Roman Tragedy: Theatre to Theatricality

Ennius

Fragments 10 and 11 describe Danae’s appeals to Jupiter for help and his apparent response: (10) manubias suppetiat pro me. Let him send forth attending slaves on my behalf. (11) suo sonitu claro fulgorivit Iuppiter. Jupiter flashed with his own loud thunder. It is only when the poetry and dramatic works of Naevius and Livius are held up in comparison with the more sophisticated poetry of Ennius and the later Republican poets that they appear deficient in poetic syntax and language.31 Cicero compares Naevius’ poetry with that of his successor Ennius rather than with that of his precursor Livius, thus suggesting that Naevius’ style anticipated Ennius’ innovations more than it reflected Livius.32 Yet Naevius’ success should be based on his adoption of Livius’ innovations to the genre and on his furthering of metatheatrical elements. With Ennius, rhetoric is further exploited as tragedy becomes even more open to offstage culture, culminating in the heavily rhetoricized plays of Pacuvius and Accius. Only after the establishment of a theatre can the concept of theatricality be recognized by the audience and applied to the interpretation of offstage events. E N N I U S Ennius experienced an early and formative contact with Greek culture owing to his birthplace at Rudiae in southern Italy. According to Suetonius , the proximity of his birthplace to Greek culture made him semigraecus .33 Ennius himself boasted that he had three souls as a result of his broad cultural exposure: Ennius tria corda habere sese dicebat quod loqui Graece et Osce et Latine sciret.34 Like Naevius, he served in the military.35 Afterward, Ennius was brought to Rome from Sardinia by M. Porcius Cato in 204 b.c.e.36 He lived on the Aventine close to the Temple of Minerva and, like Livius, taught for his livelihood. After Cato, Ennius received the patronage of M. Fulvius Nobilior, and he cultivated the friendship of many important men of state, like the elder Scipio Africanus.37 r o m a n t r a g e d y 18 Ennius’ literary output was prodigious. In addition to writing tragedy and comedy, Ennius further developed Naevius’ innovations in historical epic with his Annales. He also wrote a poem about Scipio Africanus, four books of satires, and various treatises. Ennius wrote many successful tragedies concurrently with his Annales, the last of which, the Thyestes , dates to 169 b.c.e.38 Ennius’ tragedies bring a recognizable Roman world onto the stage, which contributed to the growing reciprocity between onstage and offstage reality begun by Naevius. Like Naevius, Ennius wrote praetextae and incorporated specific Roman elements into his tragedies. Fuller development of metatheatrical allusions by Ennius leads to the growing recognition of theatricality off the stage. If Romans could see themselves on the stage, it was inevitable that they would recognize theatrical allusions off the stage. To this end, Ennius paved the way for Pacuvius and Accius to exploit rhetoric further and anticipate the blurring of on- and offstage reality during the late Republic and early Empire. Metatheatrical allusions to the audience’s reality abound in Ennius’ tragedies, in a way that recalls the mixing of Greek and Roman customs common in Roman comedy. In his Iphigenia, for example, Ennius alters his Euripidean model (446 – 449) to people the stage with Romans when Agamemnon laments the impending sacrifice of his daughter: plebes in hoc regi antistat loco: licet lacrumare plebi, regi honeste non licet.39 Common people are better than their king in this: the people may cry, but the king may not with dignity. By drawing on the audience’s knowledge of Roman class distinctions, Ennius imbues Agamemnon with Roman aristocratic personality traits.40 Later in the same play the chorus, rather than Achilles, as in Euripides , stresses the politically charged Roman concepts of otium and negotium:41 otio qui nescit uti . . . plus negoti habet quam cum est negotium in negotio. nam cui quod agat institum est †in illis† negotium id agit, 具id典 studet, ibi mentem atque animum delectat suum: †otioso initio† animus nescit quid velit. hoc idem est: em neque domi nunc nos nec militiae sumus. imus huc, hinc illuc; cum illuc ventum est, ire illinc lubet. incerte errat animus, praeter propter vitam vivitur.42 c r e at i n g t r a g e d y 19 He who does not know how to use leisure . . . has more of...