Seneca’s Thyestes: Ode 920-969 as an Amoibaion

Abstract

Abstract This article aims to revise the editorial and interpretive tradition that regards Thy. 920-969 as a monody. Based on a systematic analysis of attribution differences in three selected plays by Seneca and, comparatively, in several other problematic places, it confirms earlier general findings: the A-branch of the MS tradition shows traces of conscious interpolation, while the codex Etruscus (E-branch) contains largely mechanical errors, which—in the case of Thy. 920-969—makes its attribution more plausible. The article further discusses the problematic passages of the ode that might have motivated interpolations, provides a critique of the interpretive assumptions supporting the A reading, and demonstrates that the attribution in the E-branch is correct in the light of the rules of Senecan poetics, as well as from the point of view of the internal logic of the text and the ethopoeia of the eponymous hero.