Four Tragedies and Octavia - Thyestes & Phaedra & Trogan Women & Oedipus with Octavia

The tragedies of Seneca (c. 4 BC-65 AD) represent a curious branch of Latin literature. Taken from Greek drama, their legendary subjects are modelled on the manner of Euripides, yet Seneca all but ignores the moral conflict inherent in the tragic drama. What gives his plays their momentum is the ruthlessness with which a disastrous event, foretold from the start, is pursued. Exuberant and often macabrely bloodthirsty, their descriptive power and idiosyncratic poetic style provide a strange and striking contrast to his prose writing.