Agamemnon
- Language:
- Latin
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Clean text
- Extent:
- ~6,530 words · 31 passages
Cite this work
- APALucius Annaeus Seneca. (n.d.). Agamemnon. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/agamemnon
- MLALucius Annaeus Seneca. "Agamemnon." SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/agamemnon.
- ChicagoLucius Annaeus Seneca. Agamemnon. SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/seneca/agamemnon.
What it is about
Agamemnon's return from Troy and his murder at the hands of Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.
Context and history
Seneca's version is far darker than Aeschylus's: the weight of inherited crime dominates, along with the sense that nothing can be stopped. The chorus of the Trojan captive women is among the best things he wrote. The tragedies are not a literary appendix to Seneca's philosophy: they are the main road by which he set it out. Anger, the fear of death and fate, argued for in the letters, are here shown at work.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
Taciti Orestes Pylades Chorus Mycenaeorum Chorus Iliadum Thyestis Umbra Opaca linquens Ditis inferni loca adsum profundo Tartari emissus specu, incertus utras oderim sedes magis: fugio Thyestes inferos, superos fugo. en horret animus et pavor membra excutit: video paternos, immo fraternos lares, hoc est vetustum Pelopiae limen domus; hinc auspicari regium capiti decus mos est Pelasgis, hoc sedent alti toro quibus superba sceptra gestantur manu, locus 'hic habendae curiae — hic epulis locus, libet reverti, nonne vel tristes lacus incolere satius, nonne custodem Stygis trigemina nigris colla iactantem iubis? ubi ille celeri corpus evinctus rotae in se refertur, ubi per adversum irritus redeunte totiens luditur saxo labor, ubi tondet ales avida fecundum iecur, et inter undas fervida exustus siti aquas fugaces ore decepto appetit poenas daturus caelitum dapibus graves — sed ille nostrae pars quota est culpae senex? reputemus omnes quos ob infandas manus quaesitor urna Gnosius versat reos, (244) vincam Thyestes sceleribus cunctos meis. a fratre vincar? liberis plenus tribus in me sepultis? viscera exedi mea. nec hactenus Fortuna maculavit patrem, sed maius aliud ausa commisso scelus gnatae nefandos petere concubitus iubet. non pavidus hausi dicta, sed cepi nefas. ergo ut per omnis liberos irem parens, coacta fatis gnata fert uterum gravem,← Back to Lucius Annaeus Seneca