of

the adversary's words to be used as weapons against himself is

wearisome. It would be nearly as great a strain to listen to such a

dialogue as to take part in it: the atmosphere is that of the school of

rhetoric, an atmosphere in which sensible and natural dialogue is

impossible.[188]

The characters naturally suffer from this continued display of

declamatory rhetoric. They have but one voice and language; they differ

from one another only in their clothes and the situations in which they

are placed. It is true that some of them are patterns of virtue and

others monsters of iniquity. But strip off the coating of paint, and

within the limits of these two types--for there are but two--the puppets

are precisely the same. There is none of the play of light and shade so

essential to drama: all is agonizingly crude and lurid. This is not due

to the rhetoric alone, there is another influence at work. The plays are

permeated by a strong vein of Stoicism. Carried to its logical

conclusion Stoicism lays itself open to taunts such as Cicero levels at

his friend Cato in the _pro Murena_,[189] where he delivers a humorous

_reductio ad absurdum_ of its tenets. Such a philosophy is fatal to the

drama. It allows no room for human sentiment or human weakness; the most

virtuous affections are chilled and robbed of their attractiveness:

there are no gradations of temperament, intellect, or character: pathos

disappears. The Stoic ideal was a being in whom the natural impulses and

desires should be completely subjected to the laws of pure reason. It

tends in its intensity to a narrowness, an abstract unreality which is

unfavourable to the development of the more human virtues. What it gave

with one hand the more rigid Stoic philosophy took away with the other.

It preached the brotherhood of man and took away half the value of

sympathy. And here in the plays there is nothing of the _mitis

sapientia_, the concessions to mortal weakness, the humanity, which

characterize the prose works of Seneca and have won the hearts of many

generations of men. There the hardness of Stoicism is softened by ripe

experience and a tendency to eclecticism, and the doctrinaire stands

less sharply revealed. 'Sous l'austérité du philosophe, on trouve un

homme.' The most noteworthy result of this hard Stoicism upon the plays

is the almost complete absence of pathos springing from the tenderer

human affections. Seneca's tragedy may sometimes succeed in horrifying

us, as in the ghastly rhetoric of the _Thyestes_ or the _Medea_. He

moves us rarely.

But there are a few striking exceptions to the rule, notably the

beautiful passage of the _Troades_, where Andromache bids her companions

in misfortune cease from useless lamentation[190] (409):

quid, maesta Phrygiae turba, laceratis comas

miserumque tunsae pectus effuso genas

fletu rigatis? levia perpessae sumus,

si flenda patimur. Ilium vobis modo,

mihi cecidit olim, cum ferus curru incito

mea membra raperet et gravi gemeret sono

Peliacis axis pondere Hectoreo tremens.

tunc obruta atque eversa quodcumque accidit

torpens malis rigeusque sine sensu fero.

iam erepta Danais coniugem sequerer meum,

nisi hic teneret: hic meos animos domat

morique prohibet; cogit hic aliquid deos

adhuc rogare--tempus aerumnae addidit.

Why, ye sad Phrygian women, do ye rend your hair and

beat your woeful breasts and bedew your cheeks with

streaming tears? But light is our sorrow, if it lies

not too deep for tears. For you Ilium but now has fallen,

for me it fell long ago, when the cruel wheels of the

swift ear of Peleus' son dragged in the dust the limbs of

him I loved, and groaned loud as they quivered beneath

the weight of Hector dead. Then was I overthrown, then

cast to utter ruin, and since then I bear whatso falleth

upon me, with a heart that is numb with grief, chilled and

insensible, and long since had I snatched myself from the

hands of the Greeks and followed my husband, did not my

child keep me among the living: he checks my purpose and

forbids me to die; he constrains me still to make

supplication to heaven and prolongs my anguish.

Even here the pathos is the calm and reasoned pathos of hopelessness,

the pathos of a Stoic who preaches endurance of evils against which his

philosophy is not proof. Here, too, we find the Stoic attitude towards

death. Death is the end of all; there is naught to dread; death puts an

end to hope and fear: to die is to be as though we had never been (394):

post mortem nihil est, ipsaque mors nihil.

velocis spatii meta novissima;

spem ponant avidi, solliciti metum.

tempus nos avidum devorat et chaos:

mors individua est, noxia corpori

nec parcens animae: Taenara et aspero

regnum sub domino limen et obsidens

custos non facili Cerberus ostio

rumores vacui verbaque inania

et par sollicito fabula somnio.

quaeris quo iaceas post obitum loco?

quo non nata iacent.

Since naught remains, and death is naught

But life's last goal, so swiftly sought:

Let those who cling to life abate

Their fond desires, and yield to fate;

Soon shall grim time and yawning night

In their vast depths engulf us quite;

Impartial death demands the whole--

The body slays nor spares the soul.

Dark Taenara and Pluto fell,

And Cerberus, grim guard of hell--

All these but empty rumours seem,

The pictures of a troubled dream.

Where then will the departed spirit dwell?

Let those who never came to being tell.

MILLER.

Death brings release from sorrow: the worst of torture is to be forced

to live on in the midst of woe--

mors votum meum--cries Hecuba--(1171)

infantibus violenta, virginibus venis,

ubique properas, saeva: me solam times.

O death, my sole desire, for boys and maids

Thou com'st with hurried step and savage mien:

But me alone of mortals dost thou fear.

MILLER.

So, too, Andromache, in the passage quoted above, almost apologizes for

not having put an end to her existence. Polyxena meets death with

exultation (_Tro_. 945, 1152-9): even the little Astyanax is infected

with Stoic passion for suicide (1090):

nec gradu segni puer

ad alta pergit moenia. ut summa stetit

pro turre, vultus huc et huc acres tulit

intrepidus animo....

non flet e turba omnium

qui fletur; ac, dum verba fatidici et preces

concipit Vlixes vatis et saevos ciet

ad sacra superos, sponte desiluit sua

in media Priami regna.

And with no lingering pace the boy climbed the lofty

battlements, and all about him cast his keen gaze with

dauntless soul.... But he alone of all the throng who

wept for him wept not at all, and, while Ulysses 'uttered

in priestly wise the words of fate and prayed' and called

the cruel gods to the sacrifice, the boy of his own will

cast himself down to death on the fields that Priam ruled.

The enthusiasm for death is carried too far.[191] Even the agony of the

_Troades_ fails really to stir us: it depresses us without wakening our

sympathy. So, too, with other scenes: in the _Hercules Furens_ we have

the virtuous Stoic--in the persons of Megara and Amphitryon--confronting

the _instans tyrannus_ in the person of Lycus: it is the hackneyed theme

of the schools of rhetoric,[192] but derives its inspiration from

Stoicism (426):

_Lyc_. cogere.

_Meg_. cogi qui potest nescit mori.

_Lyc_. effare potius, quod novis thalamis parem

regale munus.

_Meg_. aut tuam mortem aut meam.

_Lyc_. moriere demens.

_Meg_. coniugi occurram meo.

_Lyc_. sceptrone nostro famulus est potior tibi?

_Meg_. quot iste famulus tradidit reges neci.

_Lyc_. cur ergo regi servit et patitur iugum?

_Meg_. imperia dura tolle: quid virtus erit?[193]

_Lyc_. obici feris monstrisque virtutem putas?

_Meg_. virtutis est domare quae cuncti pavent.

_Lyc_. tenebrae loquentem magna Tartareae premunt.

_Meg_. non est ad astra mollis e terris via.[194]

_Lyc_. Thou shalt be forced.

_Meg_. He can be forced, who knows not how to die.

_Lyc_. Tell me what gift I could bestow more rich

Than royal wedlock?

_Meg_. Or thy death or mine.

_Lyc_. Then die, thou fool.

_Meg_. 'Tis thus I'll meet my lord.

_Lyc_. Is that slave more to thee than I, a king?

_Meg_. How many kings has that slave given to death!

_Lyc_. Why does he serve a king and bear the yoke?

_Meg_. Remove hard tasks, and where would valour be?

_Lyc_. To conquer monsters call'st thou valour then?

_Meg_. 'Tis valour to subdue what all men fear.

_Lyc_. The shades of Hades hold that boaster fast.

_Meg_. No easy way leads from the earth to heaven.

MILLER

So, too, a little later (463) Amphitryon crushes Lycus with a true

Stoic retort:--

_Lyc_. quemcumque miserum videris, hominem scias.

_Amph_. quemcumque fortem videris, miserum neges.[195]

_Lyc_. Whoe'er is wretched, him mayst thou know for mortal.

_Amph_. Whoe'er is brave, thou mayst not call him wretched.

Admirable as are the sentiments expressed by these virtuous and

calamitous persons, they leave us cold: they are too self-sufficient to

need our sympathy. Pain and death have no terrors for them; why should

we pity them? But it would be unjust to lay the blame for this absence

of pathetic power entirely on the influence of Stoicism. The scholastic

rhetoric is not a good vehicle for pathos, and must bear a large portion

of the blame, though even the rhetoric is due in no small degree to the

Stoic type of dialectic. As Seneca himself says, speaking of others than

himself, 'Philosophia quae fuit, facta philologia est.'[196] And it must

further be remembered that of the few flights of real poetry in these

plays some of the finest were inspired by Stoicism. The drama cannot

nourish in the Stoic atmosphere, poetry can. Seneca was sometimes a

poet. His best-known chorus, the famous _regem non faciunt opes_ of the

_Thyestes_ (345), is directly inspired by Stoicism. The speeches of

Agamemnon and Andromache, together with the chorus already quoted from

the _Troades_, all bear the impress of the Stoic philosophy. The same is

true of the scarcely inferior chorus on fate from the _Oedipus_ (980).

But there are other passages of genuine poetry where the Stoic is

silent. The chorus in the _Hercules Furens_ (838), giving the

conventional view of death, will stand comparison with the chorus of the

_Troades_, giving the philosophic view. The chorus on the dawn (_H.F._

125) brings the fresh sounds and breezes of early morning into the

atmosphere of the rhetorician's lecture-room. The celebrated

venient annis saecula seris

quibus Oceanus vincula rerum

laxet et ingens pateat tellus

Tethysque novos detegat orbes

nec sit terris ultima Thule (_Med._ 375)

Late in time shall come an age, when Ocean shall

unbar the world, and the whole wide earth be

revealed, and Tethys shall show forth a new world,

nor Thule be earth's limit any more.

has acquired a fictitious importance since the discovery of the new

world, but shows a fine imagination, even if--as has been maintained--it

is merely a courtly reference to the British expedition of Claudius. And

the invocation to sleep in the _Hercules Furens_ proved worthy to

provide an inspiration for Shakespeare[197] (1063):

solvite tantis animum monstris

solvite superi, caecam in melius

flectite mentem. tuque, o domitor

Somne malorum, requies animi,

pars humanae melior vitae,

volucre o matris genus Astracae,

frater durae languide Mortis,

veris miscens falsa, futuri

certus et idem pessimus auctor,

pax errorum, portus vitae,

lucis requies noctisque comes,

qui par regi famuloque venis,

pavidum leti genus humanum

cogis longam discere noctem:

placidus fessum lenisque fove,

preme devinctum torpore gravi.

Save him, ye gods, from monstrous madness, save

him, restore his darkened mind to sanity. And thou,

O sleep, subduer of ill, the spirit's repose, thou

better part of human life, swift-winged child of

Astraca, drowsy brother of cruel death, mixing

false with true, prescient of what shall be, yet

oftener prescient of sorrow, peace mid our wanderings,

haven of man's life, day's respite, night's companion,

that comest impartially to king and slave, thou that

makest trembling mankind to gain a foretaste of the

long night of death; do thou bring gentle rest to his

weariness, and sweet balm to his anguish, and overwhelm

him with heavy stupor.

But the poetry is confined mainly to the lyrics. In them, though the

metre be monotonous and the thought rarely more than commonplace, the

feeling rings true, the expression is brilliant, and the never absent

rhetoric is sometimes transmuted to a more precious substance with a

far-off resemblance to true lyrical passion. In the iambics, with the

exception of the passages already quoted from the _Troades_ and the

_Phaedra_, touches of genuine poetry are most rare.[198] In certain of

the long descriptive passages (_H.F._ 658 sqq., _Oed._ 530 sqq.) we get

a stagey picturesqueness, but no more. It is for different qualities

that we read the iambics of Seneca, if we read them at all.

Even in its worst moments the rhetoric is capable of extorting our

unwilling admiration by its sheer cleverness and audacity. A good

example is to be found in the passage of the _Thyestes_, where Atreus

meditates whether he shall call upon his sons Menelaus and Agamemnon to

aid him in his unnatural vengeance on Thyestes. He has doubts as to

whether he is their father, for Thyestes had seduced their mother

Aerope (327):--

prolis incertae fides

ex hoc petatur scelere: si bella abnuunt

et gerere nolunt odia, si patruum vocant,

pater est. eatur.

And by this test of crime,

Let their uncertain birth be put to proof:

If they refuse to wage this war of death

And will not serve my hatred; if they plead

He is their uncle--then he is their sire.

So to my work!

MILLER'S translation slightly altered.

Equally ingenious is the closing scene between Atreus and Thyestes after

the vengeance is accomplished and Thyestes has feasted on the flesh of

his own sons (1100):

_Thy_. quid liberi meruere?

_Atr_. quod fuerant tui.

_Thy_. natos parenti--

_Atr_. fateor et, quod me iuvat, certos.

_Thy_. piorum praesides testor deos.

_Atr_. quin coniugales?

_Thy_. scelere quid pensas scelus?

_Atr_. scio quid queraris: scelere praerepto doles,

nec quod nefandas hauseris angit dapes;

quod non pararis: fuerat hic animus tibi

instruere similes inscio fratri cibos

et adiuvante liberos matre aggredi

similique leto sternere--hoc unum obstitit:

_tuos_ putasti.

_Thy_. What was my children's sin?

_Atr_. This, that they were thy children.

_Thy_. But to think

That children to the father--

_Atr_. That indeed,

I do confess it, gives me greatest joy,

That thou art well assured they were thy sons.

_Thy_. I call upon the gods of innocence--

_Atr_. Why not upon the gods of marriage call?

_Thy_. Why dost thou seek to punish crime with crime?

_Atr_. Well do I know the cause of thy complaint:

Because I have forestalled thee in the deed.

Thou grievest, not because thou hast consumed

This horrid feast, but that thou wast not first

To set it forth. This was thy fell intent,

To arrange a feast like this unknown to me,

And with their mother's aid attack my sons,

And with a like destruction lay them low.

But this one thing opposed--thou thought'st them thine.

MILLER.

These passages are as unreal as they are repulsive, but they are

diabolically clever. Seneca's rhetoric is, however, as we have already

seen, capable of rising to higher things, and even where he does not

succeed, as in the passages quoted above from the _Phaedra_ and

_Troades_,[199] in introducing a genuine poetic element, he often

produces striking declamatory effects. The exit of the blind Oedipus, as

he goes forth into life-long banishment, bringing peace to Thebes at the

last, is highly artificial in form, but, given the rhetorical drama, is

not easily surpassed as a conclusion--

mortifera mecum vitia terrarum extraho.

violenta Fata et horridus Morbi tremor,

Maciesque et atra Pestis et rabidus Dolor,

mecum ite, mecum. ducibus his uti libet (1058).

With me to exile lead I forth 'all pestilential humours of

the land. Ye blasting fates', ye trembling agues, famine and

deadly plague and maddened grief, go forth with me, with me!

My heart rejoices to follow in your train.

So likewise the last despairing cry of Jason, as Medea sails

victoriously away in her magic car--

per alta vade spatia sublimi aethere,

testare nullos esse qua veheris deos

Sail on through the airy depths of highest heaven, and

bear witness that, where thou soarest, no gods can be.

forms a magnificent ending to a play which, for all its unreality,

succeeds for more than half its length (l 578) in arresting our

attention by its ingenious rhetoric and its comparative freedom from

mere bombast. Excellent, too, is the speech (_Phoen_. 193) in which

Antigone dissuades her father from suicide. 'What ills can time have in

store for him compared to those he has endured?'--

qui fata proculcavit ac vitae bona

proiecit atque abscidit et casus suos

oneravit ipse, cui deo nullo est opus,

quare ille mortem cupiat aut quare petat?

utrumque timidi est: nemo contempsit mori

qui concupivit. cuius haut ultra mala

exire possunt, in loco tuto est situs,

quis iam deorum, velle fac, quicquam potest

malis tuis adicere? iam nec tu potes

nisi hoc, ut esse te putes dignum nece--

non es nec ulla pectus hoc culpa attigit.

et hoc magis te, genitor, insontem voca,

quod innocens es dis quoque invitis....

... ... quidquid potest

auferre cuiquam mors, tibi hoc vita abstulit.

Who tramples under foot his destiny,

Who disregards and scorns the goods of life,

And aggravates the evils of his lot,

Who has no further need of Providence:

Wherefore should such a man desire to die,

Or seek for death? Each is the coward's act.

No one holds death in scorn who seeks to die.

The man whose evils can no further go

Is safely lodged. Who of the gods, think'st thou,

Grant that he wills it so, can add one jot

Unto thy sum of trouble? Nor canst thou,

Save that thou deem'st thyself unfit to live.

But thou art not unfit, for in thy breast

No taint of sin has come. And all the more,

My father, art thou free from taint of sin,

Because, though heaven willed it otherwise,

Thou still art innocent....

Whatever death

From any man can take, thy life hath taken.

MILLER

It is, however, in isolated lines and striking _sententiae_ that

Seneca's gift for rhetorical epigram is seen at its best. Nothing could

be better turned than

quaeris Alcidae parem?

nemo est nisi ipse: (_H.F_. 84).[A]

curae leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent (_Phaedra_ 607).[B]

fortem facit vicina libertas senem (_Phaedra_ 139).[C]

qui genus iactat suum,

aliena laudat (_H.F_. 340).

fortuna fortes metuit, ignavos premit (_Med_. 159).

fortuna opes auferre, non animum potest (_Med_. 176).

maius est monstro nefas:[D]

nam monstra fato, moribus scelera imputes (_Phaedra_ 143).

[A] Cp. Theobald: None but himself can be his parallel.

[B] Cp. Sir W. Raleigh: Passions are best compared with floods and

streams, The shallow murmur but the deep are dumb.

[C] For dawning freedom makes the aged brave. MILLER.

[D] For thy impious love is worse

Than her unnatural and impious love.

The first you would impute to character,

The last to fate.

MILLER.

If nothing had survived of Seneca's plays but a collection of

_sententiae_, we might have regretted his loss almost as we regret the

loss of Menander.

Here his merits, such as they are, end: they fail to justify us in

placing him high as a dramatist; and he has many faults over and above

those incidental to his style and modes of thought. While freer than

most of his contemporaries from the vain display of obscure erudition,

he falls into the common vice of introducing 'catalogues'. They are dull

in epic: in drama they are worse than dull. The _Hercules Furens_ is no

place for a matter-of-fact catalogue of the hero's labours, set forth

(210-248) in monotonous iambics from the mouth of Amphitryon. If they

are to be described at all, they demand the decorative treatment of

lyric verse,[200] nor is a catalogue of the herbs used by Medea to

poison the robe destined for her rival any more excusable.[201] Again,

like his contemporaries, he shows a lack of taste and humour which in

its worst manifestations passes belief. Not a few of the passages

already quoted serve to illustrate the point. But for fatuity it would

be hard to surpass the words with which Amphitryon interrupts Theseus'

account of the horrors of the underworld:

estne aliqua tellus Cereris aut Bacchi ferax? (_H.F._ 697.)

Scarcely less absurd is the chorus in the _Phaedra_, who, when hymning

the power of love, give a long list of animals subject to such passion:

the catalogue culminates with the statement that even whales and

elephants fall in love (351):

amat insani belua ponti

Lucaeque boves.

But all such instances pale before the conclusion of the _Phaedra_. Not

content with giving a ghastly and exaggerated account of the death of

Hippolytus, Seneca must needs bring the fragments of his mutilated body

upon the scene. Theseus, at the suggestion of the chorus, attempts to

put them together again. The climax comes when, finding an

unidentifiable portion, he cries (1267):

quae pars tui sit dubito, sed pars est tui!

The actual language of the plays is pure and classical. There is no

trace of provincialism, nothing to suggest that Seneca was a Spaniard.

Its vices proceed from the false mould in which it has been cast. There

is a lack of connecting particles, and we proceed by a series of short

rhetorical jerks.[202] It is the style that Seneca himself condemns in

his letters (114. 1). Its faults are further aggravated by the metre:

taken line by line, the iambics of Seneca are impressive: taken

collectively they are monotonous in the extreme. The ear suffers a

continual series of stabs, which are not the less unpleasant because

none of them go deep. The verse seems formed, one might almost say

punched out, by a relentless machine. It is never modified by

circumstances; it is the same in narrative and dialogue, the same in

passion and in calm, if indeed Seneca can ever be said to be either

passionate or calm. Its pauses come with monotonous regularity at the

end of the line, diversified only by an occasional break at the caesura

in the third foot. Nor does the rule[203] observed by Seneca, that only

a spondee or anapaest is permitted in the fifth foot, tend to relieve

the monotony, though it does much to give the individual lines such

weight as they possess. A more complete contrast with the iambics of the

early Latin Tragedies cannot be imagined. What has been gained in polish

has been lost in dignity. Whence the Senecan iambic is derived, is a

question which cannot be answered with certainty. It is wholly unlike

the early Roman tragic iambic. Elision is rare, and there is little

variety. Instead of the massive and rugged measure of Pacuvius or

Accius, we have a finished and elegant monotony. In all likelihood it is

the lineal descendant of the iambic of Ovid.[204] In view of Seneca's

great admiration for Ovid--he quotes him continually in his prose

works--of Ovid's mastery of rhetoric and epigram, and yet more of the

distinct parallels traceable between the _Phaedra_ and _Medea_ of Seneca

and the corresponding _Heroides_ of Ovid, it becomes a strong

probability that the Senecan iambic was deeply influenced--if not

actually created--by the iambic style of the earlier poet's lost drama,

the famous _Medea_.[205]

As to the models to which he is indebted for his treatment of choric

metres we know nothing. In spite of the fact that he employs a large

variety of metres, and that his choruses at times stray from rhetoric

into poetry of a high order, there is in them a still more deadly

monotony than in his iambics. The chorus are devoid of life; they are

there partly as a concession to convention, but mainly to supply

incidental music. Their inherent dullness is not relieved by the metre.

Of strophic arrangement there is no clear trace; in a large proportion

of cases the choruses are written in one fixed and rigid metre admitting

of no variety: even where different metres alternate, the relaxation is

but small, for the same monotony reigns unchecked within the limits of

each section. The strange experiments in mixed metres in the _Agamemnon_

and _Oedipus_ show Seneca's technique at its worst: they are composed of

fragments of Horatian metres, thinly disguised by inversions and

resolutions of feet: they lack all governing principle and are an

unqualified failure. Of the remaining metres the Anapaestic, Asclepiad,

Sapphic, and Glyconic predominate. He is, perhaps, least unsuccessful in

his treatment of the Anapaest: the lines do not lack melody, and the

natural flexibility of the metre saves them from extreme monotony,

though they would have been more successful had he employed the

paroemiac line as a solemn and resonant close to the march of the

dimeter. But one wearies soon of the eternal Asclepiads and Glyconics

which he often allows to continue in unbroken and unvaried series for

seventy or eighty lines together. He rarely allows any variation within

the Glyconic and never makes use of it to break the monotony of the

Asclepiad. Still worse are his Sapphics. Abandoning the usual

arrangement in stanzas of three lesser Sapphics followed by an Adonic

verse, his Sapphic choruses consist almost entirely of the lesser

Sapphic varied by a very occasional Adonic. The continual succession of

these lines without so much as an occasional change of caesura to

diversify the rhythm is at times almost intolerable. At the close of

such choruses we feel as though we had jogged at a rapid trot for long

miles on a very hard and featureless road.

Language and metre work hand in hand with rhetoric to make these

strange plays dramatically ineffective. So strange are they and in many

ways so unlike anything else in Classical literature, that the question

as to the purpose with which they were written and the place they

occupied in the literature of their day affords an interesting subject

for speculation. Were they written for the stage? Decayed as was the

taste for tragedy, tragedies may occasionally have been acted.[206] But

there are considerations which suggest doubt as to whether the plays of

Seneca were written with any such purpose. Even under Nero it is

scarcely credible that the introduction of the mangled fragments of

Hippolytus upon the stage would be possible or palatable.[207] Medea

kills her children _coram populo_, and, not content with killing them,

flings their bodies at Jason from her magic chariot high in air.

Hercules kills his children in full view of the audience, not within the

house as in the corresponding drama of Euripides. Such scenes suggest

that the plays were written not for the stage but for recitation with

musical interludes from a trained choir. Indications that this was the

case are to be found in the _Hercules Furens_. While the hero is engaged

in slaying his children, Amphitryon, in a succession of short speeches,

gives the details of the murder. This would be ridiculous and

unnecessary were the scene actually presented on the stage, whereas they

become absolutely necessary on the assumption that the play was written

for recitation.[208] This assumption has the further merit of being

charitable; skilful recitation would cover many defects that would be

almost intolerable on the stage.

It is improbable, however, that the drama of Seneca occupied an

important position in the literature of their day. The golden age of

tragedy was past, and it is hard to believe that these plays are

favourable specimens even of their own age. The authors of the Silver

Age virtually ignore their existence, and, with the exception of two

references in Tertullian and one in Apollinaris Sidonius, they are

quoted only by scholars and grammarians.

They have small intrinsic value: but they afford interesting evidence

for the taste[209] of their own day, and their influence on modern drama

has been enormous. In the Renaissance at the dawn of the drama's

revival, Seneca was regarded as a dramatist of the first order. Scaliger

ranked him above Euripides: it was to him men turned to find models for

tragedy. Everywhere we see traces of the Senecan drama.[210] It is a

tribute to the dexterity of his rhetoric that his influence should have

been so enormous, but it is to be regretted in the interests of the

drama. For to Seneca more than to any other man is due the excessive

prominence of declamatory rhetoric, which has characterized the drama

throughout Western Europe from the Renaissance down to the latter half

of the nineteenth century, and has proved a blemish to the work of all

save a few great writers who recognized the value of rhetoric, but never

mistook the shadow for the substance.

III

THE 'OCTAVIA'

A tragedy with this title is included by the MSS. among the plays of

Seneca. Its chief interest lies in the fact that it is the one surviving

example of a _fabula praetexta_, or tragedy, drawn from Roman life. It

deals with a tragic incident of Nero's reign, the final extinction of

the Claudian house. Octavia, daughter of Claudius and Messalina, is the

heroine. Her life was one long tragedy. Her childhood was darkened by

the disaster that befell her unworthy mother, her maturer years by her

marriage to Nero. She was a mere pawn in the game of politics. The

marriage was brought about by the designs of Agrippina, to render Nero

secure of the principate. To effect this end her betrothed Silanus was

killed, Claudius, her father, and Britannicus, her brother, dispatched

by poison. Soon her own wedded life turned to tragedy. Nero fell madly

in love with Poppaea, and resolved to put away Octavia. At Poppaea's

instigation she was accused of a base intrigue. The plot failed; the

false charge could not be pressed home; she was divorced on the ground

of sterility, and imprisoned in a town of Campania. A rumour arose that

she was to be reinstated; the mob of Rome declared itself in her favour

and gave wild expression to its joy. Poppaea's statues were cast down,

Octavia's replaced. Poppaea was furious. She laid siege to Nero and won

him to her will. The old false charge of adultery was trumped up; a

complaisant freed man was found to confess himself Octavia's lover. She

was banished to Pandataria and slain (June 9, 62 A.D.).

The play gives us a compressed version of the tragedy. It opens with a

speech by Octavia's nurse, setting forth the sorrows of her young

mistress. The speech over, she leaves the stage to be succeeded by

Octavia, who, in a lament closely modelled on the lament of the

Sophoclean Electra,[211] bewails the sorrows of her house, the deaths of

Messalina, Claudius, and Britannicus. The nurse reappears, attempts to

console her, and counsels submission to fate. Octavia changes her strain

and prays for death. After a lament from the chorus, Nero and Seneca

enter on the scene. Seneca urges moderation and sets forth his ideal of

monarchy. Nero is quite his match in argument, rejects his advice, and,

concluding with the words

desiste tandem, iam gravis nimium mihi,

instare: liceat facere quod Seneca improbat (588).

Have done at last,

For wearisome has thine insistence grown;

One still may do what Seneca condemns ...

MILLER.

declares his intention of marrying Poppaea without delay. An interesting

chorus follows, describing how Rome of old expelled the kings for their

crimes. Nero has sinned even more than they. Has he not slain even his

mother? There follows a long and interesting description of the

murder,[212] which serves as an introduction to the entrance of the

ghost of Agrippina in the guise of an avenging fury, prophesying the

dethronement and death of her unnatural son. She is succeeded on the

stage by Octavia, resigned to the surrender of her position and content

to be no more than Nero's sister; once more the chorus bewail her fate.

At last her rival Poppaea appears in conversation with her nurse. The

nurse congratulates her, but Poppaea has been terrified by visions of

the night and is ill at ease. Her rival is not yet removed and her own

place is still insecure. At this point comes the one ray of hope that

illumines this sombre drama. A messenger arrives with the news that the

people have risen in Octavia's favour. But the reader is not left in

suspense for a moment. Nero appears and orders the suppression of the

_émeute_ and the execution of Octavia. The chorus mourn the fate of the

beloved of the Roman people. Their power and splendour is but brief:

Octavia perishes untimely, like Gracchus and Livius Drusus. She herself

appears in the hands of soldiers, being dragged off to execution and

death. Like Cassandra,[213] she compares her fate with that of the

nightingale, to whom the gods gave a new life of peace full of sweet

lamentation as a close to her troubled human existence. One more song of

condolence from the chorus, one more song of sorrow from Octavia, and

she is taken from our sight, and the play closes with a denunciation by

the chorus of the hardness of heart and the insatiate cruelty of Rome.

It is not hard to summarize the general effect of this curious drama.

Its author has read the Greek tragedians carefully and to some purpose;

he has studied the characters of Electra, Cassandra, and Antigone with

diligence, if without insight. He clearly feels deep sympathy for

Octavia, and to some extent succeeds in communicating this sympathy to

the audience. His heroine speaks in character: she is never a male

Stoic, flaunting in female garb, she is a genuine woman, a gentle,

lovable creature broken down by misfortune. The other characters are

uninteresting. Nero is an academic tyrant, Seneca an academic adviser,

Poppaea is little more than a lay figure. The most that can be said for

them is that they do not rant. The chorus are on the whole a fairly

satisfactory imitation of a chorus of sympathetic Greek women.[214]

There is nothing forced or unnatural about them; they are real human

beings; their sympathy is genuine, and its expression appropriate. But

they are dull; monotonous lamentation in monotonous anapaests is the

height of their capacity. The play is a failure: the subject is not in

itself dramatic; if it had been, it would have been spoiled by the

treatment it receives. We are never in suspense; Octavia has never the

remotest chance of escape; our pity for her is genuine enough, but her

character lacks both grandeur and psychological interest: the pathos of

her situation will not compensate us for the absence of a dramatic plot.

The fall of the house of Claudius compares ill with the tragedy of the

Pelopidae. And the treatment of the story, from the dramatic standpoint,

is childish. The play is scarcely more than a series of melancholy

monologues interspersed with not less melancholy dirges from the chorus.

The most we can say of it is that it is simple and unaffected: if it

lacks brilliance, it also lacks exaggeration. Thought and diction are

commonplace and uninspired, but they are never absurd--an extraordinary

merit in a poet of the Silver Age.

It will have been sufficiently evident from this brief sketch that

the _Octavia_ is in all respects very different indeed from the other

plays that claim Seneca for their author. It is free from their

faults and their merits alike. It never sinks to their depths, but

it never rises to their heights. Apart, however, from these general

considerations,[215] there is evidence amounting almost to certainty

that the _Octavia_ is not by Seneca. The tragedy takes place in the

lifetime of Seneca. Seneca himself figures in the play. The story is of

such a nature that it could hardly have been written, much less

published, in the reign of Nero. Yet more conclusive is the fact that

the ghost of Agrippina prophesies the fate of Nero in such a way as to

make it certain that the author outlived the emperor and was acquainted

with the facts of his death.[216]

Who then was the author? When did he write? Evidence is almost

absolutely lacking. From its comparative sanity and simplicity and its

intense hatred of Nero it may reasonably be conjectured that it is the

work of the Flavian age; the age of the anti-Neronian reaction and of

the return to saner models in life and literature. But there is no

certainty; it may have been written under Nerva, Trajan, or Hadrian. It

stands detached and aloof from the literature of its age.