Book description
Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable
for the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold
and then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes
depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding
brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented by fatal passion for
her stepson. In The Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and Andromache
await their fates at the hands of the conquering Greeks, and Oedipus
follows the downfall of the royal House of Thebes. Octavia is a grim
commentary on Nero's tyrannical rule and the execution of his wife, with
Seneca himself appearing as an ineffective counsellor attempting to curb
the atrocities of the emperor.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4BC - AD65) was born in Cordoba, Spain,
where he was brought up studying the traditional virtues of republican
Roman life. He became a teacher of rhetoric but attracted attention
for his incisive style of writing. Closely linked to Nero, his death
was ordered by the emperor in AD65. Seneca committed suicide.
E. F. Watling had translated many Ancient Classics for Penguin,
including plays of Sophocles and Plautus. He died in 1990.
