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Ancient Performance

Hercules

APGRD id
937
Year
between 53 and 54 AD
Scripts
Genres
Tragedy
Languages
Latin
People involved
APGRD Notes
Whether or not Seneca's tragedies were staged, or how they were performed, is highly controversial. Here it is assumed that some kind of performance of them took place in Rome. Quinitilian (8.3.31) may be taken as evidence that some of the plays were in circulation in the early 50s. Further evidence for the plays' circulation, and performance, by at least 79 AD, is offered by the graffito from Pompeii which quotes l. 730 of Seneca's Agamemnon (CIL 4.6698). Hercules is generally dated to shortly before 54 AD, since Seneca's Apocolocyntosis draws on it; see J. Fitch, Seneca Tragedies Vol. I (Loeb, 2002), p. 12. The date range here is based on this.