Etymology and Plot in Senecan Tragedy

1 I owe this observation, the inspiration for the paper, to my friend Diskin Clay. Gradus often signaled an entrance or exit in Roman tragedy. In Aegisthus’ line Celebri gradu gressum adcelerasse decet (Accius fr. 15), celebri gradu and adcelerasse may play upon the Aig- stem of his name, ajivxasqai (> ajivssw, “dart, move quickly”). Cf. Sen. Ag. 300, facesse propere. 2 Traiana; Segal; Petrone. 3 Capitalization Ahl’s. Fairclough’s translation, cited on Ahl 36: “That was a winejar, when the moulding began: why, as the wheel runs round, does it turn out to be a pitcher?” Etymology and Plot in Senecan Tragedy John A. Stevens East Carolina University The entrance of the herald Eurybates is announced in Seneca’s Agamemnon with the wordssed ecce vasto concitus miles gradu (388). The phrase vasto … gradu is an etymology of the herald’s Greek name: eujruv~ (“wide”) + ba- (>baivnw, “go, walk, step, cross”) + -th~ (agent suffix).1 The few previous studies of Senecan wordplay have shown that Seneca uses alliterative paronomasia (e.g.,Med. 362) in the manner of Ennius and Accius, and that he was aware of the important role of etymology in myth (nomen/omen).2 But there has been no consideration of Seneca’s etymological wordplay. Seneca employs etymology pervasively at stage entrances (some of his otherwise less memorable lines). From this we should conclude first of all that Seneca was working in a bilingual environment in which translation between Latin and Greek was commonplace (e.g., Plin. Ep. 7.9.2), the correlation of stems and meanings familiar, and jeux de mots a mark of one’s urbanitas. Recent studies have reminded us that such wordplay was openly embraced by the Augustan poets as a mark of the Alexandrian “learned” style (tevcnh, Callim. Aet. 17). Ahl demonstrates the level to which Horatian playfulness rises in the line amphora coepit / institui: CURrente rota CUR URCeus exit (Ars P. 21–22):3 STEVENS: ETYMOLOGY AND PLOT 127 “Amphora, what the urn was supposed to be, is a Greek word, derived from a verb meaning to turn around: amphipheromai. URCeus is a Latin word. The Greek amphora, when put on the Roman potter’s wheel ‘turns into’ a Latin urn.”4 O’Hara’s catalogue of Vergilian etymologies shows that Servius too was well aware of Vergil’s deliberate plays on phrases from Apollonius and Homer. On the description of Aeolus, ruler of winds (celsa sedet Aeolus arce / sceptra tenens mollitque animos et temperat iras, Aen. 1.56–57), Servius notes, MOLLITQUE ANIMOS id est, ventos, ajpo; tw'n ajnevmwn, ut ipse alibi (8.403) “quantum ignes animaeque valent” et Horatius (C. 4.12.2) “inpellunt animae lintea Thraciae.” 5 Since Seneca’s most direct influences were the Augustan poets,6 we should not be surprised to find that he also admired and imitated their Alexandrian wordplay.7 There are other important issues raised by the kind of wordplay we shall be examining.The first is the question of the “models ” of Seneca’s tragedies. It has long been observed that the plots of his plays have little in common with those of the Greek tragedians. This motivated Tarrant to suggest that Seneca was probably influenced by Hellenistic and Roman tragedies and 4 Ahl 37; cf. Sen. Pha. 959-77, esp. the play on cursus (962), and Traiana 275 n. 22. 5 “Aeolus sits in his lofty citadel, wielding the scepter, and soothes their souls and tempers their wrath,” Servius’ note on which is, “He soothes their souls (animos), that is, the winds, from the Greek word for wind, anemos, as elsewhere in Vergil (8.403), whatever power is in fire and blasts of air, and Horace (C. 4.12.2), Thracian winds drive the sails.” O’Hara (1996a) 116. See also Doig; Hanssen. For many ancient citations, I have also been aided throughout by the work of Woodhead. 6 Tarrant (1978) 261–63; Jakobi; Fantham. 7 Mayer (1982) does not remark upon wordplay and generally suggests a reevaluation of the importance of the Alexandrians in the Neronian court (contra cf. 1990), but he shows that Greek authors were read and studied and that the Augustan poets were the poets to...