Seneca's Tragic Hydrophobia: The Case Of Tantalus

Abstract

This article rereads the representation of Tantalus within Seneca's Thyestes as a metaphor for hydrophobic conditions. The first section contextualizes Tantalus within Senecan drama and explores his connection to hydrophobia in both medical and literary discourses. In the second section, the article's focus shifts to Tantalus's punishment, pointing out how it resonates with descriptions of hydrophobic behavior that can be found in medical sources (particularly Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus). The last section examines the ethical implications of Tantalus's hydrophobia against the general structure and meaning of the Thyestes, as well as Seneca's moral philosophy.

The observation that Seneca, as a Stoic philosopher, was against excess in eating and drinking, along with other eminently mundane goods and earthly passions, is nothing new.¹ At the same time, Seneca does not reject material goods that can help keep the body and mind healthy, thus contributing to the achievement of one of the most important Stoic principles, namely, living according to nature (Sen. Ep. 5.4–5):²

Nempe propositum nostrum est secundum naturam vivere: hoc contra naturam est, torquere corpus suum et faciles odisse munditias et squalorem adpetere et cibis non tantum vilibus uti sed taetris et horridis.

Indeed, our intention is to live according to nature: it is quite contrary to nature to torture the body, to hate unlabored elegance, to be keen on dirtiness, to eat food that is not only plain, but disgusting and forbidding.³

While this view can be read as a part of Seneca's well-acknowledged strategy of making Stoicism appealing to—and achievable for—his audience (cf. "suspiciant omnes vitam nostram sed agnoscant," "all people should admire our way of life [i.e., living according to Stoic doctrines], but they should also understand it," Ep. 5.5), it also implies a recognition of corporeal needs which must be fulfilled—among them, eating and drinking.⁴ Along with corporeal necessities, in both his philosophical writings and poetic works, Seneca shows considerable awareness of physical suffering and pain, as well as bodily disease.⁵ Building on the interconnection between body and soul that can be found in Stoic thought, scholars often interpret Seneca's quasi-pathological focus on suffering and fragmented human bodies as a metaphor for a morally corrupted soul.⁶ This metaphorical reading applies to Seneca's philosophical writings, as well as (and, in some cases, even more so) to the dramas, where distorted, mutilated, and dismembered bodies are a prominent feature. Scholars have argued that, concurrently, extreme physical conditions and medical knowledge influence and contribute to the construction of both Seneca's ethics and his literary aesthetics.⁷

Drawing on this philosophical and medical background, this article rereads Seneca's tragic representations of Tantalus as an articulation of hydrophobic conditions. Hydrophobia is defined as "a great fear of drinking and water," and is commonly associated with, or identified as, rabies.⁸ Reinterpreting Tantalus's punishment as a poetic transposition of hydrophobia sheds light on Seneca's dramatic engagement with medical knowledge and pathologies, and illustrates how these connect with the moral sphere. Furthermore, the hydrophobic Tantalus also opens new avenues for interpreting the Thyestes: the drama where Tantalus features most prominently as a tragic figure.

I. TANTALUS: A MULTIFACETED FIGURE

Tantalus is frequently mentioned in Senecan drama. His punishment features repeatedly across several tragedies (Hercules Furens, Medea, Phaedra, Agamemnon, as well as the pseudo-Senecan Hercules Oetaeus and Octavia),⁹ but his presence is most prominent in the Thyestes: here Tantalus is an actual character who begins the play with a monologue before the arrival of the Fury (Thy. 1–121); he is also the main subject of the first choral ode (Thy. 122–75). In describing Tantalus's punishment, Seneca draws from a well-established mythological, literary, and philosophical background that dates back to Homer. Having challenged the gods by offering them the flesh of his son Pelops, Tantalus is condemned to endure insatiable thirst in the underworld, where he is placed in the vicinity of a water source (at times a pool, at others a river or stream) from which he cannot drink.¹⁰ Several iterations of and variants to this version exist.¹¹ Most notably, alongside being placed close to the water and suffering from thirst, in some literary and iconographic accounts, a fruit tree grows above Tantalus's head with hanging branches that he cannot reach.¹² This element is a more appropriate contrappasso than the unsatisfiable thirst for Tantalus's hubris in offering a cannibalistic meal to the gods—since both involve food. In a few sources, including Lucretius, Tantalus is simply portrayed beneath a huge stone, which constantly threatens to fall upon him (DRN 3.980–83; see n. 25 below).¹³ But what is it that makes Seneca's Tantalus distinctive?

Seneca's depiction of Tantalus's punishment is characterized by a greater focus on his unsatisfied thirst and, accordingly, the waterscape surrounding him (besides the Thyestes, cf. HF 752–55, Med. 745, Pha. 1232, Ag. 19–20, and HO 943–44), vis-à-vis previous Greek and Latin accounts. Hunger and the fruit tree are at times also present, but water is the constant and most recurring motif in Senecan portrayals of the mythological sinner, which focus on and enhance his corporeal suffering. Yet Tantalus's apparent thirst and desire for water are more ambiguous than they may seem on a surface-level reading. At Thyestes 68–71, for instance, while pursuing the water, Tantalus also appears to be scared and wishes to hide ("ad stagna et amnes et recedentes aquas/labrisque ab ipsis arboris plenae fugas./abire in atrum carceris liceat mei/cubile," "[I rush] to the pools and rivers and retreating waters, and the full tree's flight from my very lips. Give me leave to return to my prison's black lair").¹⁴ This ambivalent attitude towards water—where desire and fear coexist—can also be found in medical sources that discuss hydrophobia, particularly Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus.

Both Celsus and Caelius Aurelianus show a great interest in drinking and eating habits,¹⁵ including in their treatment of hydrophobia.¹⁶ An encyclopedist and doctor, Celsus is roughly contemporary with Seneca (first century ce), whereas Caelius Aurelianus was active much later, presumably in the fifth century ce.¹⁷ Yet, as medical knowledge is sedimentary and stratified, Caelius must have drawn from earlier medical sources (most notably works by Soranus, a Greek physician, active in the second century ce) for his descriptions of the treatments and conditions mentioned in his work, including hydrophobia.¹⁸ Indeed, the interest in eating and drinking habits dates back to a much earlier period than the fifth century, as Celsus's account of hydrophobia shows.¹⁹

Tantalus is openly linked to hydrophobia by Caelius (Acut. Dis. 3.15), who argues that Homer was aware of the disease: "Homerus quoque hanc agnovisse passionem probatur. conicit enim per figuram cum de Tantalo dicit" ("and it is clear that Homer, too, recognized this disease, for he alludes to it figuratively when he speaks of Tantalus"; my emphasis).²⁰ The expression per figuram suggests that Caelius may have built upon the figurative readings of the Homeric poems that were widespread and well-established in ancient (Hellenistic) scholarship. In this case, the metaphorical interpretation of Homer serves the purpose of Caelius's argument, which aims to demonstrate the existence of a pre-scientific notion of the disease (hydrophobia) even before its medical conceptualization.

References to the association between Tantalus and hydrophobic behavior can also be found in Lucian's Dialogues of the Dead 7 (Tantalus and Menippus). Close to the end of the dialogue, Menippus says to Tantalus: "I think you really do need a drink—neat hellebore,²¹ so help me; you're the opposite of people bitten by mad dogs; you don't fear water, but you do fear thirst" (καὶ ὡς ἀληθῶς ποτοῦ δεῖσθαι δοκεῖς, ἀκράτου γε ἐλλεβόρου νὴ Δία, ὅστις τοὐναντίον τοῖς ὑπὸ τῶν λυττώντων κυνῶν δεδηγμένοις πέπονθας οὐ τὸ ὕδωρ ἀλλὰ τὴν δίψαν πεφοβημένος, Dial. Mort. 7.2).²² By partially denying and playing with Tantalus's hydrophobic behavior, Menippus implies that the connection between the sinner and hydrophobia is well-known. Moreover, Menippus refers to hydrophobia periphrastically, mentioning one of the most widely accepted causes of the disease, namely, the bite of a mad dog.²³ The irony of the passage is enhanced by the reference to hellebore, a cure for madness, which Tantalus would surely not mind drinking if he could. At the end of the dialogue, by ironically observing that dead people cannot drink, regardless of whether or not they are Tantalus,²⁴ Menippus seemingly alludes to the inconsistencies of the literary, fictive narrations. At the same time, Menippus's reference to Tantalus's (pathological) thirst may have drawn on figurative readings of Homeric poetry, which—as observed above—could have led to a medicalization of Tantalus's punishment.

In Latin literature prior to Seneca, Lucretius also seems to have drawn on figurative readings of the Homeric underworld in his own representation of Tantalus, Sisyphus, and Tityos (DRN 3.978–1010): "atque ea nimirum quaecumque Acherunte profundo/prodita sunt esse, in vita sunt omnia nobis" ("and assuredly whatsoever things are told to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist for us in this life," 3.978–79). The three legendary sinners do not exist in reality but rather symbolize human attitudes. As he lays under a stone that constantly seems about to fall upon him, the Lucretian Tantalus represents the person who always worries about an impending threat, thus symbolizing the fear of the gods or death.²⁵ Similarly, Tityos and Sisyphus represent the excesses of passion (3.984–94) and the fruitless pursuit of earthly glory (995–1002), respectively;²⁶ the Danaids are also mentioned, who are an expression of a constant dissatisfaction with material goods (1003–10). To these fatuous activities and excesses, Epicurean ataraxia must be preferred, which grants happiness and the absence of troubles.

Perhaps drawing from Lucretius, Seneca also consistently mentions the sinners in his various depictions of the underworld, whose appearances in the form of a catalogue have been interpreted either as a literary trope or as philosophical transpositions—or both (Della Corte 1982 and Mantovanelli 2014.127–39). In what follows, I demonstrate that Seneca's depiction of a hydrophobic Tantalus has both philosophical/ethical and poetic/narrative implications. My identification of moral elements within Seneca's representation of Tantalus does not require a full embracement of a one-sided and monolithic interpretatio Stoica of Seneca's tragedies; nonetheless, it implies a recognition of certain philosophical elements as part of a broader hermeneutical practice, namely, the interpretation of a text vis-à-vis its context. The acknowledgment of ethical concerns in displaying Tantalus as hydrophobic sheds new light on his interpretation as a mythological and literary figure within Seneca's dramas—and more specifically within the Thyestes—as well as enhancing his significance to the plot of the tragedy.

II. TANTALUS IN SENECA: THE THYESTES (AND BEYOND)

Tantalus is a pervasive figure in Seneca's Thyestes, but the description of his punishment features most prominently in the first act of the drama (1–175). By situating his own account of the underworld in conversation with other conventional descriptions of the infernal sinners, Tantalus assumes a metapoetic stance.²⁷ In the opening lines of the Thyestes, Tantalus builds upon a version of his punishment where he is oppressed by both hunger and thirst (Sen. Thy. 1–6):

Quis inferorum sede ab infausta extrahitavido fugaces ore captantem cibos?quis male deorum Tantalo visas domosostendit iterum? peius inventum est sitiarente in undis aliquid et peius famehiante semper?

From the accursed abode of the underworld, who drags forth the one that pursues vanishing food with his avid mouth? Who perversely lets Tantalus see once more the hated homes of the gods? Has something worse been devised than thirst burning amidst water, worse than hunger that gapes forever?

After Tantalus refers to his fruitless pursuit of food, at 4–5 he mentions his thirst. A motif that will be further developed later in the prologue and choral ode (68–73, 149–75), thirst is described as "burning" despite Tantalus being immersed in water ("siti/arente in undis," 4–5).²⁸ Tantalus's trouble with drinking water is compatible with typical hydrophobic attitudes. In Caelius's On Acute Diseases (3.10), hydrophobia is firstly defined as "a powerful craving for drink and an irrational fear of it, occasioned by a disease in the body" ("appetentia vehemens atque timor potus sine ulla ratione ob quandam in corpore passionem"; see Thumiger 2018.264–65). While the participle arente at Thyestes 5, along with the previous reference to Tantalus's avido … ore (2), conveys the idea of appetentia, "craving," the locative in undis suggests that something prevents Tantalus from drinking, despite water being available next to him. Neither divine punishment nor fear is mentioned as a reason why Tantalus does not drink, although the knowledgeable reader would know that the cause of Tantalus's torture lies in his challenge to, and offending of, the gods.²⁹

This use of a well-known mythological narrative, which will be readdressed later by both the Fury and Tantalus himself (cf. Thy. 52–67, 89–95), does not rule out other layers of interpretation. Mentioned as a distinctive mark of hydrophobia, fear (not just of water) also features prominently throughout the prologue of Seneca's Thyestes, starting with lines 15–18: "addi si quid ad poenas potest/quod ipse custos carceris diri horreat,/quod maestus Acheron paveat, ad cuius metum/nos quoque tremamus" ("if anything can be added to my punishment that would make the very guardian of that dire prison shudder, make gloomy Acheron afraid, make even me tremble in fear of it").³⁰ Fear and trembling not only characterize Tantalus (as well as other characters) from the very beginning of the drama, but they also appear among the symptoms of hydrophobia: cf. "anxietas quaedam sine ulla ratione […] tremor atque conductio nervorum […] attestante pallore cum sudore partium superiorum" ("a certain anxiety without reason […] tremor and spasm of the sinews […] pallor, along with sweating in the upper parts," Caelius Acut. Dis. 3.11). Starting early in the tragedy, Tantalus's implied association with hydrophobia becomes ever more evident later.

After the Fury has introduced the plot (23–67), Tantalus goes back to the description of his punishment, implying that his actions represent an ancestral guilt and will affect his descendants (68–83, 86–100).³¹ Having mentioned that the waters escape him ("ad stagna et amnes et recedentes aquas," "to the pools and rivers and retreating waters," 68), Tantalus states that he wishes to "return" to his "prison's black lair" ("abire in atrum carceris liceat mei/cubile, 70–71; see above p. 334) and "change rivers" (mutare ripas, 72), so as to remain in the middle of the Phlegethon: "alveo medius tuo,/Phlegethon, relinquar igneo cinctus freto" ("let me be left amid your channel, Phlegethon, girdled by your fiery stream," 72–73). Following his predictions regarding the plot of the tragedy, Tantalus underlines that he would prefer to return to the underworld than stay in the upperworld (that is, on stage) and witness the horrible crimes that are about to happen in the drama. This statement is an expression of the "flight" motif, which prominently features within the Thyestes (e.g., Boyle 2017.132) and is connected to Tantalus's fear. Thus Tantalus's fear and willingness to be transferred to the Phlegethon, the river of fire, despite his burning thirst (Thy. 4–5), may represent his (irrational) repulsion of water, which, at the same time, he desires, as is the case for the hydrophobic, who "is tortured simultaneously by thirst and by dread of water," as Celsus puts it.³²

Similarly, Caelius describes the hydrophobic as someone who "has a desire for water and also fear of it" ("appetentia bibendi atque timor," Acut. Dis. 3.11). That Tantalus articulates a more substantial idea of disease and pollution is suggested by his own words at 87–89, where he wonders whether he is "sent forth like some dread exhalation from a fissure in the earth or as a plague to scatter foul contagion among the nations," "mittor ut dirus vapor/tellure rupta vel gravem populis luem/sparsura pestis."³³ Tantalus's self-reference as a dirus vapor and pestis builds upon the widespread motif that a person's horrible crimes can cause pollution that affects their entire community—on both a moral and a physical level.³⁴ Equally, dirus vapor and pestis closely recall the vocabulary used to indicate the spread of epidemics and corporeal disease, thereby implying further associations between Tantalus and a physical condition.³⁵ Therefore, Tantalus not only evokes hydrophobia through his punishment, but he also defines himself as a pestis, thus changing from the diseased (namely a hydrophobic) into a disease.

Furthermore, Tantalus repeatedly refers to his criminal speech, which led him to reveal the secrets of Olympian deities—another impiety alongside his deceit of the gods.³⁶ Despite mentioning his tongue as being co-responsible for his punishment, Tantalus states that he shall not stay silent about the crimes that are about to happen in the drama: "ingenti licet/taxata poena lingua crucietur loquax,/nec hoc tacebo" ("though my tongue is assessed a huge penalty and tortured for being talkative, I will not keep quiet about this either," 91–93). If Tantalus's talkativeness implies his transgressive and hubristic act, the realistic reference to his lingua also recalls the lack of control over the tongue that affects those with hydrophobia, who often show a lingua prominens ("tongue hanging out," Cael. Acut. Dis. 3.11).³⁷ The motif of the (unrestrained) tongue in Tantalus's narrative mirrors and amplifies the depiction of the unrestrained lingua as a symptom of hydrophobia.

When discussing the causes of the disease, the bite of a mad dog is indicated by Caelius (cf. also Celsus De Medicina 5.27.1) as being first among the reasons that may provoke hydrophobia (Acut. Dis. 3.9; see also above n. 23). Relevantly, S. Holm (2013.390–91) maintains that the depiction of Tantalus shows connections with the metaphorical representation of a dog's insatiable appetite in Seneca Epistle 72.8: "Vidisti aliquando canem missa a domino frusta panis aut carnis aperto ore captantem? Quidquid excepit protinus integrum devorat et semper ad spem venturi hiat," "Have you ever seen a dog, his mouth open, snatching at bits of bread or meat thrown by his master? Whatever he gets, he immediately devours whole and gapes always in the hope of the thing to come."

In this passage, Seneca has the dog exemplify the behavior of the greedy person, who immediately consumes the objects of desire, always striving for more, never gaining full satisfaction. Not only does Tantalus's thirst and hunger symbolize those with a perennially unfulfilled appetite, but Holm also argues that Tantalus is an implied model for Lucretius's representation of the ambitious and greedy man who is never satisfied by material goods (DRN 3.1053–84; Holm 2013). Moreover, the expression aperto ore captantem and the verb hiat in Seneca's letter echo the self-depiction of Tantalus in the opening lines of the Thyestes (cf. ore captantem cibos, 2 and fame/hiante, 5–6; see p. 338 above),³⁸ where excess, hubris, and the motif of "something greater" (cf. peius … aliquid, 4–5) feature very prominently (cf. "devorat et semper ad spem venturi hiat," Ep. 72.8).³⁹ The intertextual and thematic connections between Tantalus's punishment and the dog's insatiability suggest that the animal's madness and obsession are transferred to, and articulated by, Tantalus's canine desire for and fear of water, thus further implying a parallel between Tantalus's attitude and the symptoms and causes of hydrophobia.

In several other sources, Tantalus is not only tormented by thirst but also by hunger (see p. 334 with n. 12 above and Martorana 2022 n. 12), so in Seneca's Thyestes, the Chorus refers to both Tantalus's hunger and thirst ("hos aeterna fames persequitur cibos,/hos aeterna sitis," "such food is pursued by eternal hunger, eternal thirst," 149–50), allotting to the former a fairly long digression (150–68). Yet thirst, rather than hunger, seems to be the very hallmark of Tantalus's punishment across the Senecan dramas: see Agamemnon 19–20 ("et inter undas fervida exustus siti/aquas fugaces ore decepto appetit," "and one parched mid-river with burning thirst seeks the fleeting water with his often-cheated lips"), Medea 745 ("Tantalus securus undas hauriat Pirenidas," "Tantalus may swallow down safely Pirene's stream"), Phaedra 1232 ("me ludat amnis ora vicina alluens," "let me be mocked by the river that flows close to one's lips"), and Hercules Oetaeus 943–44 ("me vagus fugiat latex/meamque fallax unda deludat sitim," "let the inconstant water flee from me, the fraudulent stream delude my thirst"). In Hercules Furens 752–55, while both hunger and thirst are mentioned, the latter is more prominent ("in amne medio faucibus siccis senex/sectatur undas, alluit mentum latex,/fidemque cum iam saepe decepto dedit,/perit unda in ore; poma destituunt famem," "in midriver, an old man with parched jaws pursues the water; the water laps against his chin, and after inspiring his trust—so often deceived—it vanishes from his mouth; the fruits leave his hunger cheated").⁴⁰ In two of these passages (Phaedra and Hercules Oetaeus), the characters speaking (Theseus and Deianira, respectively) imagine Tantalus's thirst falling upon them, whereas in Medea 745, Tantalus's punishment is suspended due to Medea's magic rituals.⁴¹ Along with thirst, these accounts share the motif of deceit and flight, which are attributed to the waters but can be read as a covert—and to some extent antiphrastic—reference to a hydrophobic sufferer's own flight from water.⁴²

Furthermore, Agamemnon 19–20 openly refers to Tantalus being plunged into the water, thus establishing a parallel with Caelius's reference to the (physicians') attempts to submerge the hydrophobic in water to heal their condition.⁴³ While Medea's reference to a securus Tantalus indicates the suspension of the punishment so that the sinner can finally reach the waters, the idea that Tantalus can safely drink may also allude to the hydrophobic Tantalus's underlying fear of water. Similarly, the references to the river that "flows nearby" at Phaedra 1232 (alluens) and Hercules Furens 753 (but is not reached) recall the notion of a rejected proximity of water and, at the same time, a desire to drink it, which, as we have seen, also characterize the hydrophobic. While in the descriptions of Tantalus's punishment the longing for water and attempts to reach it surely receive a greater emphasis than his fear, water is nonetheless also qualified, in a negative way, as deceitful and hostile (cf. fugaces, Ag. 20; ludat, Pha. 1232; vagus … latex and fallax unda, HO 943–44 and HF 754). This perception of water as an adversary may imply a fear of and detachment from it, which would, in turn, translate into the preoccupation, anxiety, and discomfort of the hydrophobic person.⁴⁴ Although it is not possible to state that Tantalus's hydrophobia is openly mentioned, allusive parallels between Tantalus's punishment and hydrophobic attitudes can be acknowledged throughout Seneca's dramas.

Going back to the Thyestes, Tantalus's thirst returns to center stage at lines 169–75, where sitis is said to "heat his blood and fires it with torches of flame," "qua cum percaluit sanguis et igneis/exarsit facibus" (170–71).⁴⁵ The idea of fires or heating burning the body from the inside characterizes the spread of diseases in ancient medical sources, as well as in literary accounts, thus connecting the depiction of the thirsty Tantalus to pathological behavior.⁴⁶ Moreover, the presence of a febricula ("light fever"), "rubor vultus atque oculorum" ("red face and eyes"), and sudor ("sweating") among the symptoms of hydrophobia mentioned by Caelius (3.11) suggests a connection between Tantalus's heating from within at 170–71 and fever and sweating as physical manifestations of hydrophobia. Tantalus is portrayed as he "stands chasing the offered waters with his mouth" ("stat miser obvios/fluctus ore petens," Thy. 171–72), a sentence that conveys the idea of unsatisfied thirst, as well as suggesting a simultaneous fear of water.⁴⁷ While the miser ("wretched") Tantalus seeks the waters with his mouth (fluctus ore petens), he nonetheless stands in front of the waters: cf. stat … obvios, where his lack of movement may allude to a pathological refusal to approach water.

As Tantalus tries to chase the waters, the stream escapes from him, thereby reiterating the "flight" theme: "quos profugus latex/avertit sterili deficiens vado/conantemque sequi deserit" ("but the fleeing stream turns away, and dwindles to a barren channel, and leaves him trying to follow," 172–74; see Boyle 2017 on Thy. 169–75). The participle conantem articulates Tantalus's failed effort, whereas the stream is strongly personified by the adjective profugus, as well as the verbs avertit, deficiens, and deserit.⁴⁸ While the grammar and meaning confirm that it is Tantalus who seeks the water, thus showing thirst as a potential symptom of hydrophobia, the personification of the waves can be seen as an articulation of the other prominent manifestation of hydrophobia: fear. In other words, Seneca's allusive references to hydrophobic pathology may be conveyed, in this case, by the combination of Tantalus's behavior and the personified description of the stream as fleeing and reluctant. In suggesting this, I am not arguing that the water here paradoxically escapes itself; however, the water articulates important manifestations of hydrophobic behavior, fear and escape, thus complementing the most characteristic behavior attributed to Tantalus, namely, his desire for water. In other words, the attitude ascribed to the personified water becomes a metaphor and symbol for a behavior that normally relates to the hydrophobic. Rather than attributing to Tantalus both fear and desire, in these lines, Seneca has the stream hypostasize the former, thereby integrating itself into the picture of specifically hydrophobic attitudes. Finally, Tantalus ends up drinking dust, as his attempts at reaching the water are frustrated: "hic bibit/altum de rapido gurgite pulverem" ("he drinks the deeps left from the whirling flood: deep dust," 174–75). Once again, this line may be interpreted as a hint at the hydrophobic sufferer's refusal to drink water, which is here replaced by dust.⁴⁹

In this section, we have seen how, while thirst and longing are prominent in the accounts of Tantalus's punishments within Senecan dramas, references to fear of water are more covert and implied. Nonetheless, fear itself is a pivotal theme in the prologue of Seneca's Thyestes and features in the description of Tantalus's punishment. Although fear is not always—and not directly—attributed to Tantalus, its permeating presence, along with the references to Tantalus's thirst and his connection to a mad dog, recalls the causes, descriptions, and manifestations of hydrophobia in medical writings. That Tantalus was traditionally associated with hydrophobia is further evidence that Seneca builds upon and plays with a pathological depiction of Tantalus as hydrophobic. But what are the aims of this (veiled) parallel? Why is Seneca interested in—or obsessed with—Tantalus as a metaphor for hydrophobia?

III. MORAL AND POETIC IMPLICATIONS OF SENECA'S HYDROPHOBIC TANTALUS

To further explore the philosophical and poetic implications of the parallels between Tantalus's punishment and hydrophobic behavior, it is helpful to consider Caelius's categorization of hydrophobia as a physical disease. In fact, Caelius appears to have been aware of the ongoing debate over "whether hydrophobia is a disease of the soul or of the body" ("utrumne animae an corporis passio sit hydrophobia"), devoting a lengthy section of his work to it (Acut. Dis. 3.13), where he first concedes that "some say that it [scil. hydrophobia] is a disease of the soul, on the grounds that desire or longing is a function peculiar to the soul rather than the body" ("quidam esse aiunt animi passionem, siquidem appetere vel desiderare sit animae speciale non corporis," Acut. Dis. 3.13). Hydrophobia is openly associated with greed, longing, and excessive ambition by those who consider it a disease of the soul, according to the following argument (Caelius Acut. Dis. 3.13):

denique purpuram cupientes vel statuam vel militiam aut regnum aut pecuniam neque venis neque nervis aegrotare dicuntur vel arteriis, sed animae affici passione. quo fiet ut etiam hydrophobia animae sit passio, est enim appetentia potus, quippe cum timor et maestitudo et iracundia passiones sint animae. timent igitur aquam hydrophobae, quo necessario animo aegrotare noscuntur. nam omnis phantasia cuius diversitates Latini visa vocaverunt, ut Tullius, sive illa naturalia sive contra naturam fuerint, animi non corporis esse noscuntur. hydrophobae igitur phantasia iactantur, scilicet ea quae contra naturam esse videatur, quo assumitur eos animi affici passione.

Those who are greedy for the purple or for statues, military glory, royal power, or wealth are said to be affected not by a disease of the veins, sinews, or arteries but by a disease of the soul. And so, they say, hydrophobia, too, being the desire for drink, is a disease of the soul. Again, since fear, sadness, and anger are affections of the soul and those who have hydrophobia fear water, it must consequently be admitted that theirs is an affection of the soul. For, all mental images, the various forms of which the Latin writers, for example, Tullius (Cicero), call visa ["visions"], clearly belong to the soul and not to the body, whether they are natural or contrary to nature. And persons who have hydrophobia are tormented by an imagination (phantasia) which is evidently contrary to nature. Hence the conclusion that they are the victims of a disease of the soul.

The argument runs as follows: as those who long (cf. cupientes) for glory and power are said to be affected by a disease of the soul, so a lack of "desire" (appetentia) for water, which is characteristic of hydrophobia, should also be considered as pertaining to the soul. Since hydrophobia is, therefore, classified as a form of "imagination" (phantasia) that goes against nature (contra naturam), one should conclude that hydrophobia affects the soul. After mentioning those arguments, Caelius expresses his criticism, maintaining that hydrophobia is a disease of the body, since "appetere vel delectari potu, sicut etiam mandere, ex corporis quadam nascitur passione" ("a longing for drink or delight in drinking, as in eating, arises from an affection of the body").⁵⁰ After adding that fear also "arises from a sympathetic accord between body and soul" ("timor enim per consensum animae corpori compatientis nasci perspicitur"), Caelius mentions once again that hydrophobia is mostly caused by the bite of a mad dog, "which has for its object the body not the soul" ("etenim antecedens morsus ex quo causa descendit utique corporis fuit et non animae"); furthermore, the symptoms mainly affect the body. So while also attacking the soul, hydrophobia is primarily a disease of the body: "quo fiet ut sit corporis passio, sed etiam animae occupet qualitatem, tamquam in furiosis vel melancholicis" ("from this it follows that it [hydrophobia] is therefore a bodily disease, though it also attacks the psychic nature, as do mania and melancholy"). Although Caelius confutes the argument supporting the psychic nature of hydrophobia, his discussion is evidence for the existence of an opposite opinion, possibly supported by contemporary Stoic views, where hydrophobia is considered as a disease of the soul, with subsequent ethical implications.⁵¹ Depictions of Tantalus and his punishment have also been argued to hold ethical and, more broadly, philosophical meanings. Like the metaphorical readings of the Lucretian Tantalus, Seneca's Tantalus can also be seen as an articulation of avarice and greed.⁵² The association between Tantalus and hydrophobia as a moral, as well as physical, condition takes these readings a step further.

We have observed how interpreting Tantalus's punishment as a hydrophobic manifestation leads to a pathologization of Tantalus within the Thyestes, where he is both an ancestor of Atreus and Thyestes, and a catalyst of the tragic plot.⁵³ Accordingly, Tantalus is responsible for the spread of both moral and physical disease (cf. his self-definition as a "contagion among the nations" at 88–89; see above p. 340).⁵⁴ In fact, the idea of Tantalus as an articulation of both a moral sickness and a physical disease is conveyed throughout the first section of the drama. After referring to how the blood of Tantalus's crimes spreads across the lands and peoples as an infection (cf. "effusus omnis irriget terras cruor,/supraque magnos gentium exultet duces/Libido victrix," "let spilt blood drench all lands, and over the mighty leaders of nations let Lust exult victorious," 44–46), the Fury orders the sinner to "fill up the whole house with Tantalus" ("imple Tantalo totam domum," 53), thus depicting him as a corruption that pervades the house of his descendants.⁵⁵ The language of corruption and moral contagion can also be found at 61, where blood is said to pollute the ancestral (sacred) fires ("patrios polluat sanguis focos"), and both thirst and fire are pathologically recalled at 98–99: "flagrat incensum siti/cor et perustis flamma visceribus micat" ("my heart is fired and ablaze with thirst, and flames dart through my burnt flesh").⁵⁶ While fire and thirst articulate individual symptoms, in the following lines, the furor affects the whole house as both a physical and mental pathology. Addressing Tantalus, the Fury asks him to "distribute this very furor throughout the house," "hunc, hunc furorem divide in totam domum" (101). Furor most directly refers to Tantalus's abject crimes (nefas) against the gods, which crimes are now transmitted to his descendants Atreus and Thyestes, thus articulating their moral guilt. Accordingly, furor must be understood as a moral disease, particularly if read through the lens of Seneca's Stoic philosophy, where irrational behavior is directly associated with moral (as well as physical) illness.⁵⁷ At the same time, furor (and its Greek equivalents) can indicate mental illness and, to a lesser extent, the spread of physical illnesses in ancient medical writings.⁵⁸

Indeed, Tantalus's arrival in the house of Pelops is depicted as the outbreak of a plague which occurs through physical contact: "sentit introitus tuos/domus et nefando tota contactu horruit" ("the house feels you entering and shuddered throughout at this accursed contact," 103–04). While the house personifies the people living in it and, accordingly, their contamination, Tantalus's appearance also affects the earth: "iam tuum maestae pedem/terrae gravantur" ("already the sad earth is oppressed by your step," 106–07).⁵⁹ The description of Tantalus's arrival on and movement across the upperworld recalls the personifications of agents of disease that can be found in earlier plague narratives, such as the Noric plague in Vergil's Georgics 3.⁶⁰ There the spread of the epidemic is expressed through the processing of one of the Furies, namely Tisiphone, across the earth, which finds echoes in this description of Tantalus's pollution of his house and stock, as well as the earth as a whole. The arrival of Tantalus, the disease agent, on the earth provokes exceptional natural phenomena (107–21), which also are a distinctive feature of plague narratives within late republican and early imperial poetry.⁶¹ In sum, Tantalus is not simply an articulation of a specific disease, hydrophobia, he is, more broadly, the agent of the moral and physical disease that spreads across his family, house, and the entire earth.

The depiction of Tantalus as an embodiment of a moral disease aligns with Seneca's Stoic view of the passions as diseases of the soul and has further implications later in the drama. While approaching Atreus's palace, Thyestes warns his son about the dangers of ambition and power (446–70). It is no coincidence that the son Thyestes addresses takes his name from his famous ancestor—Tantalus himself. Especially illuminating is a section of the dialogue where Thyestes complains about the falsity and danger of power (Sen. Thy. 446–54):

Mihi crede, falsis magna nominibus placent,frustra timentur dura. dum excelsus steti,numquam pavere destiti atque ipsum meiferrum timere lateris. o quantum bonum estobstare nulli, capere securas dapes                      450humi iacentem! scelera non intrant casas,tutusque mensa capitur angusta scyphus;venenum in auro bibitur—expertus loquor:malam bonae praeferre fortunam licet.

Believe me, they are false names that make greatness attractive; hardship is feared in vain. While I stood on high, I never ceased to feel terror or to fear the very sword at my side. Oh, what a blessing it is to stand in no-one's way, to take carefree meals lying on the ground! Crimes do not enter huts, and one takes a cup safely at a humble table; poison is drunk in gold. I speak from experience: one may legitimately prefer bad fortune to good.

Interestingly, to exemplify the risks of avarice, Thyestes refers to eating and drinking: if one is not obsessed with power and greed, they will take securas dapes (450) and a tutus scyphus (452), whereas "poison is drunk in gold." The allusions to the fact that powerful people may be subject to poisoning seems to be a rationalization and justification of the hydrophobic sufferer's fear of drinking; by contrast, lack of ambition or greed allows people to drink and eat safely. If read vis-à-vis a metaphorical interpretation of Tantalus's punishment, these lines suggest why Tantalus cannot drink—and is to some extent afraid of—water: he is an expression of the troubles and anxieties of a greedy person striving for riches and power.⁶² The coincidence of the names of Thyestes' son and his ancestor, Tantalus, makes this hypothesis very suggestive: Thyestes here alludes to Tantalus's inability to drink as well as providing a rationalization for his hydrophobia. This idea is further supported by the expression securas dapes, which establishes a link with Medea's securus Tantalus (Med. 745; see above p. 342), and is antithetical to the idea of fear that generally characterizes the hydrophobic (Tantalus).⁶³

In the dialogue between Thyestes and his son, deceit features prominently, along with fear, as the young Tantalus asks what kind of deceit Thyestes fears (482: "quam tamen fraudem times?"), and receives as a reply that everything is a reason for concern: "omnem: timori quem meo statuam modum?/tantum potest quantum odit" ("every kind! What limit can I set on my fear? His [Atreus's] capacity is as great as his hatred," 483–84).⁶⁴ The references to drinking and eating, along with a desire for power, the allusive lexical choices, and the mention of fear and deceit, all suggest that, in this passage, Seneca has Thyestes play with the metaphorical interpretation of Tantalus as an agent of pollution, and, more specifically, with Tantalus's hydrophobia as an articulation of, and consequence of, excessive ambition and greed.

The pathologization of Tantalus's punishment is not the only allusion to medical conditions, language, and doctrines within the Thyestes. For instance, Chiara Thumiger (2023.57) has recently detected the use of "poeticized vocabulary and observations of professional medicine" in the description of Atreus cutting up and cooking Thyestes' sons (749–75). In particular, the dismemberment of the children's bodies can be read as Atreus's distorted dissection and anatomical inspection, where "with his own hands he cuts and separates the body limb by limb: working back to the trunk he chops away the resisting arms and broad shoulders; heartlessly, he lays bare the joints and bones and chops them away" ("ipse divisum secat/in membra corpus, amputat trunco tenus/umeros patentis et lacertorum moras,/denudat artus durus atque ossa amputate," 760–63).⁶⁵ Atreus's acts are described as something in between a sacrificial or religious ritual and a medical investigation: "at ille fibras tractat ac fata inspicit/et adhuc calentes viscerum venas notat" ("but he handles the entrails and looks into destiny and takes note of the still-hot veins on the viscera," 757–58).⁶⁶ The interest in anatomical details also characterizes the description of the entrails as still trembling and pulsing: "erepta vivis exta pectoribus tremunt/spirantque venae corque adhuc pavidum salit" ("torn from the living chests the organs are still trembling, the veins pulsing and the hearts throbbing in terror," 755–56).⁶⁷ The use of medical language in this passage not only suggests the rise of anatomy, and a familiarity with it, in Seneca's cultural framework (as per Thumiger), but also confirms the incidence of medical discourse within the Thyestes (Thumiger 2023.52, 58–59).

Finally, the depiction of Tantalus as hydrophobic resonates with the account of Thyestes' cannibalistic meal close to the end of the drama. Before finding out that what he is eating (or has just eaten) consists of the very flesh of his sons, Thyestes notes a strange hesitation in his limbs, which seem to reject food and drink: "sed quid hoc? nolunt manus/parere, crescit pondus et dextram gravat;/admotus ipsis Bacchus a labris fugit/circaque rictus ore decepto fluit,/et ipsa trepido mensa subsiluit solo" ("but what is this? My hands do not want to obey, the weight increases and burdens my right hand. When raised, the wine flees from my very lips, cheats my mouth, and swirls around my open jaws; and the table itself jumps with the ground's trembling," 985–89). The fleeing wine recalls the water that escapes Tantalus's mouth in the opening sections of the drama (cf. also Tantalus's portrayals in Ag. 20: ore decepto, and HF 754: "fidemque cum iam saepe decepto dedit"; see above p. 342). The way that Thyestes' hands and bodily parts react to (and reject) food and, more importantly, drink may be a further allusion to the fear of water that is characteristic of hydrophobic behavior. By building upon both the representations of Tantalus earlier in the tragedy (and within other Senecan dramas) and the symptoms of hydrophobia, Thyestes' physical reaction further enhances the connection between Tantalus's punishment and hydrophobia as both a physical and moral disease, which anticipates, and at the same time fosters, the crimes happening within the drama. In other words, not only Tantalus's moral disease but also his physical condition as hydrophobic has now infected Thyestes.

The link between physical disease and moral abjection is exemplified by Thyestes' observation after he discovers that the meal he has eaten is, in fact, the flesh of his sons: "hoc est quod avidus capere non potuit pater" ("this is what the greedy father could not take in," 1040; see also n. 62 above).⁶⁸ While this line apparently refers to Thyestes' previous hesitation to eat and drink (985–89), as well as his inability to understand Atreus's riddles,⁶⁹ the sentence may also allude to Tantalus's own inability to reach food and water, as the word pater can indicate both Thyestes as a father and Tantalus as his ancestor.⁷⁰ Thyestes' unwilling and unintentional meal of the limbs of his sons also transforms into a (scatological) pathology, as Thyestes mentions his need to expel the digested flesh of his children: "volvuntur intus viscera et clausum nefas/sine exitu luctatur et quaerit fugam" ("the flesh churns within me, and the imprisoned horror struggles with no way out, seeking to escape," 1041–42).⁷¹ This physical reaction is the final expression of the conflation between physical and moral disease, and its incidence within the plot of the drama.

IV. CONCLUSION

In this article, I hope to have shown that the emphasis on Tantalus's punishment within the Thyestes articulates physical and psychic disease, as well as moral corruption, in several ways. Tantalus's abominable nefas against gods and mortals simultaneously forecasts and catalyzes the horrible crimes of his descendants. Concurrently, Tantalus's punishment is connected to a specific condition, hydrophobia, as the sinner's symptomatology and Seneca's poeticized—and allusive—medical language suggest. As hydrophobia can be interpreted as a pathological manifestation of ambition, greed, and excess, Tantalus represents the medicalization of human vices that can be observed elsewhere within the drama and throughout Seneca's writings. The presence of the hydrophobic Tantalus permeates other episodes of the Thyestes (from Thyestes' dialogue with his son, to the cannibalistic meal), thus contributing to the collapse of boundaries between physical and mental disease, and between corporeal disruption and moral evil.