Latin 4/530 November 23, 2016 Lucius Annaeus Seneca/Seneca the Younger: born at Cordoba (ca. 4 BCE-1 CE); sentenced to death under Caligula (37-41 CE); exiled to Corsica under Claudius (41-54 CE); Nero’s (54-68 CE) tutor and political advisor; isolated from emperor (ca. 62-65 CE); suicide described at Tac. Ann. 15.62-4 ("Conspiracy of Piso") • Seneca the tragedian: themes of anger/the irrational (desire, lust, domination, self-destruction, madness); loosely based on Greek tragedies/plots, but highly Romanized and idiosyncratically Senecan compositions/spectacles • Thyestes: cf. Accius’ Atreus (Boyle, ch. 4), Varius’ Thyestes (Boyle, ch. 6) • question of performance (public theater? recitation? private court performances?) • anxiety of influence: Augustan poetry (Tarrant, p. 17n.83, “The links between Senecan tragedy and Augustan poetry have never been systematically explored …”; see now Trinacty, C. 2014. Senecan Tragedy and the Reception of Augustan Poetry. Oxford)