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Dionysiac Tragedy in Plutarch, Crassus

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

David Braund
David Braund
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
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Extract

It has recently and rightly been observed that Plutarch is exceptional as a prose author in the finesse with which he employs tragedy in his Lives. And, one might add, in the extent to which he does so. His dislike for the sensationalism of ‘tragic history’ was no obstacle to his use of ‘the sustained tragic patterning and imagery which is a perfectly respectable feature of both biography and history’. The primary purpose of the present discussion is to draw attention to the profound importance of tragedy, particularly of Euripides' Bacchae, to the Carrhae narrative in Plutarch's Crassus. It is argued that details in Crassus'; version of Carrhae recall the tragedy of Pentheus and, in so doing, substantially advance the portrayal of Crassus' character.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , December 1993 , pp. 468 - 474
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1993

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References

1 Mossman, J. M., ‘Tragedy and epic in Plutarch's Alexander’, JHS 108 (1988), 83–93, esp. p. 85CrossRefGoogle Scholar for quotation, with full bibliography on earlier discussions of Plutarch and tragedy, notably Lacy, P. De, ‘Biography and tragedy in Plutarch’, AJPh 73 (1952) 159–71Google Scholar. I have benefited significantly from the advice of several colleagues at Exeter; also from that of CQ's reader, whom I wish to thank. Any blame is mine.

2 For the judgment, C. B. R. Pelling, ‘Plutarch and Roman polities’, in Moxon, I. S., Smart, J. D. and Woodman, A. J. (edd.), Past perspectives: studies in Greek and Roman historical writing (Cambridge, 1986), 159–87, at p. 161Google Scholar. For a persuasive hypothesis on the composition of the Lives of Crassus and his contemporaries, see id., ‘Plutarch's method of work in the Roman Lives’, JHS 99 (1979), 74–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 , Plut.Nicias 1Google Scholar is both a rejection of historical narrative in the face of Thucydides and an assertion of the appropriateness of the comparison of Nicias and Crassus. On the place of this passage in Plutarch's principles of biography, see Pelling, C. B. R., ‘Plutarch's adaptation of his source-material’, JHS 100 (1980), 127–40, esp. p. 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Tarn, W. W., CAH IX (1932), p. 612Google Scholargives it a full half-page.

5 Tac. Ann. 11.31 with A. Henrichs, ‘Greek maenadism from Olympias to Messalina’, HSCPh 82 (1978), 121–60, esp. p. 159Google Scholar. On Plutarch's initiation, Mor. 61Id; cf. Dionysiac elements at, for example, Ant. 24 and Alex. 67. Note Plutarch's references to Agaue elsewhere: Mor. 167c–d; 501 b-c (citing Euripides, Bacchae). For positivism, try, for example, Ward, A. M., Marcus Crassus and the late Republic (Columbia, Mo., 1977)Google Scholar. Rather more critical of the sources is Marshall, B. A., Crassus: a political biography (Amsterdam, 1976)Google Scholar.

6 There has been much speculation on the sources available for the Parthian campaign: the best summary is Rawson, E., ‘Crassorum funera’, Latomus 41 (1982), 540–49, at pp. 548–9Google Scholar. See also Pelling, ‘Plutarch's method…’ p. 87 n. 96, for features of Plutarch's Crassus which show close contact with what he terms ‘the Livian tradition’, in which he locates Cassius Dio, on whom more below.

7 Note, for example, how Ovid recounts Crassus' disaster to praise Augustus' success, Fasti, 5.579–98; cf. 6.465–8. See in general, especially for the triumviral period and Antony, Timpe, D., ‘Die Bedeutung der Schlacht von Carrhae’, MH 19 (1962) 104–29Google Scholar; thereafter, Zanker, P., The power of images in the age of Augustus (Ann Arbor, 1988), esp. pp. 185–92Google Scholar.

8 Tac. Ann. 2.2.3. For a more reasoned Parthian perspective, see Dabrowa, E., Lapolitique de I'état parthe à l'égard de Rome (Krakow, 1983)Google Scholar.

9 Cic. De Div. 1.29; cf. Plut. Crassus, 16; Ward, , Marcus Crassus… p. 285Google Scholar. Cic. ad Att. 4.13 offers a contemporary glimpse of Crassus’ departure.

10 Cicero tells the famous story of the Caunian fig-seller at Brundisium, for which Plutarch substitutes a pointed exchange with King Deiotarus: De Div. 2.84; Plut. Crassus, 17.1–2. False Chaldaean prophecy: De Div. 2.99. A war without cause: Cic. De Fin. 3.75. The legal basis for Crassus’ Parthian War also became a matter of dispute: see Timpe, ‘Die Bedeutung…’, pp. 106–11 and Seager, R., Pompey: a political biography (Oxford, 1979) p. 130Google Scholarfor sources and discussion.

11 Val. Max. 1.6.11: corpus imperatoris inter promiscuas cadaverum strues avium ferarumque laniatibus obiectum… sic deorum spreti monitus excandescunt, sic humana consilia castigantur, ubi se caelestibus praeferunt. Cf. Val. Max. 6.9.9; 9.4.1. Veil. Pat. 2.46.

12 Cassius Dio, 40.12–28; 27.2–3.

13 Cassius Dio, 40.27.3; 12.1. Cf. Florus, 1.46.

14 See App. Mithr. 80 on M’. Aquillius.

15 On the ultimate uselessness of gold: e.g. Ananius, fig. 3 (West, M. L. (ed.), Iambi et elegi Graeci (Oxford, 1972) vol 2, p. 35)Google Scholar. Midas: e.g. Ovid, , Mel. 11.85–145Google Scholar, wherein note the role of Dionysus, on whom more below. Feeding the greedy with riches: , Aristoph.Peace 644–5Google Scholar; Plutus 379. Gold in the mouth: Aristoph. Wasps 609, 791; Birds 503; Eccl. 818; cf. Hdt. 6.125, also a humourous context. The comic contexts of these passages highlight the potential for mockery in the Parthians’ act.

16 On Pentheus as general, March, J. R., ‘Euripides Bakchai: a reconsideration in the light of vase paintings’, BICS 36 (1991), 33–65Google Scholar. On Roman governors as kings, see, for example, Braund, D., “The growth of the Roman empire’, in Braund, D. (ed.), The administration of the Roman empire, 241 B.C.–A.D. 193 (Exeter, 1988), 1–13, esp. pp. 6–7Google Scholar, with the literature cited therein.

17 So Seaford, R., ‘Dionysiac drama and the Dionysiac Mysteries’, CQ 31 (1981), 252–75, at p. 273CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 On the myth of Cassius, see Rawson, E., ‘Cassius and Brutus: the memory of the Liberators’, in Moxon, I. S., Smart, J. D. and Woodman, A. J. (edd.), Past perspectives: studies in Greek and Roman historical writing (Cambridge. 1986), 101–20Google Scholar, who, evidently sensing drama, observes that Cassius ‘repeatedly plays Cassandra to the expedition’ (p. 111). He is not Cassandra, but Teiresias, if the Bacchae is the play in question.

19 On which, Seaford, R., art. cit. (n. 17), pp. 254–6Google Scholar.

20 , Eur.Bacchae 965–70Google Scholar with Seaford, , art. cit. (n. 17), esp. p. 259Google Scholar. For Dionysus and the triumph, see Versnel, H. S., Triumphus (Leiden, 1970)Google Scholar.

21 On the judgmental purpose of ancient biography, see Gill, C., ‘The question of character-development: Plutarch and Tacitus’, CQ 33 (1981), 469–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 See March, , art. cit. (n. 16), p. 38Google Scholaron Pentheus and the polis.

23 , Eur.Bacchae, 963Google Scholar with Dodds ad he.

24 Dionysiac hostility to Crassus may be seen as a consequence of his suppression of Spartacus, whose spouse was a follower of Dionysus (Crassus, 8.3; cf. the vines of 9.2). Plutarch makes little of her, though there may have been more in his sources.