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Roman Marriage Law and the Conflict of Seneca's "Medea"Author(s): Laura AbrahamsenSource: Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, New Series, Vol. 62, No. 2 (1999), pp. 107-121Published by: Fabrizio Serra editoreStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20546591 .

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Roman Marriage Law and the Conflict of Seneca's Medea

Laura Abrahamsen

The figure of Medea has been endlessly fascinating throughout the history of Western literature. Poets and dramatists choose to retell

her story over and over in different eras and cultures. The "facts" of

Medea's mythological history remain constant over time, but each poet

reshapes that inherited mythological tradition in ways that reflect the

societal context in which s/he writes. The Medea best known to classi

cists is the Medea who survives from Greco-Roman antiquity in

tragedy, epic and elegy, approached as a subject by poets from Euripi des to Seneca, spanning nearly 500 years from late 5th century Athens

to early Imperial Rome. She is the young Medea of epic, the witch

princess of Colchis who helps her Greek lover Jason obtain the Golden

Fleece; and she is the mother Medea of tragedy and elegy, betrayed by that same Jason, the mother who kills their mutual children.

Because of the vagaries of textual transmission, the child-killer

Medea is represented to us by only two extant tragedies, that of Eu

ripides and that of Seneca. Unfortunately, chronology has often com

pelled critics to consider Euripides' version of the Medea-story as the

model based upon which Seneca writes a defective imitation. It is more

fruitful, perhaps, to consider Seneca's tragedy as a product of its time

and to discuss its difference not in terms of originality and imitation, but in terms of how those differences allow Seneca to create a thor

oughly Roman retelling of the Medea legend. One of the primary issues driving the action of Seneca's Medea is

the conflict over who retains the legitimate identity as Jason's wife.

Seneca marks this contested identity in the way the different charac

ters of the play use the Latin vocabulary associated with marriage. By

situating the dramatic issues of Seneca's Medea into the context of

normative Roman marriage and divorce practice, we can begin to per

ceive one level on which Seneca has played with the mythological her

itage of Medea in order to make her legendary criminality more trou

bling to a specifically Roman imperial audience/reader. In taking this



108 L. Abrahamsen

approach, I assume the Senecan dramatic texts were intended for some

kind of performance, whether public or private 1.

Such a reading of the play requires the acceptance of two

premises in addition to the assumption of public performance. Al

though the characters of Senecan drama are "fictional" in the sense

that they are bound by an inherited mythological tradition, their sto

ries nonetheless take on the coloration of the life and times of the poet who chose to use this tradition. Furthermore, the action of the Medea

takes place in an ostensibly Greek setting, with the characters of Ja

son, Creon and the Chorus specifically identified as Greeks, while

Medea is marked as a barbarian. I would nonetheless suggest that a

Roman "audience" of the first century CE would assimilate Seneca's

identification of "Greek" and "other" in a way that the normative, civilized community of Corinth would be understood as equivalent to

Rome, while Medea would retain her status as being barbara, a

foreigner. A Roman audience would mentally translate the situation of

Seneca's plays into a Roman context, and so it is not extreme to view

the Medea, a play whose dramatic issues revolve around marriage, di vorce and children, through the lens of the standard Roman practices of the 1st century CE. This exploration will determine whether

Medea's situation corresponds to usual Roman practice or whether

Seneca portrays a world and particularly a character whose behavior

and situation violate the societal norms of both the world of the play and the larger Roman context in which the play was written and pre

sumably presented. Let us turn, then, to a consideration of Roman marriage and di

vorce practices and the status of children in each situation. In this pre

liminary discussion, I am heavily indebted to Susan Treggiari's monu

mental work on Roman marriage ~.

The jurists define the Roman institution of marriage by capacity and intent. Provided that certain legal qualifications were met and

certain disqualifications did not exist, then a couple who intended to

1 For arguments in favor of stage production,

see L. Herrmann, Le Theatre de S?

neque, Paris 1924, pp. 152-232. For arguments against staging, see O. Zwierlein, Die

Rezitationsdramen S?necas, Meisenheim 1966. While other scholars have considered

the question, these two remain the centra] statements on the issue of production. W. M.

Calder HI, "Seneca: Tragedian of Imperial Rome', Class. Journ. 72,1976, pp. 1-11, sug

gests that the plavs were

performed in private theatres, in the manner of "home movies"

(p. 5). 2

Susan Treggiari, Roman Marriage: Iusti Coniuges from the Time of Cicero to the

Time of Ulpian, Oxford 1991.



Roman Marriage Law and the Conflict of Seneca's Medea 109

be married were in fact, married. The issue of legal capacity to enter a

marriage involved questions such as age, consent of the father(s) if the

bride and/or groom were still in potestate-, degree of relationship and

conubium, the right to marry legitimately based on legal status.

Ulpian gives a succinct definition of conubium (Tituli Ulpiani 5,3-5):

Conubium est uxoris hire ducendae facultas. Conubium habent cives

Romani cum civibus Romanis: cum Latinis autem et peregrinis ita, si

concessum sit. Cum servis nullum est conubium.

The key words of this definition in relation to Seneca's Medea oc

cur in the second sentence: cum Latinis autem et peregrinis ita, si con

cessum sit. Roman citizens have conubium with non-citizens only if it

has been granted. If the right has not been granted, then no conubium

exists for the couple, and it is impossible for them to have a iustum

matrimonium, a legal marriage in which the children are recognized as

legitimate and also follow the legal status of their fathers. Let us apply this definition to Jason, Medea and Creusa.

If we are to assume that Jason would, for a Roman audience, rep resent an elite Roman citizen male, then the issue becomes whether he

was free to marry Creusa, assimilated to the position of an elite Roman

citizen female, or whether he was still legally bound in marriage to

Medea, a peregrina, or foreigner. The situation, as Seneca lays it out in

the play, is complex. Medea considers herself married to Jason. She

names him as coniunx and refers to the coniugium she shares with

him. Jason, however, refers to Medea as his coniunx only once, and

Creon names her as such not at all.

Elsewhere in his philosophical writings, Seneca indicates that

conubium or the lack of it, was an issue for a Roman citizen born and

raised in provincial Spain, who would break off marriage negotiations

upon learning of the lack of conubium (De ben. 4,35,1):

Promisi tibi in matrimonium ??liam; postea peregrinus adparuisti. non est mihi cum externo conubium; eadem res me d?fendit, quae vetat.

From a Roman citizen's perspective, conubium was an essential

prerequisite for not only a legal marriage, but a socially desirable mar

riage to exist. The Chorus in the Medea, standing in for Roman soci

ety, reflects these values as they celebrate the marriage of Jason and



110 L. Abrahamsen

Creusa, explicitly welcoming Jason back into civilization (w. 102

106) 3:

ereptus thalamis Phasidis horridi, effrenae solitus pectora coniugis invita trepidus prendere dextera, felix Aeoliam corripe virginem

nunc primum soceris sponse volentibus.

The emphasis on the first wife's foreignness (Phasidis), Jason's

reluctance as a bridegroom in that first marriage (ereptus/ trepidus/ invita... dextera) and the consent of Creusa's father to the new mar

riage (nunc primum soceris sponse volentibus) all indicate that this

new union is iustum matrimonium, unlike Jason's marriage to Medea.

Parental consent is explicitly present and conubium is implied with

the contrast to the first marriage. The phrase invita... dextera implies that ajfectio maritalis, the intent to be married, was absent from his

first marriage. Jason and Creusa certainly meet the minimum age re

quirements, and clearly are not within prohibited degrees of kinship. In the eyes of the Chorus and presumably the Roman audience, Jason

and Creusa have no impediments to a legal marriage. But Medea is an impediment. She views herself as an obstacle be

cause, in her mind, she is still Jason's wife; the other characters of the

play do not acknowledge her legal claim to the status of wife, but they

understandably do fear her supernatural powers and legendary crimi

nality. Medea's desperate struggle to retain her identity as Jason's co

niunx, while that identity is denied by the other characters of the play, is underlined at a linguistic level as well as a dramatic level by Seneca's use of marital vocabulary. Seneca uses coniunx as his over

whelming word of choice for "spouse" 4, perhaps because of its non

specificity, as well as its metrical convenience, in a way that accords

with the prevalent literary usage and marks Medea's struggle. Medea

calls herself coniunx five times and Jason once; she also refers to her

coniugium with Jason two times. Only twice do other characters apply the word coniunx to Medea 5.

3 All quotations from Seneca's Medea are taken from Costa's 1973 Cambridge

edition (C. D. N. Costa, Seneca. Medea, Oxford 1973). Variations from Zwierlein's

1986 OCT are noted (0. Zwierlein, L. Annaei Senecae Tragoediae, Oxford 1986). The

quotations from Euripides' Medea follow Diggle's 1984 OCT (J. Diggle, Euripidis Tabu

lae, Oxford 1984). Translations for all Latin and Greek passages are my own.

4 Treggiari 1991, p. 6.

? The first passage, w. 102-106, was discussed immediately above. Jason does




Jason is identified as a maritus, a husband, twice; each time the

context augments the constant tension between the identities of his

new wife and the old. The Chorus refers to him as & peregrino... mari

to at v. 115, while banishing Medea at the end of the wedding-song; that they can refer to him as Medea's husband acknowledges the mar

riage, but the context puts it firmly in the past. The second usage comes from Medea herself, highlighting her duelling perceptions of the

marriage. As Creon attempts to cast her out of Corinth, she argues that

Jason is equally guilty (w. 275-280):

cur sontes duos

distinguis? illi Pelia, non nobis iacet;

fugam, rapi?as adice, desertum patrem

lacerumque fratrem, quidquid etiam nunc novas

docet maritus coniuges, non est meum:

totiens nocens sum facta, sed numquam mini.

Why do you distinguish between two guilty parties? Pelias lies dead for him, not for me; add the flight, the theft, my father betrayed and brother butchered;

whatever the husband even now teaches his new wives, it's not my fault: so many times I have been made harmful,

but never for my own benefit.

The plural is bitter, including Creusa as well as herself, in a way that shows Medea hanging on to an impossible union. In Roman law,

ajfectio maritalis, the intent to regard one another as spouses, was a

prerequisite for a legal Roman marriage to exist 6. Consequently, the

absence of intent, whether unilateral or bilateral, could create a di

vorce. What is certain from the Roman legal and anecdotal evidence is

that subsequent marriage of one of the former partners confirmed that

the original marriage had ended 7. Jason cannot be Medea's maritus if

he has a new bride, but Medea numbers herself among the women

whom marriage to Jason has corrupted. One should note here also

Medea's first linking of the loss of her father and brother with her

marriage to Jason. Seneca starts here a pattern of valuation that

weighs Medea's original family against her marital family, a pattern

refer to Medea as his coniunx just once, at 435, where he weighs his limited options. It is

his only acknowledgment of what she has done for him. The Chorus also sings of the le

gendary wrath of wronged wives in the first part of the Argo ode (v. 579 f.); the coniunx viduata taedis / ardet et odit at v. 581 is clearly inspired by Medea's speech, but the context makes coniunx a

proverbial Everywife. 6

Treggiari 1991, pp. 54-57. 7

Treggiari 1991, p. 450.



112 L. Abrahamsen

which culminates in the murder of the children at the end of the

play. The mutually exclusive perceptions of the marriage that Medea

holds emerge in her references to herself as a coniunx. Her use of the

word always has a negative cast, as if she can claim the title only in

anger and bitterness: at v. 23, part of her curse upon Jason is that he

should want her for a wife (me coniugem optet) 8; at v. 418, she notes

that he was afraid to say a final word to her; at v. 501, she calls herself

coniugem infamem. At v. 928, coniuge expulsa, contrasted with tota

mater, marks her indecision as she contemplates the murder of her

children; and in their final horrific scene together, after she has mur

dered their children before his eyes, she demands Jason's final ac

knowledgment: ingrate Iason. coniugem agnoscis tuam? (v. 1021). Since Medea is given no honor as a wife, the word on her tongue

becomes a threat not only in reference to herself, but also in her ironic

applications of the title to Jason's new bride, Creusa. In all three of

Medea's references to Creusa as a coniunx, the context is threatening. From her earliest speech, death for Creusa is part of her plan: coniugi letum novae (v. 17); and this new wife will be part of her means of re

venge: utinam esset Uli frater! est coniunx: in hanc / ferrum exigatur.

("Would that he had a brother! There is a wife: let the sword be

drawn against her", w. 125-126). Finally, at v. 999, Medea an

nounces the deaths of Creon and Creusa to Jason: coniunx socerque iusta iamfunctis habent / a me

sepulti ("Wife and father-in-law have

the rights due the dead / buried by me"). As she applies it to herself and to her rival, the word coniunx de

notes violence, both enacted and suffered. Thus it is interesting that of

her three uses of the words coniunx /coniugium in reference to Jason, two are neutral, and the other, part of her declaration of fidelity and

service to him 9. As Helen Fyfe notes, Jason is Medea's only link to the

Greek society in which she finds herself; she is attempting to maintain

that relationship, to no avail 10. Seneca puts the definitive application of the word to Jason in the mouth of Medea's nurse: Abiere Colchi, co

niugis nulla est fides / nihilque superest opibus e tantis tibi ("The Colchians have departed, there is no trust in your husband / and noth

8 Zwierlein 1986, prints opto for optet in p. 23, following Axelson's sugge

stion.

9 At v. 144, she blames Creon as one

qui... coniugia solvit-, in her last plea to Jason

to flee Corinth (w. 447-489), she calls her sacrifices for him coniugi testes mei (v. 481). At v. 740 f. she calls for a

graviorpoena to be imposed on

Sisyphus, coniugis socero mei

(v. 746). 10

Helen Fyfe, An Analysis of Seneca 9s Medea. Seneca Tragicus, Berwick-Victoria

1983, pp. 77-93, 80.




ing from your great riches remains for you", w. 164-165). In this

statement the Nurse acknowledges the marital bond between Medea

and Jason, but like the Chorus, she recognizes the union only to note

its rupture. Seneca's use of the Roman vocabulary of marital alliance clearly

creates a pattern of exclusion for Medea throughout the tragedy. Since

five of the seven applications of the word coniunx to Medea in the play come from Medea's own mouth, it becomes part of the tragic conflict

that the other characters of the play identify Medea by parameters other than her marital status, a situation which motivates her violence.

Seneca gives his Medea further language that underlines her belief

that she is legitimately married to Jason. At w. 488-489, she requests the return of the bloody dowry she brought to their union: tib? patria cessit, tib? pater frater pudor

- / hac dote nupsi. redde fugienti sua

(amy home-my father, my brother, my chastity - all have fallen to you

/with such a dowry I wed. Give the exile her due"). The definition of her losses has escalated. At w. 277-278, her father and brother are

only part of her crimes, for which Jason should share the blame. Now

they have become her dowry, and Medea will cooperate only if her

dowry is returned to her. The return of such losses is of course impos sible, but through her angry logic, the murder of her children will be

come her means of regaining her father, brother, homeland and inno

cence. Her words here underscore the notion that her fury stems from

a legal sense of having been betrayed - she has given much, but gotten

nothing in return n.

Seneca has situated his Medea, however, in a context in which she

is the only one who believes her marriage to be legally binding. All of

Corinth celebrates the wedding of Creusa and Jason, and no character

but Medea (and once, briefly, Jason - cf. n. 5, above) uses language

that contradicts the existence of the new union. Furthermore, Seneca's use of socer and gener, secondary relationships brought about by a

primary marital bond, also tightens the pattern of exclusion and inclu

sion. The words denote what we call in English uin-law" relation

ships. As language of kinship ties, they create bonds between charac

ters which can serve to exclude others. Euripides barely employs the

equivalent Greek vocabulary in his Medea. Only at vv. 990-991 does

the Chorus address Jason as the uson-in-law of kings":

11 G. Barthouil, 'Coherence Psychologique de la Med?e de S?n?que', Seneca e il Teatro 52, 1981, pp. 477-513, 486. For the practice of returning dowry in the event of

divorce (retentio), see Treggiari 1991, Ch. 10: 'Dos', esp. pp. 350-353, 'Rules for Re

claiming Dowry7; see also Ch. 13: 'Divorce', pp. 466-467. See also Jane Gardner, Wo

men in Roman Law and Society, Bloomington, 1986, p. 112.



114 L. Abrahamsen

ov ?\ x?kav (b xaxovDftqpe xrj?eiaojv TUQ(XVV?)V.

Otherwise in the play, the three-way interdependent relationship

among Jason, Glauke and Creon is expressed by participles, as in Cre

on's confrontation with Medea (w. 287-289):

xXikd ?9 ?mikelv os, ob? anayyekkovoi fxot, x?v ?ovta xai yr\\iavxa xai yaiiov\i?vr\v ?oaaeiv xi.

I hear that you are threatening, as they tell me, to do something against him who is giving in marriage, him who marries, and her who is being married.

The participles identify the members of the triad through their

particular functions in the act of marriage. Creon's words immediately follow his reference to Jason at v. 286 as Medea's husband. Compare

Euripides, Medea 373-375:

tt)v?9 ecpfjxev rifx?oav ux?vat |i' ?v fji TQe?? x v ?ji v ?x^ocov vexoo??

drjoa), Jtat?oa xe xai x?o/nv jt?oiv t' ?uov

He has said that I remain for this day, this day on which I will bury the three bodies of my enemies, the fa

ther, the daughter, and my husband

with coniunx socerque of Seneca, Medea 999-1000, quoted above.

The two passages express the same idea; Euripides' as a future inten

tion and Seneca's as a completed action. Medea's use of the primary

kinship terms, father and daughter, as well as the possessive adjective for husband in Euripides' passage keeps her, at least linguistically,

part of the family group, unlike the parallel statement in the Senecan

play. In Seneca's Medea, the use of gener and socer establishes a close

relationship between Creon and Jason, further legitimizing Jason's

marriage to Creusa at the expense of his union with Medea. The Cho rus celebrates soceris ...volentibus at v. 106. Creon names Jason as

gener in his first speech to Medea, in which he banishes her from

Corinth 12. Medea repeatedly names Jason as gener (w. 240, 421,

460), even as she tries to hang on to her status as coniunx (v. 418); the

12 The speech is at v. 179 f.; it is worth noting that nowhere in it does he refer to




juxtaposition intensifies the theme of the conflict of family alliances 13.

Both Medea and Jason refer to Creon as socer, for Jason, at w. 538

and 546, the word may reflect a reliance upon Creon as a source of

power and authority 14; but Medea uses it as a threat, in the same

manner as her naming of Creusa as coniunx. Thus, in the opening

speech of the play, after she wishes death for the coniugi novae, she

goes on to wTish it for the socero (w. 17-18). The word socer can also be used to evoke pity. She applies it to

Creon at v. 522, while she is still begging Jason to run away with her, and uses it at v. 746 to refer to Sisyphus in her incantation speech. The reference is in a request to punish her husband's legendary "in

law": gravior uni poena sedeat coniugis socero mei (v. 746) . Al

though there are many examples in Latin literature of socer and gener used to indicate prospective rather than actual in-laws 16, the posi

tioning of socero in the line, flanked as it is by coniugis and mei, again

heightens the tension of the conflicting alliances and Medea's lack of

marital status. The words should not go together: if Jason were still

her husband, his father-in-law should be her own father. Throughout the play, then, we see a Medea who is caught in an impossible situa

tion: in her mind she is married, and her language reflects this belief; but surrounding her is incontrovertible evidence that her husband has a new wife and new family alliances. She must identify them in terms

readily understandable to her interlocutors, and so Medea must em

ploy language that denies her own status as a wife.

We might compare Medea's fictional situation to a real Roman

situation well-known to Seneca's audience: Cleopatra's union with

Antony. Although the Ptolemaic queen was certainly Antony's social

equal, if not superior, she was not a Roman citizen nor had Ptolemaic

Egypt yet been absorbed into the Roman Empire and conubium "with

Roman citizens granted 17. Their union was iniustum matrimonium in

Roman law and did not prevent Antony from entering a legal Roman

Medea with words that give her a role in Jason's family. He sees her only as a

product of

her Colchian family: Colchi noxium Aeetae genus. 13

Costa (above, n. 3), p. 110. 14

Costa, (above, n. 3), p. 118. 10 Axelson deleted v. 746, which Zwierlein (above, n. 3) brackets. See Costa

(above, n. 3), pp. 138-139, for Sisyphus' identity

as socer.

16 Judith Hallett, Fathers and Daughters in Roman Society, Princeton 1984, pp. 102-105.

17 The slurs cast at Cleopatra by the Augustan poets (nefas! Aegyptia coniux, Ver

gil, Aen. 8, 688; coniugis obscenii (Propertius 3, 11,31) and meretrix regina Propertius 3, 11, 39) are evoked by some of the language applied to Medea in Seneca's

play.



116 L. Abraliamsen

marriage with Octavia 18. Medea, also royal, but nonetheless a for

eigner, does not have conubium with Jason. He can easily put her aside

when the opportunity for politically advantageous marriage appears. At best, from the viewpoint of Jason, Creon and the rest of the

Corinthian community, Medea was an uxor iniusta, a woman with

whom marriage was intended by Jason, but prevented by their lack of

conubium 19.

xAs an uxor iniusta, Medea has very little power to control the sta

tus of the union. Jason, therefore, from the perspective of a Roman au

dience, is utterly blameless in his repudiation of Medea and marriage to Creusa. Jason's intent to be married to Medea has ended, and there

fore, so has the marriage. Even if it were a legal marriage (matrimo nium iustum), his intent to divorce Medea, while perhaps callous, is no

more scandalous than the prevalent marital practices among elite Ro

man males of the late Republic and early Empire 20.

If we look at the dissolution of the union between Jason and

Medea in the context of the notion of conubium, however, Jason's de

mands to keep the children violate normative Roman practice. In a le

gal marriage, children generally stayed within the father's house

hold21. In matrimonium iniustum, in which the couple did not have

conubium, under the Minician law, children followed the status of the

non-citizen parent; one can further infer from a passage of Cicero

(T?pica 20) that children of a Roman citizen father and non-citizen

mother stayed with their mother following divorce, as the father is not

entitled to retain part of the dowry for maintenance of the children 22.

18 K. R. Bra die v, Discovering the Roman Family: Studies in Roman Social History,

New York-Oxford 1991, pp. 133-135.

19 For matrimonia iniusta and their effects, see

Treggiari 1991, pp. 49-51. The

definition that emerges from Treggiari's careful consideration of the evidence makes it

unlikely that Medea could he viewed as a concubina, as Jason does name her as '"wife"

once and the union did produce children (Treggiari 1991, pp. 51-52). 20

For three case histories from the late Republic, see

Bradley 1991, Ch. 6: 'Dislo

cation in the Roman Family', pp. 125-155. For the imperial period, see M. T. Raepsaet

Charlier. Ordre s?natoriale et divorce sous le haut-empire: un

chapitre de l'histoire des

mentalit?s'. Acta class. Debrec. 17-18, 1981-82. pp. 161-173.

21 Bradley 1991, p. 131. See also Treggiari 1991, p. 467 f for the fate of children

after a divorce; and B. Rawson, The Roman Family', in The Family in Ancient Rome:

New Perspectives, Ithaca 1986, pp. 1-57, 35-36. Jason proposes explicitly at v. 544 f.

that he should keep the children, and throughout the scene, his character does not ima

gine a future without the children.

22 Xreggiari 1991. p. 49.




So Jason wrongs Medea twice; first by not returning her figurative dowry, then by asking to keep the children 23.

The two are inextricably linked in Medea's mind throughout the

play. Seneca, shows his audience a Medea who, robbed of her status as

mother and wife, is forced into preferring her status as a daughter and

sister. While such a preference may at first seem unnatural to the

modern reader, it may reflect the actual familial ties most prized in the

Roman family. In her 1984 book Fathers and Daughters in Roman

Society, Judith Hallett makes a strong argument for what she termed

the "filiafocality" of the Roman family. In this model of understand

ing the bonds between members of a nuclear family, the role of daugh ter is central because she links other members of the family through

her changing life roles as daughter, sister, wife and mother 24.

Hallett's view of the relationships between members of the Ro man family, formed from a close analysis of literary texts, departs

from the traditional view of Roman kinship valuation being agnatic, a

view derived primarily from legal sources, and posits instead an em

phasis placed on cognatic bonds, those brought about by blood rela

tionship to a woman 25. Since every Roman woman began life as her

father's daughter, Hallett coined the anthropological term ufiliafocali

ty" to convey the essence of the importance of cognatic relationships in the Roman family. The bonds that Seneca has his Medea emphasize

correspond to the bonds Hallett finds emphasized throughout Roman

literature.

They are also bonds that recall an earlier, more primitive model

of kinship reckoning. The choice to sacrifice one's marital relatives to

avenge one's blood relatives has a long tradition in classical literature,

from Nestor's story of Meleager and Althaea in Book Nine of the Iliad

through Herodotus' Histories 3, 119, to the famous vexed passage of

Sophocles' Antigone 905-920: there are myriad women in classical

myth and literary retellings of myth who choose to honor brother and

father over husband and children. It is predominantly a female act, until Aeschylus has Orestes use a twisted version of the reasoning to

justify killing Clytemnestra to avenge Agamemnon. It requires the in

28 That Seneca has Medea make such an uover the top" demand (w. 488-489),

which she surely does not expect to be fulfilled, is part of his characterization. What Me

dea wants is recognition, and her character is consistently driven to extremes in order to

get it. Like the first wife who put her husband through medical school, Medea wants her

so-called "crimes" to be acknowledged as acts of love. Her speech to Creon at w. 204

251 employs this argument as her defense, to no avail. 24

Hallett (above, n. 16). 25 Hallett (above, n. 16), p. 320.



118 L. Abrahamsen

tervention of Apollo to justify that murder, by arguing that one is re

lated by blood only to one's father, not one's mother.

A point relevant to Seneca's Medea emerges from a consideration

of this folktale-like motif. Aeschylus has Apollo make this argument in

the Eumenides in a context of ending the old ways of justice, the eye

for-an-eye retribution that requires one to avenge kindred blood. The

end of the play is a celebration of the passing of the Furies into the Eu

menides, beneficent goddesses who no longer thirst for blood justice.

Aeschylus integrates the mythological material of the House of Atreus

into 5th century Athens at the end of play with the establishment of

the Areopagus as the seat of justice for the new, civilized polis. The

resolution of the play also marks the transition of divine authority from older, chthonic goddesses to younger, masculine sky-gods, and

with the victory of Apollo's argument, the transition from a female

based, cognatic system of kinship reckoning to a male-based agnatic

system, a system long since entrenched by the time Seneca is writing his play.

By having his Medea to the older system of blood justice, Seneca

creates further tension in his tragedy. His Medea is acting by rules that

the other characters of the play have abandoned. For a happy ending, Medea must be brought into line with normative Roman practice, but

that is not the way of tragedy. The end of Seneca's Medea, her horrific

boundless violence is at last, a clash of cultures.

The Medea of the last act of the play can no longer argue in the

civilized language she had tried to adopt in her scenes with Creon and

Jason. In her speech that begins at v. 893, we see this progressive dis

solution. She begins by rejoicing in her just-reported murder of the

royal family, but admits to herself that only killing her husband's new

wife is not enough (w. 896-898):

pars ultionis ista, qua gaudes, quota est? amas adhuc, furiose, si satis est tibi caelebs Iason.

that part of revenge, in which you rejoice, is it enough? Still you love, mad one, if it is enough for you that Jason is merely widowed.

Medea's statement recalls her need for acknowledgment that has

been expressed in the use of marital vocabulary throughout the play. Jason caelebs denies her own existence as coniunx. Creusa may be

dead, but he is not caelebs. He still has a wife, as Medea has argued

throughout the play. The veneer of civilized propriety, through which Seneca has




Medea argue for a just marriage settlement by Roman standards, with

the return of her dowry and physical possession of the children, cracks

completely as the speech progresses. She reaches back to her barbar ian sense of justice to end the marriage on her own terms. She calls to

mind the crimes she committed for Jason, the blood relatives she sac

rificed to aid him; it is as if the loss of her natal family has given her the strength to avenge them (w. 910-914):

Medea nunc sum; ere vit ingenium malis:

iuvat, iuvat rapuisse fraternum caput, artus iuvat secuisse et arcano

patrem

spoliasse sacro, iuvat in exitium senis armasse natas.

Now I am Medea; the genius for evils has grown: It gives pleasure, it pleases, to have torn off my brother's head it pleases to have cut his limbs and to have deprived

my father of his secret wealth, it's a joy to have given weapons to the daughters for the death of the old man.

Once she has finally reached the decision to slay her children, that

is, embraced her barbarian system of justice, Medea is plunged into an

Orestes - like vision of blood justice. She seems to see a crowd of Fu

ries, seekers of retribution for blood crimes, who arouse in her again the memory of her father and brother 26. Medea laments that she has not borne more children so that their deaths might more fully appease the Furies (w. 954-957):

utinam superbae turba Tantalidos meo exisset utero

bisque septenos parens natos tulissem! sterilis in poenas fui -

fratri patrique quod sat est, peperi duos.

Would that the brood of Tantalus' proud girl had come from my womb, and that I as parent had borne twice-seven children! I was barren in revenge

-

but enough for father and brother, I bore two.

These lines make clear the source of Medea's rage: she is not a

jealous wife, but an avenging sister and daughter, like Procne or Al

thaea, who finds in her maternity a repellent connection to her enemy,

26 The Furies she invoked as witnesses of her wedding in her first speech (w. 13

18) have now arrived to preside over its final dissolution.



120 L. Abrahams en

but also a means of avenging a sibling "7. Her wish for more children is

a threat to Jason; a desire for a more powerful weapon, not a larger

family, and also an expression of allegiance to her family of

birth.

Medea's speech comes to a furious climax as she slays one child to

appease the apparition of her brother. Jason bursts upon the scene, but she seems to hear him not at all, as triumphantly she rejoices in

the perception of her regained status as virgin princess of Colchis (w.

982-984):

lam iam recepi sceptra germanum patrem,

spoliumque Colchi pecudis auratae tenent; rediere regna, rapta virginitas redit.

Now, now I have taken back power, father, brother

and the Colchians hold the prize of the golden fleece;/

my kingdom has come back, my stolen maidenhood has returned.

She has fulfilled the demand made for the return of the dowry composed of her family back at w. 488-489. As Medea literally sub

tracts from Jason's family, she adds to her own, regaining those mem

bers she has longed for throughout the play.

Although he tries to reason with her, she will hear nothing of it. In

her logic, two deaths are required, one for her brother and the other

for her father 28. Medea will be satisfied only if she leaves him wdth

nothing, as he tried to leave her in Corinth. Her furor reaches its cli

max (w. 1012-1013):

in matre si quod pignus etiamnunc latet, scrutabor ense viscera et ferro extraham.

If, even now, some hostage lies hidden in my womb, I will search my entrails with a sword, and drag it out by the blade.

27 R. Edgeworth, The Eloquent Ghost', Class, et Mediev. 41, 1990, pp. 151-161,

suggested that the fratri patrique of line 957 refers to frater Absyrtus and pater Jason.

When Medea speaks o? frater and pater, however, as at v. 488, she means Absyrtus and

Aeetes. 28

G. Lawall, 'Seneca's Medea: The Elusive Triumph of Civilization*, in Arktouros:

Hellenic Studies Presented to B. M. W. Knox, ed. G. Bowersock et al., Berlin-New York

1979, pp. 416-426, 425) sees the two murders as avenging first the crimes she commit

ted for the sake of the Argo and second, Jason s desertion. Seneca states explicitly in the

text, however, that she equates the children with the loss of her two priman' relatives, father and brother (v. 957).




Here Seneca effectively portrays the extremity of Medea's position in her quest for vengeance. As Charles Segal notes, pignus used to

mean "child" evokes the idea of a love-pledge between husband and

wife. Her willingness to draw the sword against herself is a "literal

and metaphorical 'rooting out' of her tie to Jason" 29. She would be

moved to violence against her own womb if it were necessary, in order

to deprive Jason of all possible blood relations 30. It is a neat summa

tion of the motivation behind her perceived reconnection with her vir

ginal princess status. Through the ongoing preference for her natal

family Medea is forced to show in Seneca's play, she has reversed their

original situations. He is completely alone, but she has reconnected

with her roots.

The drama ends with a triumphant Medea taunting the desolate

Jason, just as Creon and the Corinthian chorus mocked Medea at its

beginning. Her parting question, coniugem agnoscis tuam? (v. 1021) is the capstone for the character's use of coniunx in the play. The

monumental act of murdering her own children, the act that defines

her mythic identity, can finally force Jason to acknowledge Medea's

status as his wife 31. It is also the only way she can end the marriage. She cannot accept divorce on Roman terms; Medea, mad but tri

umphant, achieves the barbarian's victory of vengeance.

Cleveland

29 Ch. Segal, 'Boundary Violation and the Landscape of the Self in Senecan Trage

dy, Antike und Abendland 29, 1983, pp. 172-187, 178. 30

Her words are certainly extreme, and they have inspired

some extreme interpre tations. Barthouil (above, n. 11), pp. 507-509 reads the lines as an affirmation of ma

ternal power over the patriarchy and finds her pleasure in the murders "un orgasme".

Segal interprets them in a similar fashion -

her threat to abort is the threat to remove

any proof of male sexual domination from her body (C. Segal, Language and Desire in Seneca's Phaedra, Princeton 1986, p. 147 n. 31). I find the theme of sexual power dif

ferences less developed than that of human connections.

31 Medea is only looking for external confirmation of her identity at v. 1021; in the

vision that led up to the killing of the children, she has already affirmed herself: Medea nunc sum

(v. 910). Elisabeth and Denis Henry read this final scene as Medea's self-de

struction by Furor (Denis and Elisabeth Henry, The Mask of Power, Chicago 1986, pp. 113-114).



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