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VISUAL INSTRUCTIONS IN ANCIENT GREEK TRAGEDIES ABOUT ORESTES AND ELECTRA: DISCOURSES OF WORD AND IMAGE // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2019. Issue 3 (21). P. 113-134

Great playwrights, whose names are associated with the “golden age” of the ancient Greek theater, often put on tragedies on the same subjects and even with the same names. Turning to the existing interpretations or creating new ones, they tried to teach a lesson to the city and instruct its audience-students on a certain interpretation of the current events. The polemic between the authors of the ancient Greek tragedies gave an additional flavor to the theatre agons, and the polemic between the modern researchers studying it has created a space for an interdisciplinary dialogue on the features of the ancient visual culture, amongst other things. In the article, a comparative analysis of three versions of the mythological plot about Orestes and Electra, presented in the tragedy by Aeschylus “The Libation Bearers” and the tragedies of the same name “Electra” by Euripides and Sophocles, is carried out. These ancient Greek playwrights represent a hierarchy of the significance of the main characters – the brother and the sister, who are carrying out a plan of vengeance for the death of their father Agamemnon, through the hierarchy of their virtues and life principles. The comparison of the three tragedies is carried out according to a scheme that allows you to see these hierarchies: 1) at the beginning of the tragedy, where the first meeting of Orestes and Electra, during which they begin to try to assert their right to instruct themselves and others, takes place; 2) at the moments when the heroes come into conflict in point of who has the right to instruct under the supervision of the gods as the supreme instructors, and in what subjects; 3) at the end of the tragedy, when the heroes see the results of their instructions. The city, in which the tragic action unfolds, is either narrowing down to the particular family, where everyone thinks of himself as a mentor to the others, or expanding to the intellectual and political community of citizens who can be instructed by the example of their rulers. Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles offer the reader / spectator different “formats” of visual instructions in which the divine will and human desires are combined. In addition to the ancient Greek literary tradition, the mythological subjects about Orestes and Electra were reflected in the material culture (ancient Greek vases, relief images and bronze artifacts), which is another level of visualization of the instructions, this visualization being primary to the theater in some cases, and secondary in others. The tradition of depicting the mythological scenes about Orestes and Electra on the artifacts had taken shape long before the theatrical productions of Aeschylus, Euripides and Sophocles, partly predetermining their “discourse of the word’ and “discourse of the image”, and being partly transformed under their influence.

Keywords: anthropology of city, visual instructions, theatrical visualization, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, Electra, discourses of word and image in the ancient Greek drama

TRAGIC VISUALIZATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL SPACE OF THEBES IN STATIUS’ THEBAID // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2020. Issue 3 (25). P. 99-117

The Thebaid by Publius Papinius Statius is the most extensive surviving account of the war started by the sons of the Theban king Oedipus—Eteocles and Polynices. This fratricidal war is a crime that Statius wants to tell the reader about, having established himself in the role of a moralizing poet who is equally Roman and Greek. In the case of Oedipus’ children, the war is a divine instruction-punishment that mortals cannot or do not want to prevent. Eteocles and Polynices, as described by Statius, are young men evil by nature, experiencing the innate hatred of each other and lust for power. Having mixed the genres, Statius created a new version of the mythological events, which both ancient Greek and ancient Roman playwrights turned to. In his version, Eteocles and Polynices are not the last generation to whom the curse passed. Though the curse descended on the male line among the descendants of the Theban king Laius, it inevitably affected the female line as well. As if giving Eteocles and Polynices a chance to become better, Statius keeps delaying the beginning of the war, which allows Polynices to have a baby who is destined to become the fourth generation of the “wicked family”. Statius does not report on the fate of this child, giving readers the right to decide for themselves whether he will become the next pedagogical fiasco or turn into a pedagogical victory over the curse of the House of Laius. The article also analyzes the terminology used by Statius and Hyginus regarding the burial of Polynices—one of the key points of the plot. To refer to the funeral pyre, Hyginus uses the word ‘pyra’ borrowed from Greek (πυρά). Statius chooses to use the Latin word ‘bustum’ to refer to the funeral pyre of Eteocles, where Antigone and Argia place the body of Polynices. The scene of Antigone and Argia burying Polynices, described by Statius and Hyginus, is reproduced on a marble sarcophagus dating back to late II AD (Villa Doria Pamphilj). The fact that the version of Antigone and Argia buried Polynices was not invented in the Roman times but is rooted in an ancient Greek tradition going back to the archaic period is confirmed by the artifacts from material culture: for example, a sarcophagus from Corinth dating from the middle of the second century AD, which demonstrates a classical Greek influence, and an Etruscan amphora dating from approx. 550 BC (Basel: Inv. Züst 209), which depicts a combat between Polynices and Tydeus that Argia and her sister Deipyle watched.

Keywords: anthropology of city, tragic visualization, education space of city, Statius, Thebaid