Reading Aeschylus through Seneca: Scenes of Capitulation in Agamemnon and Thyestes

Abstract

Abstract:Reception theory holds that close analysis of chronologically later literature has the potential to shape the interpretation of earlier works. This paper investigates the way in which Seneca's treatment of the House of Atreus in Thyestes suggests a new reading of Aeschylus's Agamemnon. I show that both plays reiterate a pattern of capitulation that can be traced throughout the generations of the family they describe. The clear causal connection between two such capitulation scenes in Thyestes helps us to understand Agamemnon's reluctant agreement to sacrifice Iphigenia as contributing to his decision to yield to Clytemnestra in the so-called 'tapestry scene.'