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Divining Identity in Seneca’s Oedipus

  • Stavros Frangoulidis

    Stavros Frangoulidis is Professor Latin at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). He is the author of articles and book chapters on Roman comedy, Senecan tragedy, and the Latin novel. He co-edited several volumes on Greek and Latin prose and poetry for the Ancient Narrative and the Trends in Classics. His monographs include: Handlung und Nebenhandlung: Theater, Metatheater und Gattungsbewusstsein in der römischen Komödie (1997); Roles and Performances in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (2001); and Witches, Isis and Narrative: Approaches to Magic in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses (2008).
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Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Ancient Greece and Rome
This chapter is in the book Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Ancient Greece and Rome

Abstract

In Seneca’s Oedipus, the intersection of plotlines with conflicting perspectives on the interpretation of Phoebus’ oracles permeates the drama as a means of advancing the plot and reconstructing Oedipus’ identity. Oedipus’ attempts to engage Teiresias in his own detective plot, focused on discovering Laius’ murderer, conflicts ironically with Tiresias’ plot, enacted through a series of rituals, that reveals Oedipus’ identity as incestuous patricide and relocates it within the broader scope of past and future Theban crimes contra naturam. This process rewrites Oedipus’ individual history to establish his place in the criminal genealogy of monstra that afflict the Theban community. Pentheus, who is of particular importance in this genealogy, is established as an intratextual double of Oedipus — both theomachs whose transition from accuser to accused, hunter to hunted, and ignorant to enlightened culminates in a gruesome bodily mutilation that marks initiation into a new identity as sacrificial victim for the community.

Abstract

In Seneca’s Oedipus, the intersection of plotlines with conflicting perspectives on the interpretation of Phoebus’ oracles permeates the drama as a means of advancing the plot and reconstructing Oedipus’ identity. Oedipus’ attempts to engage Teiresias in his own detective plot, focused on discovering Laius’ murderer, conflicts ironically with Tiresias’ plot, enacted through a series of rituals, that reveals Oedipus’ identity as incestuous patricide and relocates it within the broader scope of past and future Theban crimes contra naturam. This process rewrites Oedipus’ individual history to establish his place in the criminal genealogy of monstra that afflict the Theban community. Pentheus, who is of particular importance in this genealogy, is established as an intratextual double of Oedipus — both theomachs whose transition from accuser to accused, hunter to hunted, and ignorant to enlightened culminates in a gruesome bodily mutilation that marks initiation into a new identity as sacrificial victim for the community.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations
  5. List of Figures XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Greece
  8. Into the Woods: Reading the Iliad with Boeotian Cult 17
  9. Epinician Rituals in Pindar’s Fourth and Fifth Olympians: Shaping and Preserving Identities in Song 35
  10. Repeat, Remember: Ritual and Literature (Horace; Sappho, Alcaeus; Homer, Sophocles, Epicurus, Callimachus, Vergil) 47
  11. Ritual, Meter, and Cultural Memories of Megatheism: A New Case for Sarapis as the God of Hyssaldomos’ Verse-Inscription from Mylasa 71
  12. Part II Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Rome
  13. Georgics 4: Vergil on the Rites of Poetry and Philosophy at the Dawn of a New Era 97
  14. Horace’s Ritual Song in Augustan Rome: The Sacred Poet as an alter princeps 119
  15. Divining Identity in Seneca’s Oedipus 139
  16. Part III Performing Identity
  17. Call the Witnesses: Athenian Citizenship Practice at the Crossroads of Memory, Ritual, and Identity 153
  18. Embodied Memory in the Panathenaia 169
  19. Ritual Against Memory: Managing the Ancestors in Ancient Rome 195
  20. Part IV Trauma and Memory
  21. Aeneas’ tropaeum: Collective Trauma and Commemoration in Vergil’s Aeneid 213
  22. Broken Hospitality and Traumatic Memory in the Funerals of Vergil’s Pallas and Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus 237
  23. Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Prudentius, Peristephanon and Paulinus of Nola, Natalicia 271
  24. Part V Women, Ritual and Memory
  25. Remembering Female Names: Crisis, Ritual, and Collective Identity Formation in Ancient Greek Epic Poetry 289
  26. Ritual Lament, Memory, and Identity in Euripides’ Trojan Trilogy 307
  27. Memory, Ritual, and the Politics of Closure in Tacitus, Ann. 3.76 323
  28. Part VI Places
  29. Treasuries, Identity, and Politics 337
  30. Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities 355
  31. Ritual, Memory, and Identity: The Case of Theoriae 385
  32. Pomponius Mela’s Hercules: Preserving Phoenician Ritual Memory and Identity 405
  33. List of Contributors 423
  34. Index Rerum
  35. Index Locorum
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111197456-008

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Acknowledgments
  3. Contents VII
  4. Abbreviations
  5. List of Figures XIII
  6. Introduction 1
  7. Part I Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Greece
  8. Into the Woods: Reading the Iliad with Boeotian Cult 17
  9. Epinician Rituals in Pindar’s Fourth and Fifth Olympians: Shaping and Preserving Identities in Song 35
  10. Repeat, Remember: Ritual and Literature (Horace; Sappho, Alcaeus; Homer, Sophocles, Epicurus, Callimachus, Vergil) 47
  11. Ritual, Meter, and Cultural Memories of Megatheism: A New Case for Sarapis as the God of Hyssaldomos’ Verse-Inscription from Mylasa 71
  12. Part II Ritual, Poetics, and the Past: Rome
  13. Georgics 4: Vergil on the Rites of Poetry and Philosophy at the Dawn of a New Era 97
  14. Horace’s Ritual Song in Augustan Rome: The Sacred Poet as an alter princeps 119
  15. Divining Identity in Seneca’s Oedipus 139
  16. Part III Performing Identity
  17. Call the Witnesses: Athenian Citizenship Practice at the Crossroads of Memory, Ritual, and Identity 153
  18. Embodied Memory in the Panathenaia 169
  19. Ritual Against Memory: Managing the Ancestors in Ancient Rome 195
  20. Part IV Trauma and Memory
  21. Aeneas’ tropaeum: Collective Trauma and Commemoration in Vergil’s Aeneid 213
  22. Broken Hospitality and Traumatic Memory in the Funerals of Vergil’s Pallas and Valerius Flaccus’ Cyzicus 237
  23. Memory, Ritual, and Identity in Prudentius, Peristephanon and Paulinus of Nola, Natalicia 271
  24. Part V Women, Ritual and Memory
  25. Remembering Female Names: Crisis, Ritual, and Collective Identity Formation in Ancient Greek Epic Poetry 289
  26. Ritual Lament, Memory, and Identity in Euripides’ Trojan Trilogy 307
  27. Memory, Ritual, and the Politics of Closure in Tacitus, Ann. 3.76 323
  28. Part VI Places
  29. Treasuries, Identity, and Politics 337
  30. Ancient Greek Construction Rituals, Tradition, and the Articulation of Communal Identities 355
  31. Ritual, Memory, and Identity: The Case of Theoriae 385
  32. Pomponius Mela’s Hercules: Preserving Phoenician Ritual Memory and Identity 405
  33. List of Contributors 423
  34. Index Rerum
  35. Index Locorum
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