Vergil's Aeneid and Greek Tragedy: Ritual, Empire, and Intertext.

Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langj�igem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - sehr guter Zustand / very good condition - Introduction -- IN THIS BOOK I ARGUE THAT GREEK TRAGEDY PROVIDES THE key to understanding representations of ritual acts in the Aeneid. I present evidence for the existence of a systematic use of tragedy in the poem, which consists of intertextual and ritual appropriations, and operates side by side with the poem�s allusions to Homer. Moreover, the mobilization of this tragic element is linked to the ideological function of the Aeneid and illuminates the complex problem of the poem�s orientation vis-�is the Augustan regime. -- The theme of sacrifice is crucial for an understanding of the intricate relationship between the Aeneid and Greek tragedy. For example, the sacrifice of the young virgin Iphigeneia, King Agamemnon�s daughter, enabled the Greek fleet to set sail to Troy. This well-known episode in the Trojan War is absent in the Homeric epics but is poignantly dramatized in Aeschylus� Agamemnon and Euripides� Iphigeneia in Aulis. When Vergil in the second book of the Aeneid offers a powerful description of Iphigeneia�s sacrifice as an instance of the brutality of the Greeks, he departs from his primary model, Homer, and rather follows the practice of the Greek tragedians. -- In Greece as well as in Rome, sacrificial ritual normally prohibits the sacrifice of humans. In the Homeric epics human sacrifice appears only once, while in tragedy it is regularly used as a means to indicate that the crisis of the plot is simultaneously a crisis in religious (and, by extension, political) institutions. ISBN 9780521895224