Vol. 1, No. 1, Fall 2002

[page 57]

Scott Magelssen

Bloody Spectacle or Religious Commentary?:
Divination by Entrails in Seneca’s Oedipus

Dana Gioia
Introduction, Seneca: The Tragedies in Two Volumes(1)

It would seem that two separate discursive fields which place Senecan tragedy within a continuum of dramatic history have been articulated in the late twentieth century. One locates the work of Seneca in the evolution of drama as a degeneration from that of the ancient Greeks, and the other into the category of works that "influenced" the writing of Elizabethan tragedies, especially those of Shakespeare. A number of scholars intersect over the same textual territory: namely, the divination scene in Act II of Seneca's Oedipus. Each offers a careful and rigorous interpretation of the text, within a framework of either "kernel of potential" or "retrograde evolution," in order to legitimize their position. The scene in question depicts Tiresias, the blind prophet, and his daughter, Manto, sacrificing a bull and heifer for Oedipus and his court. In an effort to divine the identity of the former king's murderer, the characters proceed to examine the entrails of the beasts, which they find to be in putrid and oozing disarray. Those scholars who critique Seneca for appropriating Sophocles' poetic and well-structured tragedy and offering a transliteration of a lower order use as evidence the bloody spectacle and bombastic language (at the same time condemning Roman tragedy for resorting to obscene methods to entertain their audiences). In contrast, the scholars who laud Seneca are quick to point out that such instances as this particular scene and the conjuring of the ghost of Laius, the murdered [page 58] king and Oedipus' father, in a later scene, are direct ancestors to some of the richest moments from Hamlet and Macbeth . I propose in this essay, however, that in order to better understand the divination scene, it must separated from the confines of such sentimental categorizing of both Sophocles' and Shakespeare's work, and realigned within the context of Roman religion and the language of intelligibility in Seneca's time. By so doing, I would like to suggest that Tiresias and Manto are neither mere vehicles for horror and spectacle, nor proto-Elizabethan figures. Rather, these characters voice a specific enunciation of that which was possible to think in first century Rome, specifically concerning the constant struggle to maintain order in the cosmos. Essential to recognize is that the divination scene may only be perceived as Seneca's fascination with the macabre if the text is analyzed within a template of twentieth-century sensibilities. Once realigned within a first-century discourse, the so-called macabre elements emerge not as ends, but as a network of signs intended to transfer specific ideas about the relationship between nature, the heavens, and the order of kings and queens. These ideas will be the focus of my essay.

In order to offer a different interpretation of Seneca's divination scene, it is necessary to briefly examine the discursive landscape of Seneca studies emergent in the twentieth century. Perhaps T.S. Eliot's description of Seneca as an "existentialist extraordinaire" in 1927(2) may act as a signpost which marks a threshold in the last century's trajectories of Seneca studies, which shifted his work into a compelling object of inquiry by charging it with relevant historicity. The following decades saw Oedipus and Seneca's other tragedies imbued with new systems of meaning which allowed them to function as a chapter in a linear development of western culture and dramatic literature. Clarence Mendell, in Our Seneca, argues that without the Roman poet, the Shakespeare phenomenon may never have occurred. He credits E.K. Chambers with referring to Senecan tragedy as Shakespearean drama in "swaddling clothes." Though the Elizabethans had no access to the far superior Greek models, writes Mendell, Sophocles' tragedy would not have been as accessible to Shakespeare and his contemporaries as the work of Seneca:

In a similar manner, Moses Hadas evokes in vitro images to style Seneca as an influence on Shakespeare: "derogatory criticism of Seneca is posited on the assumption that Seneca is a corrupted Greek; it is fairer to look upon him as an embryonic Elizabethan."(4) In both Mendell and Hadas, the attribution of Shakespeare's success to the rediscovery of Seneca is tempered with a regard for Seneca's tragedies as mediocre in comparison to the Greeks. In this kind of comparative analysis, it is often posited that Seneca used Sophocles' Oedipus the King as a model. Mendell writes, for example, "Seneca had before him the Oedipus of Sophocles when he wrote his play of the same name."(5) By maintaining this assertion, Seneca interpretation opens itself to a synoptic textual analysis, comparing the Greek and Roman tragedies, and subsequent conclusions measure the poetic and dramatic virtues of the former as touchstones by which to measure the latter. These arguments have become somewhat institutionalized. Witness a passage in an undergraduate theatre history textbook: "unlike the Greek dramatists, [Seneca] emphasizes violent spectacle. Scenes which the Greeks would have banished from the stage–stabbings, murders, suicides–were often the climactic on-stage moments in Seneca's works."(6) David Slavitt, while not a proponent of this view, puts words to what he perceives as an anti-Seneca bias:

It is important to remember, however, that the archive of classical works is fragmentary, and there is no certainty that the Sophocles Oedipus was the only model for Seneca. Sophocles may have written several versions of the Oedipus myth, but only one is extant. Furthermore, the Oedipus myth was popular enough to yield many dramatic narrativizations by Roman poets, including a closet drama by Julius Caesar.(8) Trapped in a limbo of categorizations between the genres of Golden Age Greek tragedy and Shakespearean Drama, then, Seneca has often been denied contextualization within specific Roman society and religion. An understanding Seneca's Oedipus and its divination scene would benefit from a reexamination in light of religious discourses in first century Rome.

A summary of the scene itself is in order at this point: at the opening of the second act, Creon has returned from the oracle at Delphi with news that the pestilence, drought, and ill omens in Thebes are the result of the presence of Laius' killer. Until that individual is named and banished from Thebes, there will be no end to the suffering of its citizens. Immediately, Tiresias and Manto enter to offer their services, and Oedipus calls upon the blind prophet to augur the identity of the villain. Tiresias apologizes for his blindness and slowness of speech, and introduces Manto, who will help in the ritual.(9) The prophet calls for a snow-white bull and a "heifer not yet broken to the yoke" to be brought to the altar. He calls for Manto to invoke the gods by the burning of oriental incense. After noting the peculiar fire and smoke from the burning incense (signs pointing to the anger of the gods) Tiresias calls for the animals to be [page 61] brought to the altar for slaughter, asking Manto for a description of the ritual at every step–the touch of the hands of the priests on the animals' bodies, the reaction to the salted meal sprinkled on their necks, which direction they face, how they stagger when struck with the sacrificial blows, et cetera. The remainder of the scene is an account of the slaughter and the state of the victims' organs and viscera.

Tiresias asks how the blood flows from the wounds. Manto responds by describing the flow of blood not only from where the blades struck, but from the eyes and mouth as well; evil portents according to Tiresias. As the entrails are removed for examination, Manto offers running commentary. The bulls' entrails do not mildly quiver, but make Manto's hands violently shake. The heart is withered, and part of the lungs is missing. The liver is monstrous: it oozes with black gall, and masses of flesh covered with membrane rise up out of it, "as if refusing to reveal its secret."(10) This side of the liver with the projections is marked with seven veins, the "backward course" of which is obstructed.

The results of the examination of the heifer are even more ominous. The organs are completely out of place: on the right side, a lung is missing; on the left, a heart. The womb and genitals are deformed, and most "monstrous," a living fetus with blackened flesh is found in the virgin womb, twitching in the gore. As this is observed, the bodies of the dead animals begin to rise up. With awful bellows, the gutted carcasses try to attack the priests with their horns.

When asked by Oedipus to interpret these signs, and to name the identity of the villain, Tiresias is unable to give an answer other than that the ominous results of the ritual indicate ill fate and disastrous consequences for prior actions. The prophet is forced to resort to another method of augury: that of evoking the Ghost of the former king himself. With this admission, the chorus enters and sings its ode, and the act ends.

Most obvious to those familiar with both Senecan and Sophoclean versions of Oedipus is the fact that Sophocles' tragedy lacks a divination scene.(11) The Senecan version, then, adds completely new material, versus the mere adaptation and transliteration of the Greek original, [page 62] which allows an analysis of Seneca's scene on its own terms. Because of the absence of a corresponding scene in Sophocles' text, a mode of inquiry is relieved from the onus of a comparative analysis that similar Senecan scenes (such as Hippolytus' death the end of Phaedra [cf Euripides' Hippolytus], and descriptions in Oedipus like the king's blinding and Jocasta's suicide). Because a description of animal sacrifice and dissection is a site of emergence, it would suggest that Seneca had other motives than simply rewording Greek models in a bloodier manner.

The reasons for its inclusion are indeed difficult to ascertain at first. Since the ritual does not offer a satisfactory result (the identity of Laius' killer is not determined), it would appear the scene is merely included for the sake of spectacle. Horace argues in his Ars Poetica that such an inclusion of a scene with no real purpose indicates sloppiness, as it was not conducive to a well structured tragedy.(12) All parts of a tragedy, in Horace's view, should work toward one unified end. A more generous interpretation is that, as an "oracle," the divination scene functions not to develop the plot, but to redefine the tragic hero. Rebecca Bushnell cites Walter Benjamin's argument that "[t]he oracle in tragedy..[entails] neither a causal nor a magical necessity." Instead, according to Benjamin, it "evokes the unarticulated necessity of defiance, in which the self brings forth its utterances'":(13)

Despite the relative silence on Laius' killer, however, (and the question of its impact on the construction of Oedipus as tragic hero aside), the divination does point to a disordered cosmos which suggests that a more vile event than the mere killing of a king has occurred, and that [page 63] Seneca saw the cultic practices of Tiresias as a template for measuring cosmic order and a legitimate means of knowledge production.

If Oedipus' poet is the same Seneca we know from philosophical treatises and letters, his positions on religion and particular divination practices, as well as his opinions on spectacle, may be gleaned from his other writings. Seneca was a Stoic philosopher, and thus advocated a "middle ground" position in matters of consumption and lifestyle. According to E.F. Watling, Seneca opposed the bloody spectacle in the amphitheatres.(15) He also wrote as a critic and commentator on moral issues, attacking religious views he did not agree with, such as the deification of emperors he ridicules in The Pumpkinification of Claudius. A perception of the divination scene as gruesome spectacle for its own sake, then, is difficult to reconcile with Seneca's writings on moderation and religious conscientiousness. Given Seneca's statements in other writings within the discursive field of Stoicism and Roman religion, however, the scene becomes an important articulation of religious practice within a limited archive. In the remainder of my essay, I attempt to realign an understanding of the scene within this discursive field.

While there are no extant eyewitness accounts of either Greek or Roman divination practices, there are commentaries or statements available from the period which indicate the extent of their circulation within respective cultures. Legal practitioners of the art of divination were the haruspices, mostly experts from Etruria. But there were illegitimate practices of divination as well. Robin Lane Fox describes accounts of rogue diviners and augurs swindling gullible believers in the first and second centuries. The prefect of Egypt, for example, issued an edict banning oracles and divination in 198/9,(16) and R.M. Ogilvie points to the authorities' need to maintain and police the practice in the face of its growing popularity:

[page 64] According to Arthur Stanley Pease, current knowledge of divination ritual in the Roman Republic and Empire comes from "(1) literary sources; (2) comparison with similar customs among other peoples, especially the Babylonians; and (3) from inferences from certain models of livers."(18) These rituals, apparently, were appealing for their efficiency. The practice of divination by examination of entrails, especially of the liver, writes Ogilvie, was more expedient than the "hit and miss" method of prayer in determining whether sacrifices and entreaties were acceptable to the gods.(19)

Scott Magelssen teaches theatre history at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. He received his PhD in Theatre History and Theory spring 2002 from the University of Minnesota, where he wrote his dissertation on living history museums and the historiography of costumed museum performance.