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MARIO ERASMO. Roman Tragedy: Theatre to Theatricality. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004. xii + 211 pp. Cloth, $45.
This is a study of Roman tragedy from Livius Andronicus to Seneca. Erasmo states that his aim is to study the development of the form, "focusing on the process of how Roman tragedy became increasingly theatricalized and the role played by Roman culture in shaping the perception of theatricality on and off the stage" (x).The center of the study is, therefore, the incorporation into Roman tragedy, either in the script produced by the dramatist or in the same script as manipulated in performance, of material drawn from Roman life and political culture and, by extension, the reflection of theatrical figures and motifs in the world outside. Most interesting, therefore, is the material handled in chapters 3 and 4 (52-121), where Erasmo engages inter alia with Pompey's restaging of the Clytemnestra of Accius, with the her of Cornelius Balbus, and with the Thy estes of Varius Rufus. There are some provocative suggestions here which merit attention. There is also much of which this cannot fairly be said.
Erasmo begins his account with the tragedies of Livius Andronicus (9-14) and moves on to Naevius (14-18), Ennius (18-28), Pacuvius (34-42), and Accius (42-51). Each author is given a brief introduction, and his place in the history of the genre...