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Transcriber's Note.
A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book.
THE TRAGEDIES OF SENECA
DOUBLE HERMES OF SENECA AND SOCRATES.
Now in the Old Museum at Berlin
The Tragedies of Seneca
TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH VERSE, TO WHICH HAVE BEEN APPENDED
COMPARATIVE ANALYSES OF THE CORRESPONDING GREEK
AND ROMAN PLAYS, AND A MYTHOLOGICAL INDEX
BY
FRANK JUSTUS MILLER
INTRODUCED BY AN ESSAY ON THE INFLUENCE OF THE TRAGEDIES OF SENECA
UPON EARLY ENGLISH DRAMA
BY
JOHN MATTHEWS MANLY
CHICAGO
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 ADELPHI TERRACE
1907
Copyright 1907 By
The University of Chicago
Published December 1907
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
TO
FRANK FROST ABBOTT
AND
EDWARD CAPPS
MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES
THROUGH A SCORE OF YEARS
PREFACE
The place of the tragedies of Seneca in literature is unique. Theystand as the sole surviving representatives, barring a few fragments,of an extensive Roman product in the tragic drama. They therefore serveas the only connecting link between ancient and modern tragedy. Theyare, moreover, modeled more or less closely after the tragedies ofAeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and the Greek and Roman productin literature along parallel lines cannot be better studied than bya comparison of these Senecan plays with their Greek prototypes—acomparison which is not possible in comedy, since, unfortunately, theGreek originals of Plautus and Terence have not come down to us.
These plays are of great value and interest in themselves, first, as independentdramatic literature of no small merit; and second, as an illustrationof the literary characteristics of the age of Nero: the florid, rhetorical style,the long, didactic speeches, the tendency to philosophize, the frequentepigram, the pride of mythologic lore.
Popular interest in the tragedies of Seneca has been growing to a considerableextent during the last generation. This has been stimulatedin part by Leo's excellent text edition, and by the researches of Germanand English scholars into Senecan questions, more especially into theinfluence of Seneca upon the pre-Elizabethan drama; in part also by thefact that courses in the tragedies have been regaining their place, longlost, in college curricula.
The present edition seeks still further to bring Seneca back to thenotice of classical scholars, and at the same time to present to the Englishreader all of the values a