Octavia (Seneca)

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Octavia, a play in Latin traditionally attributed to Seneca the Younger, focuses on three days in AD 62, during which Nero divorced and exiled one wife (Claudia Octavia) and married another (Poppaea Sabina). This play also deals with the irascibility of Nero and his inability to take heed of Seneca's advice to rein in his passions.

Modern scholarship generally discredits the assertion that the play was written by Seneca, and is presumed to be written later in the Flavian period during the 1st century, after the deaths of both Nero and Seneca. Necessarily, it would be almost inconceivable that Seneca would have written such a dangerous play, although his de Ira, which instructs emperors on how to behave, was also a politically hazardous gesture.

[edit] Sources

Harris, W.V. 2001, Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity, Cambridge, Harvard University Press

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