https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/232 Entrées d’index fr 0 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1604 This article argues both that Plautus made use of a comic stock scene featuring all-female space to deepen the characterisation of his meretrices figures, and that Seneca used paracomedy to deploy these conventions and heighten the tragedy in the Troades. Using the concept of the haunted stage laid out by Marvin Carlson, I argue that stagecraft becomes an important intertheatrical practice that offers a new way into thinking about the relationship between Seneca and his comic predecessors. Examples from the Cistellaria and Asinaria illustrate how a stock scene featuring single-gendered theatrical space created a specific set of behavioural conventions and expectations that Plautus exploits in the same way as he does comic stock characters. Interpreting scene four of Seneca’s Troades through a paracomic lens reveals how it is haunted by this spatial template in a way which sharpens the hovering spectre of enslavement awaiting the royal women in Greece. mar., 02 sept. 2025 17:00:33 +0200 jeu., 25 juin 2026 12:10:08 +0200 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/1604 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/226 May the bones of my patron rest well; he wanted me to be a man among men, (Patrono meo ossa bene quiescant, qui me hominem inter homines voluit esse), Petron. Sat. 39.4. These are the words of the famous freedman Trimalchio, expressing that he is now able to enjoy the good life and that he is part of society, he is “a man among men”. But what does this “a man among men” mean and why was it important for a freedman to be seen as a man? In the Greco-Roman world the slave was seen as a boy and manumission was perceived as a maturity process, where the manumitted slave could be seen as coming of age. This article examines how age can be used as a means to study how Roman male freedmen were positioned in relation to the ideal Roman masculinity and how this positioning can be seen as an expression of (gender) identity and status. The article addresses these questions by doing a critical close reading of a sample of Late Republican and Early Imperial Roman textual, iconographic and epigraphic sources, applying masculinity theory and drawing on modern conceptions and constructions of masculinity. As a key concept to discuss the material, Connell’s concept “hegemonic masculinity”, as an ideal and normative masculinity, is used. The article provides conclusions on why age was important for Roman freedmen. It is also pointed out that, as a phenomenon, Roman freedmen are interesting when studying intersections of age and gender, because they illustrate the way age can be perceived as a social category. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:35:31 +0200 ven., 24 mars 2023 10:47:28 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/226 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/239 In Seneca’s Hercules Furens there are two distinct narratives with opposing objectives, one authored by Juno, the other by Hercules. The former seeks to prevent the hero from becoming a god, by directing him to carry out an assault on heaven and eliminate his family, and the latter seeks to implement his vision of the new Golden Age by purging the world of remaining evils. As the two plans collide, they generate confusion in the minds of both Hercules and Amphitryon, in part because Juno is able to exploit Hercules’ own overweening ambition. The play associates this kind of ambition with tyrannical behavior. When Hercules’ Juno-sent frenzy results in the slaughter of his family, the tragic hero is rendered an intratextual double of the tyrant Lycus, fulfilling the tyrant’s goal of eliminating the Theban royal line. This constitutes an attack on Thebes itself, the earthly analogue of heaven. This poetological dimension – in which Hercules’ acts follow his own scripted vision set beside that devised by Juno – constitutes a significant Senecan innovation vis-a-vis the Euripidean Ἡρακλῆς Μαινόμενος in its treatment of the mythic plot. The dual authorship and ultimate overlap of the two previously opposed plotlines highlight the complex nature and meaning of Hercules’ responsibility. mar., 14 juin 2022 08:35:46 +0200 jeu., 23 mars 2023 15:27:48 +0100 https://www.peren-revues.fr/eugesta/239