title: ‘Phoenissae’, ‘Phoenissa’, ‘Thebais’: The Title of Seneca’s Phoenician Women
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Sapota, Tomasz
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.contributor.author
metadata.value: Słomak, Iwona
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.accessioned
metadata.value: 2020-09-09T10:12:57Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.available
metadata.value: 2020-09-09T10:12:57Z
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.date.issued
metadata.value: 2020-03
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.citation
metadata.value: Tomasz Sapota, Iwona Słomak. ‘Phoenissae’, ‘Phoenissa’, ‘Thebais’: The Title of Seneca’s Phoenician Women. Philologia Classica 2020, 15 (1), 88–95.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.identifier.other
metadata.value: https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu20.2020.107
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.identifier.uri
metadata.value: http://hdl.handle.net/11701/19324
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.description.abstract
metadata.value: This paper aims to revise the status quaestionis of the title of a play by Seneca preserved in two
  commonly recognised variants — Phoenissae and Thebais — and two less well-known variants — Phoenissa and Antigona. It has been generally accepted that only the title Phoenissae is
  correct, and that this title was modelled on Euripides’ drama of the name. This view, however,
  can hardly be deemed plausible, considering the substantial differences between Seneca’s and
  Euripides’ Phoenissae. Moreover, it has been widely held that there is no analogy for the title
  Thebais in the dramatic tradition but that it has equivalents in epic texts, which has led to the
  conclusion that Thebais is an ill-chosen interpolation. The other variants of the title have not
  been discussed at all. In this article we scrutinise previously disregarded sources and argue
  that all the play’s titles may have originated in Classical Antiquity and may be regarded as
  synonyms. We also demonstrate that the interpretation of the title Phoenissae as referring
  to a Chorus of Tyrian maidens is purely speculative, since the links between Seneca’s and
  Euripides’ Phoenissae cannot be unequivocally defined. We posit that the Romans may have
  understood both the title of Euripides’ play and of its probable imitation written by Accius as
  alluding to the heroines, Jocasta and Antigone. The examples found in Statius’ verse may be
  used as evidence that the adjective Phoenissus was understood by the educated Roman public
  as Thebanus. In the final part of the paper, we analyse the dramatic action of Phoenissae, which
  leads us to the conclusion that the interpretation of the title as a metonymic term describing
  Jocasta and Antigone is accurate.
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.language.iso
metadata.value: en
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.publisher
metadata.value: St Petersburg State University
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.relation.ispartofseries
metadata.value: Philologia Classica;Volume 15; Issue 1
metadata.lang: -
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Seneca the Younger
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Phoenissae
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Thebais
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.subject
metadata.value: Roman tragedy
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.title
metadata.value: ‘Phoenissae’, ‘Phoenissa’, ‘Thebais’: The Title of Seneca’s Phoenician Women
metadata.lang: en_GB
metadata.name: dc.type
metadata.value: Article
metadata.lang: en_GB
resources.filename: 88-95.pdf
resources.url: https://dspace.spbu.ru/bitstream/11701/19324/1/88-95.pdf
resources.format: Adobe PDF
resources.size: 672,08 kB