Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 127.1 (2006) 149-152 [Access article in PDF] Mario Erasmo. Roman Tragedy: Theatre to Theatricality. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. xii + 211 pp. Cloth, $45. [Erratum]This is a study of Roman tragedy from Livius Andronicus to Seneca. Erasmo states that his aim is to study the development of the form, "focusing on the process of how Roman tragedy became increasingly theatricalized and the role [End Page 149] played by Roman culture in shaping the perception of theatricality on and off the stage" (x). The center of the study is, therefore, the incorporation into Roman tragedy, either in the script produced by the dramatist or in the same script as manipulated in performance, of material drawn from Roman life and political culture and, by extension, the reflection of theatrical figures and motifs in the world outside. Most interesting, therefore, is the material handled in chapters 3 and 4 (52–121), where Erasmo engages inter alia with Pompey's restaging of the Clytemnestra of Accius, with the Iter of Cornelius Balbus, and with the Thyestes of Varius Rufus. There are some provocative suggestions here which merit attention. There is also much of which this cannot fairly be said.Erasmo begins his account with the tragedies of Livius Andronicus (9–14) and moves on to Naevius (14–18), Ennius (18–28), Pacuvius (34–42), and Accius (42–51). Each author is given a brief introduction, and his place in the history of the genre is set out. Erasmo then takes one play of each of these writers and attempts to set out what can be inferred from the extant fragments that remain. It often appears that the principal criterion for selection of this sample work is simply that its remains are rather more numerous than those of any other work of the author in question. There is little guarantee that they will actually develop Erasmo's central thesis. This finally makes for one rather unsatisfactory coda after another. More effective is the deployment of the material to hand in chapters 3 and 4 (52–121), although it was probably unnecessary to print the dream narrative of the Accian Tarquin twice (62–63 and 92–93). Seneca takes center stage only in the brief chapter 5 (122–39).Erasmo notes the rather different definitions of the term "metatheatre" offered by Gentili and Slater (5). It is probably fair to say that the definition drawn from the latter ("theatre that demonstrates an awareness of its own theatricality") is rather more familiar to most modern readers. Yet Erasmo has a further claim, and this is summarized on the same page: "allusions to personalities or events outside of the theatre or to the dramatic action of the play are needed to understand the play." This is a markedly unclear piece of prose, but what Erasmo is trying to say probably emerges rather better if we delete "outside of" and read "external to." For what "metatheatre" means in Erasmo's discussion of Ennius (19 and 22) is the playwright's inclusion in his adaptation of Euripides' Iphigenia and Medea of language redolent of Roman society and custom. Now this does not directly draw attention to the modes of representation of the play at issue to the same extent as does, for example, the appearance on stage of the choragus in the Curculio, but there is little doubt that Erasmo is reaching here for something important.Some interesting work has been done of late on Pompey's rather unfortunate identification of himself with Agamemnon (see especially E. Champlin in D. Braund and C. Gill [eds.] Myth, History and Culture in Republican Rome [Exeter, 2003], 295–319; and F. R. Berno in Maia 56 [2004]). Erasmo offers his own contribution to this issue with his discussion of the staging of the Clytemnestra of Accius (83–91). Pointing to Cicero Ad Familiares 7.1.2, he treats the grand [End Page 150] spectacle of Agamemnon's entry as a reperformance of Pompey's own triple triumph six years before. Yet why put all this in the context of a drama...