1. Violence and Tyranny in the Myth of Thyestes
The Tragic Reality
Violence and Tyranny in the Myth of Thyestes

2. We will cover… An outline of the feast of Thyestes myth
A timeline of its staging in Greek & Roman tragedy
Plato’s role in defining the relationship between violence and tyranny
An evaluation of this relationship in Thyestes tragedies after Plato

3. The Feast of Thyestes 1

4. The Feast of Thyestes 2

5. Thyestes on Stage c. 425 BC Euripides’ Thyestes
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Adultery (Α)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Feast (Β)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes at Sicyon (Γ)
c. 400 BC Diocles’ Thyestes
BC Carcinus’ Thyestes BC Plato’s Republic
BC Apollodorus’ Thyestes
c. 365 BC Aeschines’ Thyestes
BC Cleophon’s Thyestes
BC Diogenes of Sinope’s Thyestes
169 BC Ennius’ Thyestes
130 BC Accius’ Atreus
29 BC Varius’ Thyestes
60 AD Sempronius Gracchus’ Thyestes
c. 65 AD Seneca’s Thyestes

6. Thyestes on Stage c. 425 BC Euripides’ Thyestes
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Adultery (Α)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Feast (Β)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes at Sicyon (Γ)
380 BC Plato’s Republic
169 BC Ennius’ Thyestes
130 BC Accius’ Atreus
C. 65 AD Seneca’s Thyestes

7. Euripides’ Thyestes (c.425 BC) *397b (= 861 N)
Plato & Attic Tragedy
Such an one is the portent connected with the tale of the quarrel between Atreus and Thyestes. You have doubtless heard of it and remember what is said to have taken place. […] I mean the change in the rising and setting of the sun and the other heavenly bodies, how in those times they used to set in the quarter where they now rise, and used to rise where they now set, but the god at the time of the quarrel, you recall, changed all that to the present system as a testimony in favor of Atreus.
Pl. Pol. 268E-9B
Euripides’ Thyestes (c.425 BC) *397b (= 861 N)
Atreus: By showing the contrary course of the stars, I saved my house and established myself as ruler.
Carcinus’ Thyestes (370 BC)

8. Concious Cannibalism
“What begins the change, then, from leader to tyrant?” […] “The story goes that he who tastes of the one bit of human entrails minced up with those of other victims is inevitably transformed into a wolf.” […] “May it not happen that he is driven into exile and, being restored in defiance of his enemies, returns a finished tyrant?” “Obviously.” “And if they are unable to expel him or bring about his death by calumniating him to the people, they plot to assassinate him by stealth.”
Pl. Resp d-566b.

9. Irrational Cannibalism
It does not shrink from trying to have sex with a mother, as it fancies, or with any other human being, or god, or wild beast; it will commit any kind of bloodthirsty murder, and there is no food it won’t touch. In a word, it isn’t lacking in any folly or shamelessness.
Pl. Resp c-d.

10. Accidental Cannibalism
The drawer of the first lot at once sprang to seize the greatest tyranny, and that in his folly and greed he chose it without sufficient examination, and failed to observe that it involved the fate of eating his own children, and other horrors, and that when he inspected it at leisure he beat his breast and bewailed his choice.
Pl. Resp c-d.

11. Kingship=Violence Violence= Kingship
In his Atreus and Oedipus […] Diogenes himself records most of the things shameful and unholy found in the Republic as his doctrines.
Phld. De Stoic = trgf1 88 tr. by Hook 2004 p.30.

12. Thyestes on Stage c. 425 BC Euripides’ Thyestes
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Adultery (Α)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes Feast (Β)
c. 410 BC? Sophocles’ Thyestes at Sicyon (Γ)
c. 400 BC Diocles’ Thyestes
BC Carcinus’ Thyestes BC Plato’s Republic
BC Apollodorus’ Thyestes
c. 365 BC Aeschines’ Thyestes
BC Cleophon’s Thyestes
BC Diogenes of Sinope’s Thyestes
169 BC Ennius’ Thyestes
130 BC Accius’ Atreus
29 BC Varius’ Thyestes
60 AD Sempronius Gracchus’ Thyestes
C. 65 AD Seneca’s Thyestes

13. Defining Revenge Greek Latin Dikē= justice
Vindicta =revenge or a stick used to beat slaves
Poinē = recompense
Ultor =an avenger, albeit with positive associations stemming from Roman worship of Mars Ultor
Timōros = honour

14. Tyranny in Accius’ Atreus
If Aeacus or Minos were to say “Let them hate, so long as they fear” or
“The sons have for their tomb
No other than a parent,”
it would appear disgraceful, because tradition tells us that they were righteous. But when Atreus says the words, they excite applause, for the statement is worthy of the character.
Cic. Off

15. Tyranny in Ennius’ Thyestes
But, of all motives, none is better adapted to secure influence and hold it fast than love; nothing is more foreign to that end than fear. For Ennius says admirably: “Whom they fear they hate. And whom one hates, one hopes to see him dead.” And we recently discovered, if it was not known before, that no amount of power can withstand the hatred of the many. Ennius. 36. Ribbeck, Ennius.410 Warmington. apud Cic. Off Cf. Ov. Am

16. Seneca’s Reception of Accius’ Atreus
“What then?” you cry; “do not the utterances of angry men sometimes seem to be the utterances of a great soul?” Yes, to those who do not know what true greatness is. Take the famous words: “Let them hate if only they fear,” which are so dread and shocking that you might know that they were written in the times of Sulla. I am not sure which wish was worse—that he should be hated, or that he should be feared. [...] You think this the utterance of a great soul? You deceive yourself; for there is nothing great in it—it is monstrous. Sen. De. Ir

17. Atreus the Emperor?
But the difference between a tyrant and a king is one of deeds, not of name; for while the elder Dionysius may justly and deservedly be counted better than many kings, what keeps Lucius Sulla from being styled a tyrant, whose killing was stopped only by a dearth of foes? Though he abdicated the dictatorship and returned to private life, yet what tyrant ever drank so greedily of human blood as he?
Sen. Clem
He [Sulla] often uttered the familiar line of the tragic poet:
“Let them hate me, so they but fear me.”
Suet. Calig. 30.

18. Thyestes the Emperor?
That man (Sulla) does not care for wine, since now he is thirsty for blood;
He drinks it as greedily as he drank undiluted wine before.
Look, Roman citizen, upon Sulla, blessed for himself but not for you,
Marius too, if you will, but after he took Rome;
See the hands of an Antony, rousing the strife of the people,
Hands stained with blood not once, but again and again;
Then say: Rome is no more! He has always reigned with great bloodshed
Whosoever has come to kingship out of exile.
These at first he wished to be taken as the work of those who were impatient of his reforms, voicing not so much their real feelings as their anger and vexation; and he used to say from time to time: “Let them hate me, provided they respect my conduct.”
Suet. Tiber

19. Seneca’s Infamous Atreus
You talk about punishment’s conclusion: I want the punishment! Slaying is for a lenient tyrant; in my kingdom death is something people beg for.
Sen. Thy
Though no one teaches them the ways of deceit and crime, kingship will teach it. You fear their becoming evil? They are born so.
Sen. Thy

20. Conclusions
Plato decontextualizes Thyestes from tragedy using his story to define tyranny
In turn Plato associates Atreus’ violent crimes with tyranny
This trend of tyranny= violence filters via philosopher playwrights into Roman tragedy
Roman authors associate Thyestes/ Atreus with contemporary rulers