E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Eleni Christofaki, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the original illustration. See 57999-h.htm or 57999-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57999/57999-h/57999-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/57999/57999-h.zip) Transcriber's Note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). A list of the changes made can be found at the end of the book. THE TRAGEDIES OF SENECA [Illustration: DOUBLE HERMES OF SENECA AND SOCRATES. Now in the Old Museum at Berlin] THE TRAGEDIES OF SENECA Translated into English Verse, to Which Have Been Appended Comparative Analyses of the Corresponding Greek and Roman Plays, and a Mythological Index by FRANK JUSTUS MILLER Introduced by an Essay on the Influence of the Tragedies of Seneca upon Early English Drama by John Matthews Manly Chicago The University of Chicago Press London T. Fisher Unwin, 1 Adelphi Terrace 1907 Copyright 1907 by The University of Chicago Published December 1907 Composed and Printed By The University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. TO FRANK FROST ABBOTT AND EDWARD CAPPS MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES THROUGH A SCORE OF YEARS PREFACE The place of the tragedies of Seneca in literature is unique. They stand as the sole surviving representatives, barring a few fragments, of an extensive Roman product in the tragic drama. They therefore serve as the only connecting link between ancient and modern tragedy. They are, moreover, modeled more or less closely after the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides; and the Greek and Roman product in literature along parallel lines cannot be better studied than by a comparison of these Senecan plays with their Greek prototypes--a comparison which is not possible in comedy, since, unfortunately, the Greek originals of Plautus and Terence have not come down to us. These plays are of great value and interest in themselves, first, as independent dramatic literature of no small merit; and second, as an illustration of the literary characteristics of the age of Nero: the florid, rhetorical style, the long, didactic speeches, the tendency to philosophize, the frequent epigram, the pride of mythologic lore.