Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Agamemnon

Andreas Michalopoulos (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

Ed. by William John Dominik, University of Otago
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.1.2: Ancient Roman Writing and Culture (Republic and Empire), -750-476.
Vol. editors: William John Dominik (University of Otago), Giacomo Fedeli (University of Exeter), Thomas Habinek (University of Southern California), Emily Kneebone (University of Nottingham), Elodie Paillard (University of Sydney), Sophia Papaioannou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Jula Wildberger (The American University of Paris)

Dates

First circulation or publication c. 50

Places

Ancient Rome (Republic & Empire) (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Play

Resources

The exact dating of Seneca’s plays is not possible to determine. There are no allusions to contemporary events in the Agamemnon. It possibly belongs to the first group of Seneca’s plays along with the Phaedra and the Oedipus, written in the later years (AD 50-54) of Claudius’ reign.

In the Agamemnon Seneca treats the well-known myth of king Agamemnon’s return from Troy and his murder by his wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover, Aegisthus, who is Agamemnon’s cousin. The place of the dramatic action is Argos (or Mycenae), the palace of Agamemnon. The time is the day of Agamemnon’s return from Troy after ten years of absence. The characters taking part in the play are: (1) The ghost of Thyestes, (…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1163 words

Citation: Michalopoulos, Andreas. "Agamemnon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 October 2014 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13468, accessed 25 November 2024.]

Save this article