The Roman Tragic Spirit

Abstract

Latin tragedy presents interesting and uneven problems. We have too little evidence from the early period, and, some would say, too much from the later. Horace was dissatisfied with the primitive carelessness or clumsiness of the early tragedians, but their spirit, he judged, was natura sublimis et acer; namque spirat tragicum satis etfeliciter audet.' He hoped for a renaissance of Latin tragedy which would combine the boldness, loftiness, and intensity of the earlier tragedians with a carefully developed art. Nor was his the only approving voice. Virgil at least omitted dramatic, as well as epic poetry from his list of the arts and sciences in which others would surpass Rome.2 Cicero enjoyed and respected the old tragic liter ature.3 Velleius Paterculus claimed that Pacuvius and Accius could stand comparison with the Greeks4; the latter perhaps had more polish, but Accius had more blood in him. Quintilian gave them credit for weighty thought, impressive language, authoritative character-drawing; he would match Varius' Thyestes against any of the Greeks.5 Persius resented, or claimed to resent, the continuing popularity of the old tragedy.6 Nor were such judgments confined to small circles of learned readers. In the last years of the Republic, Roscius and Aesopus achieved financial success and social recog nition by their work as tragic actors; Horace recalls that when a