Varro mentions one Volnius as qui tragoedas Tuscas scripsit. The name "Volnius" sounds Etruscan (or Rasnal, as they'd call themselves). "Tragoeda" is of course the Greek tragedy genre. Varro's Roman contemporary Livy remembered that the main Etruscan art form as of 364 BC was what we might call a ballet. The Romans believed that they had got their drama straight from the Greeks, Livius Andronicus of Tarentum being the first.
Volnius to me seems like Lucius Accius: a native son who reworked Greek themes for his own people. As for what Volnius might have composed, we don't have that... but we might have witnesses to that. Or if not to Volnius, then to the ballet. The Etruscans were fond of relating mythological themes of the Greeks in their artwork. If their commons couldn't read Greek, they could watch it in the theatre.
The sorts of legend that appealed to the Tuscans were the violent sort. That Etruscans enjoyed watching bloodshed, even real, is well-known. Their very word for sand "hasna" ended up as the Roman gladiatorial arena.
Particularly recurrent in Tuscan tombs and urns is the tableau Clytemnestra, Agamemnon, and Iphigenia. Nowadays this tableau is associated with Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis. The Etruscans, however, give to Clytemnestra more agency: she attempts to rescue their daughter, and two guards restrain her. Such paintings do not translate the play.
Either through the ballet or from Volnius, the Etruscans had taken the basic storyline and composed something new that made more sense to Etruria. We have lost the screenplay. But we have the film-stills.
BACKDATING 10/9
No comments:
Post a Comment