Department of The Classics, Harvard University Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

Department of the Classics, Harvard University
The Medea of Seneca

Author(s): Harold Loomis Cleasby
Source: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, Vol. 18 (1907), pp. 39-71
Published by: Department of the Classics, Harvard University
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THE MEDEA OF SENECA
BY HAROLD LOOMIS CLEASBY
T is a well-known fact that the ancient Greek and Latin writers

were prone to incorporate in their own productions, openly and
without shame, whatever most pleased them in the works of their
predecessors. Every writer of every age necessarily owes much to
those who have gone before him, but to-day we should condemn as
flagrant plagiarism a great deal of what was then in accordance with
universal custom and sanctioned by the greatest names. Indeed, imita-
tion was considered as obedience to the laws of literature rather than
as a violation of them. Especially in verse did the recurrence of beau-
tiful imagery or thought bestow a kind of liturgical stateliness upon a
new poem that went far toward ensuring its power and permanence.'
This principle was formulated to a certain extent by Ovid2 when he
replied to a petty detractor that the reason why he had appropriated
certain lines of Virgil was non subrzipiendi causa sed palam mutuandi,
hoc animo, ut vellet agnosci. But we cannot doubt that even in anti-
quity there were limits to legitimate imitation, and that these limits
have been transgressed in the rhetorical dramas of L. Annaeus Seneca,
those veritable treasuries of other men's literary wealth.
Seneca's general method of composition may be briefly stated as
follows. For the foundation some famous Greek tragedy is selected;
sometimes a second play on the same subject, either in Greek or Latin,
is called upon for some of its characteristic features (contaminatio);
the situations and personages are more or less altered in order to
secure greater opportunity for rhetorical display; the new tragedy is
then built up in a robust, declamatory style and adorned with copious
extracts from many sources, especially from the Latin poets. Among
1 See Harvard Studies, XVII (19o6), pp. 22 and 58, 66 ff.

s Seneca Rhet., Suas. 3, 7.
40 Harold Loomis Cleasby
these Seneca makes comparatively little use of Virgil,1 b

sively upon Horace,2 especially in constructing the ly
his plays. Ovid8 seems to have exerted a greater influ
than did any other author either Latin or Greek. The t
why Seneca gave this preference to Ovid are, in the f
the latter's works are exceedingly rich in mythological
just the sort of material the playwright had most need
that, however much they may have differed from each
as writers the two are in certain fundamental charact
akin.4
Medea as a theme for tragedy became famous in the m

Euripides, but the essential elements of the plot had al
by Neophron.5 The number of Greek Medeas written
proves the popularity of the subject; of most of these
more than the name of the author.6 In Latin, besides Seneca's
tragedy, plays entitled Mfedea were written by Ennius,7 Accius, Ovid,
Curiatius Maternus, and Lucan, to say nothing of later unknown dabblers8
1 See Ter Haar Romeny, De Auctore Tragoediarum quae sub Senecae nomine
feruntur, Vergilii Imitatore, Leyden, 1877.
2 See Spika, De Imitatione Horatii in Senecae canticis chori, Vienna, 1890, pp.
14-20.
3 The present article is an expansion of part of a thesis, entitled De Seneca Tragico
Ovidi Imitatore, which was presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
degree of doctor of philosophy at Harvard University.
4 Compare Norden, Die Antike Kunst-Prosa, II, p. 892 f.
5 That Neophron's Miedea was the earlier is not absolutely certain; see N. Weck-
lein's ed. of Eur. Jied., Leipzig, 1891, pp. 27-30.
6 Tragedies with this title are ascribed to the younger Euripides, Dicaeogenes,
Carcinus, Diogenes, Biotus, and Melanthius (or Morsimus), and parodies to Strattis,
Cantharus, Antiphanes, and Eubulus. Among the Romans, also, Pompeius Macer
composed a iledea in Greek. On these writers see Wecklein, opf. cit., p. 24, note 2;
Roscher, Ausfi~hrliches Lexikon der griechischen und romischen Jlythologie, 2495 f.;
and Th. C. H. Heine, Corneille's "MI ddde " in ihrem Ver/hiltnisse zu den AMedea-
Tragd'dien des Euripides und des Seneca betrachtet, etc., Franzo5siscke Studien,
herausgegeben von G. Kortling and E. Koschwitz, I (1881), pp. 436-438.
7 From the fragments this appears to have been an almost literal translation; see
O. Ribbeck, Die r3miscke Trag'die, Leipzig, 1875, PP. 149-157.
8 See Martial 5, 53. We have also a Virgilian cento in the form of a Medea,
Antkologia Latina of Blicheler-Riese, Leipzig, 1894, pp. 61-79; this is perhaps that
of Hosidius Geta (c. 200) mentioned by Tertullian, Praes. fLer. 39.
The Medea of Seneca 41
in literature, but none of these tragedies is now e

works that of Ovid is by far the most impor
exaggerate its value in the least when he declares
tragedy we would gladly give up all of Seneca
one of Ovid's earliest literary ventures it was
favor, if we may judge from the commendation of
Tacitus in Dial. 12 says: nec ullus Asinii aut Mes
lustris est quam Medea Ovidii aut Varii Thyes/es.
Inst. 10, I, 98, speaks as follows: Ovidii Medea vide
quantum ille vir praestare potuerit, si ingenio suo
dulgere maluisset.2
Seneca's Medea is generally considered one of
tragedies.3 He seems to have employed more care
than in his other plays; the plot is more consisten
characters have more individuality, the language is
and the choruses show a more symmetrical constr
excellence of the Medea is shown by the numerou
of it by the playwrights of modern times.4 In st
therefore, we are dealing with Seneca at his best;
it is hardly necessary to state that even Seneca's b
both in kind and degree, from the unsurpassab
Greek drama.
At the first glance it is seen that Seneca has borrowed the main out-
lines of his plot from Euripides. The bearing of Ovid's Medea upon
1 F. Leo, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae, Berlin, 1878-1879, I, p. 149.

2 Ovid himself mentions his excursions into tragedy in Am. 2, I, 3; 2, 18, 13; 3,
I, II and 67; Trist. 2, 553.
3 See Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 165, and Rajna, La Medea di Lucio Anneo Seneca
esaminata, Piacenza, 1872, p. 9.
4 For a well-nigh complete list of these, see Th. C. H. Heine, op. cit., p. 436 f.;
his article discusses some aspects of a few of them. L. Schiller has a monograph
entitled Medea im Drama der alten und neuen Zeit, Ansbach, 1865, which is of
much the same nature as Heine's paper. Biihler's Aehnlichkeiten und Verschieden-
heiten in der Medea des Euripides, Seneca, und Corneille I have not seen. The
modern Medeas are, in general, of little importance; the most significant are the
Midde of Corneille, 1635, the Medea of Richard Glover, 1761, and the 3Medea of
Franz Grillparzer, 1.824. The last is the concluding play in his trilogy, Das goldene
Vliess.
the play is naturally much more obscure. Wilhelm B

entitled Die Medea des Seneca,1 gives, besides the parallel
numerous citations of resemblances between Seneca's Medea and Ovid's
extant works, but hazards no conjectures with reference to the lost
tragedy. Leo2 believes that the striking similarity of thought and
phrase observable in Seneca's play and the epistle of Medea in the
Ileroides (12) testifies not to any immediate connection between them,
but to a common origin in the lost Medea of Ovid. Leo has limited his
comparisons to the epistle and the fragments of Ovid's play; we shall
see in the following pages that many coincidences of word or idea
between Seneca and Ovid's other poems render this hypothesis even
more convincing. While incapable of absolute proof, it rests on two
very strong probabilities: first, that inasmuch as Ovid was given to the
Homeric habit of repeating himself,3 he reproduced portions of his
tragedy in his later works; secondly, that Seneca, in composing his
Medea, looked for suggestions to Ovid's famous play on the same theme
rather than to various scattered passages in the other poems, which,
moreover, do not deal directly with the subject.4
Two very brief fragments of Ovid's lost Medea have survived. One
is quoted by Quintilian, Inst. 8, 5, 6: nam, cum sit rectum ' nocere
facile est, prodesse difficile,' vehementius apud Ovidium Medea dicit:
servare potui: perdere an possim, rogas 9
Leo 5 assigns this to a scene between Medea and Jason, and believes
that Seneca is attempting to surpass it in 20o-1236 :
x In Rheinisches Museum, XXXII, pp. 68-85.

2 Sen. Trag. I, pp. 166-I69.
- Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 169, gives examples of such repetition; see also A. Liine-
burg, De Ovidio Sui Imnitatore, Jena, 1888.
' Leo's theory has been very generally approved; Ehwald in Bursian's 7akres-
bericht, LXXX, p. 27; Tolkiehn, Quaest. ad Her. Ovid. Spect., p. 107; A. Palmer,
P. Ovidi Nasonis Heroides, Oxford, 1898, p. 386; A. Pais, II Teatro di L. Anneo
Seneca, Turin, 1890, p. 29; M. Schanz, Gesch. der rom. Litt. (1899), II, p. 230.
Tolkiehn now believes, but has hardly proved, that Her. 12 preceded the Medea
(Wock. f. kl. Phil., 19O6, 12O8 if.).
5 Sen. Trag. I, p. I69.
6 The quotations of Seneca are made from the edition of Peiper and Richter, 1902;
those of Ovid from the Merkel-Ehwald edition, 1888-1889; those of Euripides from
the edition of Prinz-Wecklein of 1899. When no title follows the name of Seneca or
Euripides, the reference is to the Medea of the writer in question.
merita contempsit mea

qui scelere flammas viderat vinci et mare ?
adeone credit omne consumptum nefas?
and 560 f.:

vadis oblitus mei
et tot meorum facinorum?i
The other fragment is found in the elder Seneca, Suas. 3, 7: esse

autem in tragoedia eius (Ovidi) :
feror huc illuc, vae, plena deo.
From these words Leo judges that Ovid's Medea was a much more
furious, maenad-like creature than the heroine of Euripides, and to
show that Seneca adopted the same conception of her, he adduces the
following passages: 123 f., 382-385, 675 f., 738, 8o6 f., 849-851,
862-865.2 Even this list does not exhaust Seneca's store of verses of
the same tenor, but it suffices to show to what an extent the bacchic
frenzy figures in his portrayal of Medea. As to the place of this second
fragment in Ovid's play, it must be assigned to that portion which
immediately precedes the catastrophe, unless he, like Seneca, allowed
no gradations to Medea's fury.
In the extant works, aside from many brief allusions, Ovid deals with
the career of the Colchian princess in the twelfth letter of the Heroides
and in the seventh book of the Metamorphoses. In neither of these
places does he relate in detail the slaying of the children, probably
because he did not choose to retell the story which he had already
dealt with in his drama." In the account in the Metamorphoses Medea's
sojourn in Corinth is summed up in six or seven lines, viz., Met. 7,
391 f. :
tandem vipereis Ephyren Pirenida pennis
contigit.
I Her. 12, 75 f. may be descended from this fragment.

2 Sen. Trag. I, p. 167.
8 See Lafaye, Les Mitamorphoses d' Ovide et leurs modles grecs, Paris, 1904,
p. 90 f. Moreover, for obvious reasons this episode could not well have been intro-
duced into the Epistle, and, since it involved no change of form, would have contri-
buted nothing to the chief end of the fMetamorpkoses.
and 394-399:
sed postquam Colchis arsit nova nupta venenis
flagrantemque domum regis mare vidit utrumque
sanguine natorum perfunditur impius ensis,
ultaque se male mater Iasonis effugit arma.
hinc Titaniacis ablata draconibus intrat
Palladias arces.
Although a somewhat petty detail, it should be noted that Pirenis is

found only in Ovid and Seneca.' Again, in Euripides the poisonous
flames which destroy the king and his daughter do not injure the royal
palace, so far as we are informed, although earlier in the drama Medea
considers the destruction of the palace by fire as a possible means of
gratifying her revenge.2 This passage may have suggested to Ovid the
use of the conflagration as a means of making the original catastrophe
even more terrible. Seneca's account, 885-887 :
avidus per omnem regiae partem furit
ut iussus ignis: iam domus tota occidit,
urbi timetur
seems to be derived from Ovid." Finally, in line 397 of the above

citation from the Metamorphoses, it is said that Medea flees lasonis
arma. In the Greek play, Jason, when he comes upon the stage for
the last time, is alone or at least accompanied only by the usual atten-
dants of an important personage on the Greek stage. His purpose is
to protect his children from the relatives of Creon, who, in their anger
against Medea, may put an end to her offspring as well. In Seneca,
Jason's chief purpose in coming is to punish Medea, and stress is put
upon the fact that an armed force accompanies him. Just before his
entrance Medea cries out, 97I f.:
quid repens affert sonus?
parantur arma meque in exitium petunt,
1 Examples of this tendency on Seneca's part to copy rare proper names from Ovid
are given on page 6I, note 3.
2 Eur. 377 f.
3 Hyginus, Fab. 25 and Diodorus Siculus 4, 54 also mention the burning of the
palace.
and a little later Jason gives the following comm

980 f.:
huc, huc fortis armiferi cohors
conferte tela, vertite ex imo domum.
We see, therefore, that the testimony of the fragments and of this brief
summary from the Metamorphoses confirms the belief that Seneca made
use of Ovid's Medea.
II
The purpose of this article is to analyze Seneca's Medea with partic-

ular attention to the two chief sources, - Euripides and Ovid.' It will
be assumed, according to Leo's theory, that in general2 the resemblance
of a passage in Seneca's play to extant verses of Ovid indicates an
origin for this passage in Ovid's lost tragedy.
The opening act has little in common with the celebrated prologue of
the Greek Medea, in which the old nurse, the pedagogue, and the
children are so artistically set before us. In Seneca we have a furious
monologue by Medea in which she entreats the blessings of various
deities upon her evil projects and exhorts herself to surpass all her
former crimes. Her plans of vengeance, 17-21, 25 f., are already
matured, - death for the new bride and her father, a desolate old age
Besides Leo, Sen. Trag. I, pp. 163-170, and Braun, Rh. Mus. XXXII, pp. 68-
85, already referred to, the principal articles dealing with the Medea are the following:
A. Widal, 9tudes sur trois tragidies de Sineque, Paris, Aix, 1854, PP. 133-181;
P. Rajna, La Medea di Lucio Anneo Seneca esaminata, Piacenza, 1872; C. E.
Sandstr6m, De L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediis, Upsala, 1872, pp. 45-58; A. Pais,
II Teatro di L. Anneo Seneca, Turin, 1890, pp. 26-32 and loo-lo6; F. Pasini, La
Medea di Seneca e Apollonio Rodio, in Atene e Roma, V (1902), pp. 567-575.
2 In view of Seneca's extensive imitation of Ovid's extant works in his other plays,
it would be absurd to assert this as an invariable principle. For example, the follow-
ing is an extremely modest collection of passages from the Phaedra that betray the
influence of Ovid: Plzaedr. 124-128, cf. IHer. 4, 53 f., 61 f.; Phaedr. 665 f., cf.
Her. 4, 63 f.; Phaedr. 657-660, 798, 803, cf. Her. 4, 73 f. 77 f.; Phaedr. 115-119,
cf. Her. 4, 165 f.; Phaedr. 651 f., cf. Her. 4, 71 f.; Phaedr. 376, cf. Am. 2, 5, 34;
Phaedr. 1027 f., cf. Met. 15, 513; Plzaedr. 1035-1o49, cf. Met. 15, 511-513;
Phaedr. 1097-1100oo, cf. -lelt. 15, 522 f.; Phaedr. 761-776, cf. A. A. 2, 113-118
and 3, 61-76; Phaedr. 1102-1110, cf. Met. 15, 525-529; Phaedr. 1265-1267, cf.
Met. 15, 528 f.; Phaedr. 743-752, cf. Met. 2, 722-725, Her. 17, 71-74-
for Jason, destruction for the innocent children at the h

mother.' In the Greek drama, with greater fidelity
plans do not crystallize until much later in the action.
Ovid too has contributed but little to this first act. The enumeration
of gods at the beginning, 1-12, may be compared with the oaths of
Jason, Her. 12, 77-80. Juno, who presides over wedlock, the Sun-god,
ancestor of Medea, and Hecate (or Diana), her special patroness,
appear in both lists. Jason, in Ovid, mentions no others by name,
but adds somewhat contemptuously, with reference to the gods of
Colchis, 80o:
et si forte aliquos gens habet ista deos.
In a similarly comprehensive fashion Medea concludes her invocation,
7-9:
quosque iuravit mihi
deos Jason, quosque Medeae magis
fas est precari.
The conception of the Furies presiding at a wedding in place of the

customary deities, Juno and Hymen, although found in a few other
authors, seems a favorite one with Ovid2; Seneca here employs it not
only in verses 13-17, but seems to have it in mind when he repre-
sents Medea picturing herself as the bearer of Creusa's nuptial torch,
37-39-
Seneca's first chorus, 56-115, is in the form of a wedding-hymn
celebrating the marriage of Creusa and Jason. The stage picture offered
to the imagination is striking: Medea, trembling with the surging
passion of the words she has just uttered, shrinks back into the shelter
of some protecting corner while the happy throng of youths and maid-
ens, perhaps with Jason and Creusa in their midst, suddenly pours over
the stage joyously chanting the nuptial strains. We must not forget,
however, that we are dealing with rhetorical drama, which was written,
primarily at least, not for the theatre but for the declamation-hall.
There is no mention of wedding-song in Euripides, for the marriage
1 But 137-149 and 920-925 are slightly inconsistent with this.

2 See .Met. 6, 428-432; Her. 2, 117-120; 6, 45 f.; 7, 96. (Note the contrast
in Virgil, Aeneid 4, 166-168.) For the other occurrences of this figure, see Burmann's
note on Ovid, Her. 2, 117, and Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 165.
has already been celebrated before the play opens.

deserves the credit for this important innovation
incident at some length in the twelfth Epistle.
into his Medea, as we have reason to believe, he
proof of the soundness of his dramatic instinct, fo
ens the action of the play and wonderfully enr
effect. The scene is described in Her. 12, 133-1
obedience to Jason's command Medea is about
suddenly sounds of revelry ring out upon the air, m
than the dirge of funeral horns, for while she do
full extent of her husband's perfidy, her heart is fill
of ill. The faithful slaves stand apart, weeping
them will carry the gloomy tidings to the belove
of the little sons who breaks the terrible news to his mother. "Come
hither, come hither, mother 1" he calls out innocently from the doorway,
"Father Jason, all dressed in gold, is driving a span of horses and
leading the whole procession !"
It is the use of the incident itself rather than the language in which
it is expressed that is significant of the connection between Ovid and
Seneca, but there are some verbal similarities not to be disregarded.2
Compare Ovid, Her. 12, 137 f.:
ut subito nostras Hymen cantatus ad aures
venit, et accenso lampades igne micant,
and 141-144:
pertimui nec adhuc tantum scelus esse putabam:
sed tamen in toto pectore frigus erat.
turba ruunt et ' Hymen' clamant ' Hymenaee' frequenter
quo propior vox haec, hoc mihi peius erat
with Seneca, AMed. 111-114 :
multifidam iam tempus erat succendere pinum:
excute sollemnem digitis marcentibus ignem.
festa dicax fundat convicia fescenninus,
solvat turba iocos -
I See Th. C. H. Heine, Corneille's MWd~e in ihrem Verhlil/nisse, etc., p. 456,

note I.
2 Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 168, and Braun, RP. Mus. XXXII, p. 73.
and i16 f.:

occidimus, aures pepulit hymenaeus meas.
vix ipsa tantum, vix adhuc credo malum.
The second act consists of two parts, - a dialogue between Medea
and the nurse, and the scene between Medea and Creon, king of
Corinth.
In the beginning of the first of these scenes is depicted Medea's

furious despair when she understands the full import of the wedding
strains. The same theme, stated in much the same way, is found in
Her. I2, I53-158. There follows in each author a passage in which
Medea refers to the crimes which she has committed for Jason's sake;
Braun1 continues the comparison through these verses, but aside from
the general subject, one which it is very natural that Medea should
touch upon, the resemblance is not remarkable. An interesting part
of this scene, I37-142, which adds a non-Euripidean element to the
character of Medea, will be discussed later.
In 147-149 :
alto cinere cumulabo domum;
videbit atrum verticem flammis agi
Malea longas navibus flectens moras,
we have an expansion of Euripides 378:
7rOT'O 4)L 8(oo &I)fLa VVJ4rLKWV 7rvpt.

The Medea of the Greek play rejects this method of avenging herself;
Seneca's more vindictive heroine incorporates it into her other plans.
The nurse tries to calm her agitated mistress by various sententious
utterances, for which Medea is always ready with a brilliant rejoinder.
Corneille is especially successful in his reproduction of this passage of
repartee.2
The interview of Creon with Medea is a curious mixture of Euripides
and Ovid, and demands a more detailed treatment. Seneca's Creon,
'swelling with the pride of Pelasgian power,' enters accompanied by a
numerous retinue. He catches sight of Medea when still at some
distance from her, and immediately bursts into angry speech, addressed
either to his attendants or to himself. Although these words teem with
1 Rh. M-us. XXXII, p. 74. 2 MVdde, Act I, scene 5.
a much greater arrogance than the Creon of Euri

they seem to have been directly suggested by
Greek. For example, I8i f.:
molitur aliquid : nota fraus, nota est manus.
cui parcet illa quemve securum sinet?
reminds one of Euripides 282-285:
S8SOLKaC 0r, O8EV E Set 7rPaP/%71'XEW XoYov3,

/Lu /LOt 7L pcpcTV)y 7rCL8t aV,7KEcTTOV KaKOV.
o-V/43lcLXXeTc8L 6 '7roXXa' Tov^ & 8eEtL/Los
-co47 'TrCE'IVKCa1 Kai KaKW^V 7roXXGv Z8po.
In the next lines, 183-186, Creon says that at first he had purposed to
put Medea to death, but that moved by his son-in-law's entreaties he
had changed the sentence to one of exile. Euripides does not men-
tion this until later, 455 f., in the scene between Jason and Medea.
Seneca also repeats it, 490 f., in his scene corresponding to this. In
186 f. Medea's gloomy countenance is described; Euripides 271 f. is
probably the origin of this. The fierce orders to the slaves, 188-191,
seem to have grown from the brief threat in verse 335 of the Greek
play :
7 raS~v eXE'Po' (a cTOn7l /L.
Medea, who has overheard Creon's brutal commands, turns and without
the preliminary wailing of the Greek heroine addresses the king with
considerable assurance, 192 :
quod crimen aut quae culpa multatur fuga ?
The corresponding Greek is verse 281 :
T 1vO /. ^ EKaLT 2 /?q a7T0-TXX ELW , Kpc'ov;
To reach the next verses betraying a Greek origin, it is necessary to

pass on to 249-25 I, where Medea begs the king to cancel his decree.
Seneca takes three verses to say what Euripides expresses in one, 313 f.
The beginning of Creon's reply to this, 252 f.:
non esse me qui sceptra violentus geram
nec qui superbo miserias calcem pede,
reminds one of the Greek, 348 f.:
7KLUTTR TOULOV X7L4 ZV U T7VpaVVLKOV,
a;So'vos Sa 'roo X XS'S'eOopa"
Finally, Creon in the Latin play grants Medea's praye

one day, 294 f., 297-300, in substantially the same te
prototype, 350-354.
So much for the Euripidean portions of this scene.
ing, they occur at the beginning and end, and form
Seneca has proceeded to fill in with what seems susp
from the rhetorician's exercise-book, - Medea's elabo
Her principal argument is that it was she who preser
Jason and the whole glorious company of the Arg
service surely entitles her to mercy at the hands of
ception of Medea as a Deliverer is inherent in the subj
story of the Golden Fleece. In Euripides Medea giv
when in reproaching Jason for his ingratitude she say
ooo-a r-, o ZoaoLcv TLVLAV/v o5o0L
'ra"rov 0vve/o3?flrncav 'Apyaov OKa0o5,

and again in 515:
In Ovid the same theme appears in the first fragmen

and in Her. 12, 75 f., I73, 197. Ovid and Seneca, h
nected by the use of an extended application of this
Medea is glorified as the saviour not only of Jason b
crew of the Argo. Ovid makes her say when about to
Met. 7, 55 f-:
non magna relinquam:
magna sequar: titulum servatae pubis Achivae,
and again in Her. I2, 203, she maintains that this is.
she brought to Jason:
dos mea tu sospes, dos est mea Graia iuventus.
In Seneca a great part of the scene between Medea an
up to the development of this idea, beginning with
solum hoc Colchico regno extuli,
decus illud ingens Graeciae et florem inclitum,
praesidia Achivae gentis et prolem deum
servasse memet.
In her scene with Jason Medea again brings up this topic, 454 f.
The Medea of Seneca 5I
Aside from this point, which Ovid and Senec

there is a single line, 280:
totiens nocens sum facta, sed numquam mihi
which, with a similar verse later, 503:

tibi innocens sit quisquis est pro te nocens,
bears unmistakable signs of kinship with Her. I2,
pro quo sum totiens esse coacta nocens.
These are the chief points in which Seneca see

Euripides and Ovid; there remain a number of
definite origin cannot be assigned. Some of these
tance and may be due to Seneca himself, e.g. th
that Medea has not yet obeyed his decree of exile,
it is he himself who first makes it known to her
some stress must be laid upon the fact that in this
to the slaughter of Pelias three times, 201, 258
Euripides does not allude to it at all in this portio
death of Pelias is naturally connected with his
Seneca is preparing to exact immediate vengean
Jason. It is the fear of Acastus, together with
attitude, that has caused Jason to desert Medea fo
to Creon, 256 f., to Medea, 415, and to Jason him
is a radical departure from Euripides, who nowher
and who makes his Jason faithless because of self
than from fear.
Another fundamental difference between the plots of Seneca and
Euripides first comes to light in this scene. In Euripides the children
are expressly included with their mother in the decree of banishment,
273, 353; later Medea asks Jason to intercede for them with the king
and the princess, 940-942, and the pretended object in sending the
fatal present to Creusa is that thereby she may be rendered favorably
disposed toward the children, and obtain from Creon their release from
the sentence of exile, 969-973. In Seneca, on the contrary, the chil-
dren are not banished; Medea, taking for granted that they are to
remain at Corinth, begs the king that their mother's guilt may not
reflect to their injury, and receives an assuring reply from him, 283 f.
Finally, in this complex scene we must not overlook
tu, tu malorum machinatrix facinorum,

cui feminae nequitia ad audenda omnia,
robur virile est, nulla famae memoria,
egredere, purga regna, letales simul
tecum aufer herbas, libera cives metu,
alia sedens tellure sollicita deos;
where the king of Corinth is suddenly transformed in

Roman consul visiting his wrath upon Catiline. Com
Cat. I, io: egredere aliquando ex urbe; . . . educ tecu
tuos; . . . urga urbem, magno me metu liberabis.
The second chorus tells of the impious daring of those
out over the unknown seas, i. e. the Argonauts. A sim
not infrequent occurrence in ancient literature. Th
301 f.:
audax nimium qui freta primus
rate tam fragili perfida rupit,
inevitably recall Horace, Od. I, 3, 9-13 :1

illi robur et aes triplex
circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci
commisit pelago ratem
primus;
and later, 335 f.:
bene dissaepti foedera mundi

traxit in unum Thessala pinus,
brings back to memory the oceano dissociabili of the same ode. Spika2
furnishes many more parallels to Horace from this chorus, but not all
of them commend themselves to the judicious reader. Braun8 seems
to have little warrant for assigning the origin of this chorus to the
1 See especially Horace, Od. I, 3, and Tibullus I, 3, 37-40; cf. Hesiod, Oj.
236 f.; Sophocles, Ant. 332-337; Virgil, Ecl. 4, 32.
2 De Imit. Horat. in Sen. cant. chori, p. I6.
3 Rh. iMus. XXXII, p. 74.
opening of the Euripidean Medea, where the fa

wishes that the Argo had never set out on its fat
on to say that Seneca has used Ovid for the fol
references. This is highly probable but hardly adm
Of the comparisons he gives, the last is the best.
back two prizes from the Colchian land, the G
Medea. The passages are Seneca 361-363, and O
I58.
The third act opens with a dialogue between Medea and the nurse,
very like the first scene of the second act. The only passage which
need be mentioned is 417-419:
sed cesserit coactus et dederit manus:
adire certe et coniugem extremo alloqui

sermone potuit -
which expresses a thought similar to that in Euripides 585-587:
Xpjv c , COrcp , c, tOa "K aKo'f, TC9Orava JLC

K/ Lyv y / ,ov T% Y 8, dXX Ua p LY9 y'Xwv.
Then follows the important scene between Medea and Jason, 431-
559, which, in spite of many vigorous and brilliant lines, falls very
far short of the two scenes in Euripides, 446-626 and 866-975,
which Seneca has here condensed into one. In the Greek drama the
conversation proceeds in a simple and natural manner; Seneca, the
rhetorician, in constructing his scene, seems to be patching together
disconiiected bits of clever repartee, and the joinings are sometimes
very obvious. For example, Medea's opening words are too abrupt,
447
fugimus, Iason: fugimus - hoc non est novum.
The Euripidean heroine is far more true to life when she begins by
exclaiming, 465 :
W TayKaKLcTTC
Other breaks in the logical connection, as it seems to me, occur be-

tween 489 and 490, 512 and 513, 515 and 516.
Most of the material used in this scene is found in Euripides, but the
verbal similarities between Seneca's verses and the Greek are not
remarkable.' As for Ovid, we have one passage at

Seneca has certainly appropriated his work, 501-503
omnes coniugem infamem arguant,
solus tuere, solus insontem voca:
tibi innocens sit quisquis est pro te nocens.
The corresponding lines in Ovid are Her. 12, 131 f.:

ut culpent alii, tibi me laudare necessest,
pro quo sum totiens esse coacta nocens.
Besides this, it is very probable that in writing the acc
imposed upon Jason by Aeetes, 465-489, Seneca h
descriptions in Ovid, Met. 7, ioo-I55 and Her. 12
rather than the Greek lines on the same subject, 478-482.2 Un-
doubtedly, as we shall soon see, he was also familiar with the epic of
Apollonius Rhodius, in which these events are narrated at length.
It will be remembered that in the preceding act Medea had asked
Creon to look with favor upon her children after she had left them to go
into exile. She evidently changed her mind; for now, apparently with
perfect sincerity and entirely forgetful of the dark hints of the first act,
she haughtily refuses her husband's proffered aid and requests only that
her sons may go away with her, 540-543- Jason refuses: sooner
would he part with his life than with his children. Medea suddenly
perceives her opportunity, 549 f.:
sic natos amat ?
bene est, tenetur, vulneri patuit locus.
This is one of the most powerful moments in Seneca's drama; there is
nothing to correspond to it in the Greek Medea.
1 The topics and references are as follows: the new marriage is to further the
interests of Medea's sons, Sen. 438 f., 443, 507-512; Eur. 547-568, 595-597; no
place of refuge now lies open to Medea, Sen. 457-460; Eur. 502-515; Medea's
great services to Jason and his false oaths, Sen. 465-489; Eur. 476-498; Jason's
intercession changes the death-sentence into exile, Sen. 490 f., cf. 184; Eur. 455 f.;
Medea rejects Jason's offers of financial assistance, Sen. 537-541; Eur. 459-464,
61o-622; Medea feigns repentance and asks forgiveness, Sen. 551-56o; Eur. 869-
893.
2 Note especially the conception of Medea's services as a dowry, Sen. 486-489;
Ovid, er. 12, 199-203; cf. Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. I68.
After Jason departs, the act is brought to a close

which Medea unfolds her plans of vengeance
far as these relate to the destruction of Creon
Seneca's material seems to come from Euripides,' bu
gifts, the palla, the monile, and the aurum quo
whereas in the Greek we read of only two, 786
XcEro'Tv rT V''TXOV Kal 7rXOKOV yJX'2TXaTOV .2

The third chorus, 579-669, considered metrically, falls into two parts,
each consisting of seven stanzas. The stanzas of the first part are the
ordinary Sapphics of Horace; those of the second are much longer,
each being made up of eight lesser Sapphic verses followed by an
Adonic. Corresponding to the metrical variation there is a change in
thought. In the first part the chorus, alarmed at the preceding scenes,
describes the anger of a betrayed wife, and utters a prayer for Jason's
safety, for he, like Phaethon, having violated the sacred laws of nature,
is in danger of grievous calamity. Braun3 suggests that the origin of
this part of the chorus is to be sought in Euripides 265 f.:
07aV 8' EN CV"V7 K/v V/Kvy~v ~KVPTl
OvK EcTTLv aXXq Ap'v uta&LAOVOaTCPa.
Much more relevant, in my opinion, is Ovid's description of the aban-

doned wife, A. A. 2, 373-382 :
sed neque fulvus aper media tam saevus in irast,
fulmineo rabidos cum rotat ore canes,
nec lea, cum catulis lactantibus ubera praebet,
nec brevis ignaro vipera laesa pede,
femina quam socii deprensa paelice lecti
ardet et in vultu pignora mentis habet;
in ferrum flammasque ruit positoque decore
fertur, ut Aonii cornibus icta dei:
coniugis admissum violataque iura maritast
barbara per natos Phasias ulta suos;
1 Medea exhorts herself to dare the utmost, Sen. 560-567; Eur. 401-409; she
describes the gifts, Sen. 570-576; Eur. 784-789.
2 Apollodorus I, 9, 28 and Myth. Vat. I, 25 mention the robe only; Hyginus,
Fab. 25, the head-dress only; Diodorus 4, 54 vaguely says ' 8^opa.'
3 Rh. Mus. XXXII, p. 78.
Compare inferrum . . . ruit with Seneca 593 f.:

cupit ire in ipsos
obvius enses
and note that at the end Medea is selected as the typical example.
The second part of this third chorus is really a continuation of the
second chorus. That dealt with the unholy launching of the Argo;
here we learn how many of the Argonauts paid the penalty of their
daring by suffering terrible deaths. The possible sources for the
numerous mythological details are Apollonius Rhodius and Ovid.
Braun's theory 1 that Seneca derived his material in part from Ovid and
in part from Hyginus can no longer be accepted as a whole, since it is
now agreed that the collection of notes bearing the title Hygini Fabulae
is the product of the age of Marcus Aurelius or of Commodus.2 Pasini 8
makes an able plea for Apollonius as Seneca's authority for these
allusions, and perhaps his claim is just with regard to the lines on
Tiphys, Zetes and Calais, Idmon, and Mopsus. Seneca, however, con-
fuses the last two, assigning to Idmon the manner of death which really
belongs to Mopsus. He is also in.error in identifying Mopsus the Argo-
naut with Mopsus of Thebes, son of Manto.4 Further, the resemblance
between Seneca 656:
ille (Mopsus) si vere cecinit futura
and Ovid, Met. I2, 455 f. :
nec tu credideris tantum cecinisse futura
Ampyciden Mopsum
raises some doubt as to the origin in Apollonius of the lines on this hero.
Ovid's well-known narratives of the death of Orpheus, of Hercules,
of Meleager and Ancaeus (the Calydonian Hunt), and of Pelias, may
well have been flitting through Seneca's mind when he wrote the brief
1 Rh. Mus. XXXII, p. 79 f.

2 Lafaye, Les MItamorpkoses d' Ovide et leurs modles grecs, p. 58; cf. M. Schanz,
Geschickte der r5mnischen Litteratur, II, 2 (1899), p. 350 f.
3 F. Pasini, La Mledea di Senecae Apollonio Rodio, in Atene e Roma, V, pp. 567-
575. In this article he gives a fairly complete list of the apposite references in Seneca,
Ovid, Apollonius, and Hyginus.
4 Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 24.
summaries of these events that we find in this ch

of Ovid's chance references come very close to so
example, his couplet on Admetus in A. A. 3, 19 f.
fata Pheretiadae coniunx Pagasaea redemit
proque virost uxor funere lata viri
is much like Seneca's two verses on the same topi

coniugis fatum redimens Pheraei
uxor impendes animam marito.
Much more striking is the similarity between Ovid

Naiadumque tener crimine raptus Hylas
and Seneca 646-649:

meruere cuncti
morte quod crimen tener expiavit
Herculi magno puer inrepertus,
raptus, heu, tutas puer inter undas.
What Seneca says of Periclymenus, 635 f.:

patre Neptuno genitum necavit
sumere innumeras solitum figuras
may come from Met. 12, 556 f.:

mira Periclymeni mors est. cui posse figuras
sumere quas vellet, rursusque reponere sumptas
Neptunus dederat
or may go back to Apollonius I, 156-160. Since Ovid himself often

draws from Apollonius, it becomes a difficult problem to decide whether
certain lines of Seneca are from Apollonius directly or indirectly by way
of Ovid. Possibly the immediate source of these passages in Ovid and
Seneca was a chorus in the lost AMedea.
Medea, granddaughter of the all-seeing Sun and favored priestess
of dread Hecate of Triple Form, is the typical sorceress of antiquity.
To this phase of her character Seneca has chosen to devote a whole
act, and the choice marks him as rhetorician rather than dramatist.
Scenes depicting the mysterious and the gruesome are scattered through-
out ancient literature; Seneca, while undoubtedly familiar with many of
these, seems to be especially under obligations to Ovi

lonius for the material of this part of his play. Just
ing chorus, it is not easy to decide when he is borro
Argonautica directly, and when indirectly by way
has indicated very clearly what parts of Apollonius be
tion, and consequently I shall limit my observations t
between Seneca and Ovid. The portion of Ovid chi
is the story of the rejuvenation of Aeson in Met.
passage and the whole fourth act of Seneca's AMedea
pared throughout in order to get the full measure of
ness to his predecessor.2
Both in Aeson's elixir of life and in Creusa's poison
serpents appears as an ingredient, although naturally
important place in the latter. Seneca takes consi
enumerate all the various snakes, both on earth and
have yielded their contribution to Medea's brew, 6
Ovid says merely, Met. 7, 271 f.:
nec defuit illic
squamea Cinyphii tenuis membrana chelydri.
As to the magic herbs, which are a most essential element of both

mixtures, the accounts, Seneca 705-730, and Ovid, Met. 7, 224-233,
264 f., are much the same. Compare especially Seneca 718-722:
cuiusve tortis sucus in radicibus
causas nocendi gignit, attrectat manu.
Haemonius illas contulit pestes Athos,
has Pindus ingens, illa Pangaei iugis
teneram cruenta falce deposuit comam;
with Ovid, Met. 7, 224-227 :
et quas Ossa tulit, quas altum Pelion herbas,

Othrys quas Pindusque et Pindo maior Olympus,
perspicit, et placitas partim radice revellit,
partim succidit curvamine falcis aenae.
1 Atene e Roma, V, pp. 573-575.

2 Cf. Braun, Rh. MAus. XXXII, pp. 81-83.
and Met. 7, 264:

illic Haemonia radices valle resectas.
Seneca and Ovid not only agree in the use of Haemonius and Pindus,
but both mention the two methods of gathering the plants, i. e. pulling
up by the roots and cutting down with a sickle. Seneca again refers to
these two operations a few lines later, 728-731 :
haec passa ferrum est, dum parat Phoebus diem,

illius alta nocte succisus frutex;
at huius ungue secta cantato seges.'
Certain birds of ill-omen are also thrown into both caldrons. Compare
Seneca 732-734:
miscetque et obscenas aves
maestique cor bubonis et raucae strigis
exsecta vivae viscera
and Ovid, Met. 7, 268 f.:

addit . . .
et strigis infames ipsis cum carnibus alas,
273 f.:
quibus insuper addit
ora caputque novem cornicis saecula passae.
These selections are taken from the first scene of the act, in which
the nurse describes Medea's preparations for making the poison. The
second scene, the incantation proper, which falls entirely to Medea
alone, is divided by changes of metre into five sections. In the first of
these, 740-751, Medea begins by an appeal to the gods of the lower
world; she then summons Ixion, Tantalus, and the Danaids to rest
awhile from their sufferings to behold the execution of her fearful
schemes. This passage recalls Herc. Oct. 106I-IO74, where Seneca
tells how Orpheus charmed all Hades with his song. Met. o10, 40-47
without doubt was the model for this latter selection, and perhaps also,
though less directly, for these verses of the Medea.
Cf. the use of cantatus in Her. 6, 84 where Hypsipyle says of Medea:

diraque cantata pabula falce metit.
In the last two lines of the first section begins the in

Hecate as the Moon-Deity, which is continued in the sec
752-770. Medea here describes her own magic powers
trol wind and waves, stars and sun, and can change the
seasons at her will. These lines are strongly reminisc
I99-207, where Medea is making a similar appeal to H
Her. 6, 84-94, where Hypsipyle is jealously inveighing ag
black arts.
In the third section, 771-786, we have an enumeration of the various

offerings by which Medea is striving to gain the favor of the goddess,--
a wreath of snakes, the serpent-limbs of Typhoeus, blood of the cen-
taur Nessus, ashes from the pyre of Hercules sodden with the poison
that wrought his death, the brand that put an end to Meleager's life,
feathers from the Harpies and from the Stymphalian birds. Probably
there is no one source for all these marvels, but the list of monstrosities
in Ovid, Trist. 4, 7, 11-18, may have suggested some of them.
At verse 787 Hecate manifests herself in the form of Moon-goddess;
thereupon in her presence Medea applies the fiery poison to the gifts.
This constitutes the fourth section, 787-842. The description of the
manner in which the poison is to accomplish its mission, 833-839, is
probably based on the messenger's narrative in Euripides, 1186-1201.
In the final section, 843-848, Medea returns to the calmer iambic
trimeter. She bids the nurse summon the children; they enter and
receive from their mother's hands the presents for their new step-
mother.' It should be observed that in Seneca's version Jason is not
informed of this sending of gifts to Creusa, and that Medea's pretended
object in doing this is only to gain Creusa's favor for the children in a
general way, since they are not under the sentence of banishment.
The fourth chorus, 849-878, in spite of its brevity, is full of interest
to the investigator of origins. In the first place, we have the compari-
son of Medea to a maenad, which is also found in a number of places
throughout the play and in the second fragment of Ovid's Medea.2 It
was evidently a favorite simile with both of these authors; Seneca
applies it to Andromache in Troad. 673-676, and to Deianira in Herc.
Oet. 700-702; Ovid uses it of Phaedra in Her. 4, 47 f., and of Lau-
" Sen. 845-848; cf. Eur. 969-975. 2 See p. 43.
damia in Her. 13, 33 f.1 The more minute descripti

seized by this frenzy which we have in 851-86 I is li
in Met. 8, 465-470, where she is swayed to and fro
emotions of love for her son and desire to avenge
probability of imitation is heightened by the fact
ship struggling between opposing wind and tide wh
lines immediately following, 470-472, has its count
next act, 939-943.
In 862-865 we have Medea likened to a tigress ber
Ovid furnishes a number of similar instances. Hecu
the death of Polydorus, is compared to a lioness de
Met. 13, 547 f. A closer parallel is found in Fast.
Ceres, upon learning of the rape of Proserpina,
same similes as Medea is here, - first, that of th
ondly, that of an animal (in this case a cow) whose
taken away by force. This latter simile as applied t
what superficial; both she and the tigress are frantic
causes of this rage are entirely unlike. Now, in
Ovid, we find a mother in exactly the same situati
is, -Procne about to slay Itys in order to avenge he
band's infidelity. Ovid thus describes her, Met. 6, 6
nec mora, traxit Ityn, veluti Gangetica cervae
lactentem fetum per silvas tigris opacas.
From this passage Seneca seems to have borrowed so

but he has changed the simile, 862-865 :
huc fert pedes et illuc
ut tigris orba natis
cursu furente lustrat
Gangeticum nemus.
Gangeticus is an example of Seneca's tendency
unusual proper names."
1 Virgil compares Dido to a bacchante, Aen. 4, 300-303; se

De Auct. Trag., etc., p. 3 I.
2 Cf. Eur. Med. 1342.
3 Besides in the above passages, Gangeticus occurs Sen. Oe
the only other authors who use it are Columella, Silius Italicus
The closing lines of the chorus, 874-878, a prayer f

coming of night-bringing Hesperus, that he may put
of terror, are compared by Braun' to Euripides 1258-1
the Sun to drive away from the house the spirit of d
comparison seems rather far-fetched.
In the first scene of the fourth act the messenger br
the disaster at the palace. He holds his conversation e
chorus, while Medea and the nurse stand at one side, s
In the Greek Medea, the messenger's narrative is one o
tive passages of the whole play, and extends throu
hundred lines, 1122-1230; Seneca cuts this down t
instead of a long speech we have a succession of very
and answers. The first two verses, 879 f.:
periere cuncta, concidit regni status.

nata atque genitor cinere permixto iacent
are a free translation of Euripides i 25 f.:

Xowcv r T pavvos Apri KOpq
Kpfov O' b dvroaa dPap/LdKwOV IOv G(Tv UvTo.
The question of the conflagration of the palace has a

cussed.2
The opening of the next scene, 891 f.:
effer citatum sede Pelopea gradum,

Medea, praeceps quaslibet terras pete
Proper names that appear only in Seneca and Ovid are: Latonigenae, Sen. Agam.
324, Ovid, Met. 6, I6o; Mycale (a Thessalian sorceress), Sen. Herc. Oet. 525, Ovid,
Met. I2, 263 (cf. Nemesianus 4, 69); Phoebas (Cassandra), Sen. Troad. 34, Agam.
588, Ovid, Am. 2, 8, 12, Trist. 2, 400 (cf. Eur. Hec. 827 and Timotheus frg. I,
Bergk, Poet. Lyr. Graec. III, p. 620); Lyrnesis (Briseis), Sen. Againm. 186, Ovid,
A. A. 2, 403 and 711, Trist. 4, I, 15; Pirenis, Sen. AMed. 745, Ovid, M.el. 2, 240
and 7, 391, Pont. I, 3, 75. Other rare names found in Seneca and Ovid, and also
in a few other writers, who for the most part are inclined to imitate these two, are
Nabataeus, Nasamoniacus (Ovid) and Nasamonius (Seneca), Nyctelius, Odrysius,
Olenius, Ogygius.
1 Rh. Mus. XXXII, p. 83.
2 Page 44.
is manifestly modelled on Euripides 1122 f.:

M8e&La, 4AEVOy Ce 6ye, U-q"Tc valct
XLt7rovTo' a'"-qv u-qr7)T Xov reSOortT3
but in Seneca these words are spoken by the nurse,

messenger. The remainder of the scene is a sol
She begins by exciting herself to dare whatever cr
atrocious and unnatural, 893-915. This is very
Seneca's Medea; she has already said the same th
414, and 562-567. *Euripides touches more ligh
401-409, 1240-1250. In the following lines, 916-9
a rather frigid conceit to explain the manner in wh
to the terrible climax of her vengeance. She medit
can now inflict any new, any greater evil upon Jas
waited until Creusa had borne him sons that th
suffered with their mother; but Jason has children
be considered Creusa's offspring ! Then follows the
maternal love and jealous hate which the Greek poe
such marvelous understanding of the human he
io8o, 1236-1250. Seneca's briefer account, 926-95
cate psychology of Euripides, but is strong and effe
Ovid's contribution to this scene is the simile alrea
the discussion of the previous chorus.2 Althaea
which is driven now hither, now thither by the warri
IMet. 8, 470-472:
utque carina,
quam ventus ventoque rapit contrarius aestus,
vim geminam sentit, paretque incerta duobus.
1 The children enter at Medea's words in 945-947; cf. the co

Eur. 894-896.
2 Since Ovid surpasses all other ancient poets, including Ho
number and variety of his similes (cf. J. A. Washietl, De Si
busque Ovidianis, Vienna, 1883, p. 2 f.), it is not strange th
from his rich store. The following are a few of the most
Herc. Fur. 683-685, cf. Met. 8, 162-166; Herc. Fur. 105 f
cf. Met. 13, 867-869, Her. [151], 12; Herc. Fur. lo89-1o9
712, cf. Fast. 2, 775-778; Phaedr. 381-383, cf. Am. I, 7, 55-
Pont. I, I, 67 f., 2, 3, 89 f.; Phaedr. 455 f., cf. A. A. I, 35
cf. Met. 5, 164-167; Phaedr. 1072-1075, cf. Trist. I, 4, 11
cf. Met. 2, 772-775; Oedip. 465, cf. Met. 3, 681 f.
Seneca here uses a similar figure of Medea,' 939-942 :
anceps aestus incertam rapit;

ut saeva rapidi bella cum venti gerunt
utrimque fluctus maria discordes agunt
dubiumque fervet pelagus.
Medea's crazed eyes now behold a band of avenging

ghost of her brother Absyrtus, 957-970, a vision which
suggested by Medea's oath in Euripides 1059:
,u rok ~rap" "AA8 vprpovT cLX 7c ropac.

As an offering to the shade she now kills one of her
hearing the sound of approaching soldiery, she ascend
the house, carrying the corpse and accompanied by the
second child.
The final scene of the play, 978-1027, is based to a great extent

upon the corresponding part in Euripides, but is much shorter and
more crudely vigorous. In Euripides both children are already dead
when Jason appears; in Seneca Medea slowly butchers the surviving
son before the eyes of the anguished father. Braun 2 cites a number of
parallels from Euripides, but they are not especially noteworthy. Per-
haps verses 982-984 in Seneca's play, where Medea recounts all that
she has forfeited for her love of Jason, were suggested by Ovid, Her. I2,
io8-i 13, although Euripides has something very similar in 255-258.
The great question in regard to this scene is, of course, whether
Seneca was the first to represent the murder of the children upon the
stage, an incident decidedly out of keeping with the general practice of
the Greek drama. I am inclined to believe that Seneca has adopted
this from Ovid, and for this reason. Horace's Ars Poe/'ca is dated
19-14 B.c.8; it may perhaps be inferred, that at that time Ovid had
already composed his Medea, for we learn from Trist. 4, 10, 57 f. that he
began his literary career at a very early age, and from Am. 2, 18, 13,
that tragedy was the object of some of his first attempts; so what is
1 Cf. Agan. 138-140.

2 Rh. Mus. XXXII, p. 84 f.
a M. Schanz, Geschichte der r'miscken Litteratur, II, I (1899), p. 123.
more likely than that the older poet, when he says

epistle :
ne pueros coram populo Medea trucidet
is expressing a covert bit of criticism upon this very play of Ovid ?
Whoever among the Romans dared to be the first to violate the Greek
convention in regard to the shedding of blood upon the stage, the
artistic lapse, if lapse it be, must be charged to rhetorical tragedy as a
literary form rather than to any single playwright. On the Greek stage
events of this nature were usually described by a messenger; when, in
the imperial days of Rome, the recitation-chamber to a great extent
supplanted the theatre, all action necessarily retreated to the same
secondary position it occupies in the narratives of the Greek mes-
sengers, and consequently lost much of its vividness. When this fact
is taken into consideration, it will be evident that the discrepancy be-
tween the Greek drama and Latin rhetorical tragedy with reference to
the presentation of violent death before the eyes of the audience is not
so great as is commonly supposed.
III
A brief study of the characters of the play will yield some new p
of interest. We must not expect a careful psychology in Sen
delineation of the human emotions; occasionally his personages see
be little more than convenient mouth-pieces for exercises in rheto
declamation. In the Medea he has attained a measure of success in
character-drawing that he has not reached in many of his other plays,
but even here the workmanship is rough, and the coloring, although
brilliant, is crude and monotonous.
The name ' Medea' instantly calls up to the mind of the student of
ancient literature two pictures, - the mother with sword drawn against
her own children,2 and the priestess of Hecate brewing her magic
A. Pais, II Teatro di Seneca, p. 30 f., believes that Seneca was the first who
represented Medea killing her children openly.
2 Seneca's Medea has some characteristics in common with Lady Macbeth; cf.
Macbeth, Act I, scene 7, the lines beginning ' I have given suck,' and Act I, scene 5,
beginning 'Come, you spirits.' Further, Widal (Atudes sur trois tragidies de
Sen?9ue, p. I60, note 7) compares the incantation act to the scenes in which the
potions of life or death. A tragedy based on the form

Medea as wife and mother, should not present the sec
human side of her nature too prominently; 1 other
unconvincing character, who now appears as a weak, su
and now as an all-powerful sorceress descended f
Euripides, bearing this in mind, has emphasized th
Seneca has chosen to sacrifice the demands of art in o
the perverted taste of his mystery-loving generation.
What strikes the reader most forcibly in Seneca's com
is her violence. All bonds of self-restraint have given
at the news of Jason's perfidy; she raves, as the au
informs us, as wildly as an ecstatic maenad.2 Moreo
variation or progression in this rage; the opening mo
presents her beseeching the gods to prosper her murd
pitched in the same shrill key as the close of the trag
slowly butchers her child before the father's very eye
frenzy, while especially characteristic of Medea, appear
less extent in several of Seneca's other heroines, a
Deianira, Andromache, and Clytemnestra. If we may
mony of the second fragment of Ovid's play, the sam
control was found in his Medea.
In the first scene of the second act, 137-149, just after the wedding-
music has told her the dreadful truth, in the midst of Medea's terrible
burst of anger a strange wave of tenderness for Jason sweeps over her
and she cries out that he is not the guilty one, that the blame is all
Creon's, and against Creon only will she direct her vengeance.8 No such
'three weird sisters' appear, Macbeth, Act I, scenes I and 3; Act III, scene 5;
Act IV, scene I. Again (op. cit., p. 158, note i) he points out that Macduff, in his
thoughts of vengeance upon Macbeth, cries out in despair, Act IV, scene 3, ' He has
no children.'
1 Cf. Voltaire's preface to Corneille's Midie, beginning ' Une magicienne ne nous
parait pas un sujet propre 'a la trag6die r6guli&re.'
2 As Pais rather humorously puts it, II Teat. di L. Ann. Sen., p. 1o5: 'In
Euripide Medea e sempre una donna, in Seneca ha fin da principio le proporzioni di
una virago.'
3 Cf. Widal, Atudes sur trois tragedies, etc., p. 143, and Sandstr6m, De L.
Annaei Senecae Tragoediis, p. 51.
feeling is disclosed by the Greek Medea; her anger

sumed utterly all her conjugal affection. It is ve
passage of Seneca has been inspired by something i
we find that the heroine of the twelfth Epistle still
her husband, and even cherishes a vague hope t
to her.
In comparison with this maenad-sorceress of Seneca, the Medea of

Euripides is a much more artistically constructed character. The occult
element is refined away and in its place we have intellectuality; Medea
is wise above all her companions, both in the mysteries of the gods and
in the sophistries of men; she has wonderful subtlety and marvelous
powers of dissimulation; she bends men to her will - Creon, Aegeus,
and Jason all yield in turn to her requests; finally she is a woman and
a mother, but her spirit is of such a haughtiness that all her former love
for Jason is transmuted into bitterest hate and she is willing to sacrifice
her own children to complete her vengeance.
The Jason of Seneca differs from his Greek prototype as greatly as
Medea does from hers.' In the Euripidean Jason we have an altogether
despicable wretch; his selfishness and ambition are so excessive that it
is impossible for us to believe very much in the one virtue to which he
repeatedly lays claim, his love for his children. He regards them with
solicitude chiefly because they are to serve his old age and perpetuate
his race. It is only at the end of the play, when he realizes
that they are lost to him forever, that he seems to forget self com-
pletely, 1399 f. and 1402 f. Seneca's Jason, on the contrary, is a
creature of timidity rather than of ambition. He marries Creusa not
because he wishes to become first in the kingdom, but because he is
beset by the fear of Acastus on the one side and of Creon on the
other. His weakness, so well brought out in his helpless denuncia-
tions of fate in the soliloquy at his first entrance, stands in notable
contrast to the wild vigor of Medea. But Jason has a redeeming
virtue in that he loves his children above all else in the world. We
have seen this in the scene where Medea asks to take the children away
into exile. In the last terrible act he piteously offers his own life as a
substitute for that of the remaining child, 1oo4 f., and when this prayer
I Cf. Rajna, La Medea di L. Ann. Sen. esam., p. I5.
passes unheeded and the child is perishing before his

in agony, IoI 8:
infesta, memet perime.
Medea has exceeded the measure of her revenge; our
all with the stricken father. Since this Jason is so u
the Greek Medea, it seems reasonable to believe th
closely to the Jason in Ovid's play.
Creon, however, is entirely a creation of Seneca
replica of the typical tyrant, who appears as Lycus i
Eteocles in Phoenissae, and Aegisthus in Agamemn
dominating them all is boundless arrogance, and the w
applies to Creon as she sees him approaching, tumidus
characterization of them all. The Creon of Euripi
man, whose whole soul is wrapped up in his daughter
fears some ill to her that he has determined to drive
Corinth; Medea's request for one more day in the
because she appeals to his affection as a parent, 344 f
of country stands second to that for his child, 328 f
away his own life in his vain attempts to save C
This devotion of Creon to his daughter and the
for a son form a strong contrasting background for
- the mother murdering her own children. Seneca
mention his daughter at all.
The nurse, too, plays an entirely different r61le in
which she has in Euripides. The latter represents her
servant who feels the joys and sorrows of the house
keenly than she does her own. After her important
the play she does not join in the conversation, althou
attends her mistress whenever Medea appears on the
the nurse is already the ' confidante' of French class
function is to serve as a foil to Medea in several d
enabling the latter to deploy her tumultuous em
advantage than would be possible in monologue. Se
use of a colorless creature of this sort, e.g. the nurs
Hercules Oetaeus and the Satelles of Atreus in Thyeste
The messenger in Seneca plays an exceedingly un
He seems to be merely a chance passer-by, who halts
give his fellow-citizens in the chorus a very brief acc

at the palace. In Euripides the messenger is an
deeply attached to Medea's interests.
The chorus differs from that of Euripides in tw
culars; it is composed of men instead of women,'
with Jason instead of with Medea. The themes of
of the play, while bearing little or no resemblanc
Euripides, are well correlated with the subject-matt
Aegeus 2 and the pedagogue are omitted from th
the children, who in Euripides speak a few wor
scenes, have nothing at all to say and form a m
part of the play.
IV
By way of summarizing the results of the preceding pages I shall

conclude with an estimate of Seneca's own contributions to his Medea
and an hypothetical outline of Ovid's lost tragedy.
The special feature by which Seneca intended his drama to be dis-
tinguished from all other Medeas is the act devoted to the incantation.8
This is paralleled by several episodes in the other plays which we
know are due to Seneca's own invention, for example, the sooth-saying
of Tiresias and Manto in Oedzius, the dialogue between the Fury
and the Ghost of Tantalus in Thyestes, and the appearance of the
Ghost of Thyestes in Agamemnon. In the next place, it is probably
Seneca's own genius that devised the scenes between Medea and her
nurse, for many similar passages are found elsewhere in his works.
Clytemnestra, Phaedra, and Deianira are all provided with nurses, and
Atreus has a Satelles, who serves the same purpose. Later this variety
of scene came to hold an important place in the drama of the Romance
nations. In the portrayal of the characters Seneca's share is to be
looked for in the emphasis on what seems to him either the most
characteristic quality or the one most effective for his rhetorical
1 Bentley divides the wedding chorus between two companies, one of youths and
the other of maidens, see fakrbiickerfiir Classische Pkilologie, CXXV, p. 488.
2 Cf. Aristotle, Po~t. c. 25, 1461 b, 20, and Pais, II Teatro di L. Ann. Sen., p. 30.
3 Cf. Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 169: ipsi Senecae scaenam illam attribuere suadet
huius poetae et aequalium consuetudo talibus in rebus inmorandi.
purposes. Thus Creon's pride of power is abnorma

violence sweeps away from our vision any other possib
a tendency toward bombastic expression and a meaning
phrase is an almost unerring indication of Seneca's
fortunately in the Medea there are few examples of thi
In the chief elements of its economy, Ovid's play nece
that of Euripides. No Medea could well exist without t
between Jason and Medea, the scene between Medea
recital of the Messenger, and the mother's soliloquy bef
children. While using this Euripidean material, Ovid,
did not restrain his fertile fancy. It is especially to b
tendency of the Greek characters to indulge occasiona
argument was supplanted in their Latin descendants b
employing at every opportunity the flamboyant Roma
Afedea is believed to have been one of the first and most brilliant
specimens of this new genus of drama.' Quintilian's dictum,2 according
to Leo's interpretation,8 would lead us to expect some rather startling
innovations, and our investigations go to confirm this expectation. The
introduction of the wedding-chorus with the consequent quickening of
the action and the added poignancy of emotion is the one which we
can predicate with the most confidence. Probably this was preceded,
not by a monologue as in Seneca, but by a prologue which was modelled
to some extent on that of Euripides, and which has left behind a faint
echo in Her. 12, 133-158. After the nuptial music has changed Medea's
suspicions into certainty, she may have been represented as struggling
to quench her still-surviving tenderness for Jason in an ever-increasing
tumult of jealousy and hate. The grounds for surmising this are verses
137-149 of Seneca. Ovid's heroine also became possessed of a maenadic
frenzy; probably this took place near the end of the play, since it is
reasonable to suppose that Ovid arranged a more gradual progress for
Medea's passions than Seneca has. With his fondness for subtleties
Ovid must have found attractive the problem of reconciling the discor-
1 See Schanz, Rb3m. Lit. II, 2 (1901), p. 51, and Leo, Sen. Trag. I, p. 148 f.
2 Inst. Io, I, 98; see p. 41.
3 Sen. Trag. I, p. 149: Quintiliani testimnonio quo docemur etiam in tragoedia
illum ingenio suo indulgere quam temperare maluisse.
dant elements in her character. Further, in Ovid's pl

the chorus was presumably composed of men who sy
Jason. One of their songs was on the cruise of the Ar
which befell some of the heroic crew. Since Ovid prob
character of Aegeus, and did not make use of an inca
had considerable space for the messenger's tale. The c
the palace was added to increase the effect of the
Finally the Jason of Seneca may be assumed to be a fai
tion of Ovid's hero. He is the antithesis of Medea; she
loving wife and tender mother to the wild Colchian so
the aforetime valiant leader of the Argonauts, pales
Acastus, and retains but a trace of his former nobili
his true affection for his sons. This type of Jason pre
Ovid's last and most startling innovation, the murde
in their father's presence, and consequently befor
spectators.,
IThe dissertation by F. Galli, Medea corinzia nella trag

monumenti figurati (from the Atti del l'Accad. di archeologia
XXIV), I have not yet been able to secure. That it touches upo
treated in the above article is evident from Weege's review in t
gische Wochensckrift of April 27, 1907.

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Department of the Classics, Harvard University

The Medea of Seneca

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BY HAROLD LOOMIS CLEASBY

T is a well-known fact that the ancient Greek and Latin writers

1 See Harvard Studies, XVII (19o6), pp. 22 and 58, 66 ff.

these Seneca makes comparatively little use of Virgil,1 b

Medea as a theme for tragedy became famous in the m

in literature, but none of these tragedies is now e

1 F. Leo, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae, Berlin, 1878-1879, I, p. 149.

the play is naturally much more obscure. Wilhelm B

x In Rheinisches Museum, XXXII, pp. 68-85.

merita contempsit mea

and 560 f.:

et tot meorum facinorum?i

The other fragment is found in the elder Seneca, Suas. 3, 7: esse

feror huc illuc, vae, plena deo.

I Her. 12, 75 f. may be descended from this fragment.

Although a somewhat petty detail, it should be noted that Pirenis is

seems to be derived from Ovid." Finally, in line 397 of the above

and a little later Jason gives the following comm

The purpose of this article is to analyze Seneca's Medea with partic-

for Jason, destruction for the innocent children at the h

The conception of the Furies presiding at a wedding in place of the

1 But 137-149 and 920-925 are slightly inconsistent with this.

has already been celebrated before the play opens.

I See Th. C. H. Heine, Corneille's MWd~e in ihrem Verhlil/nisse, etc., p. 456,

and i16 f.:

In the beginning of the first of these scenes is depicted Medea's

7rOT'O 4)L 8(oo &I)fLa VVJ4rLKWV 7rvpt.

1 Rh. M-us. XXXII, p. 74. 2 MVdde, Act I, scene 5.

a much greater arrogance than the Creon of Euri

S8SOLKaC 0r, O8EV E Set 7rPaP/%71'XEW XoYov3,

To reach the next verses betraying a Greek origin, it is necessary to

7KLUTTR TOULOV X7L4 ZV U T7VpaVVLKOV,

a;So'vos Sa 'roo X XS'S'eOopa"

Finally, Creon in the Latin play grants Medea's praye

'ra"rov 0vve/o3?flrncav 'Apyaov OKa0o5,

In Ovid the same theme appears in the first fragmen

Aside from this point, which Ovid and Senec

which, with a similar verse later, 503:

These are the chief points in which Seneca see

Finally, in this complex scene we must not overlook

tu, tu malorum machinatrix facinorum,

where the king of Corinth is suddenly transformed in

inevitably recall Horace, Od. I, 3, 9-13 :1

and later, 335 f.:

bene dissaepti foedera mundi

opening of the Euripidean Medea, where the fa

adire certe et coniugem extremo alloqui

which expresses a thought similar to that in Euripides 585-587:

Xpjv c , COrcp , c, tOa "K aKo'f, TC9Orava JLC

Other breaks in the logical connection, as it seems to me, occur be-

remarkable.' As for Ovid, we have one passage at

The corresponding lines in Ovid are Her. 12, 131 f.:

After Jason departs, the act is brought to a close

XcEro'Tv rT V''TXOV Kal 7rXOKOV yJX'2TXaTOV .2

Much more relevant, in my opinion, is Ovid's description of the aban-

Compare inferrum . . . ruit with Seneca 593 f.: