Based on the legends used in Greek drama, Seneca's plays are notable for
the exuberant ruthlessness with which disastrous events are foretold and
then pursued to their tragic and often bloodthirsty ends. Thyestes
depicts the menace of an ancestral curse hanging over two feuding
brothers, while Phaedra portrays a woman tormented by fatal passion
for her stepson. In The Trojan Women, the widowed Hecuba and
Andromache await their fates at the hands of the conquering Greeks, and
Oedipus follows the downfall of the royal House of Thebes. Octavia
is a grim commentary on Nero's tyrannical rule and the execution of his
wife, with Seneca himself appearing as an ineffective counsellor
attempting to curb the atrocities of the emperor.
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