Seneca tragicus and the scholia to Euripides. Some case studies from the Medea

This paper argues that, in penning his tragedies, Seneca may have drawn not only on his Greek models, but also on ancient commentaries to those texts, that is the exegetical material found in the scholia. This approach to Seneca’s plays, which entails aspects of both literary criticism and dramaturgy, does not seem, however, to have received much scholarly attention thus far. The analysis focuses on a few passages from Seneca’s Medea, which will be interpreted against the model of Euripides’ Medea, as well as against the relevant Euripidean scholia. Such a combined reading may help shed further light on Seneca’s composition of his tragedies by bringing to the fore his erudite interest in ancient commentaries, an interest mirrored in his peculiar rewriting of his source-texts.