Theodor Mommsen came to Roman history with a background as a barrister and a Member of Parliament. His political position was that of a – how shall I put it – conservative liberal and nationalist, a rare color these days, where liberalism has become a term of abuse. He fiercely opposed the domestic policies of Otto von Bismarck. So the perspective of constitutionality, that underpins Mommsen's historical work, came naturally to him; the old Roman understanding of history as the "custom of nations" had found a kindred soul and a speaker of supreme eloquence. In 1902, Mommsen received the Nobel Prize for literature.

Mommsen's most important contribution to Roman history is the monumental Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. We lesser mortals are not likely to see this on our bookshelves at home, but for the archaeologist and historian it is an indispensable tool.

This complete survey of all the epigraphs unearthed anywhere in the Roman Empire remains an ongoing project for as long as we continue to discover more inscriptions. They tell us, for instance, that Pilate was not, as the gospels have it, a procurator, but a prefect, even give us the name of the person who could have been Jesus’ biological father, a Syrian archer in the territorial forces, who before his transfer to Germany lived only four hours away from Capernaum (Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, XIII, 7514). The average distribution of epigraphs provides statistical insights in the degree of literacy in different parts of the empire. Mommsen himself considered as his main contribution his studies on Roman constitutional law. He published critical editions of Roman law codices and of the "queen of all inscriptions," Emperor Augustus' Res Gestae: his resume and political testament.

What Mommsen eventually earned fame and the Nobel Prize, had started as a mere potboiler, penned down with incredible speed. I still recall my awe when I turned the opening pages for the first time. Don't get me wrong; this is not exactly a thriller, more a series of political and legal deductions on historical facts with a view on shifts and amendments in the Roman constitution. But what explanation it is! The first chapter introduces us to Italy's prehistory and deduces the culture of Indo-European migrations and early Roman society "simply" from the dictionary of the Latin language! The implements, the food, religious ideas and social structures, even the geography and stellar constellations, are all recorded in the words we use every day. It is mind-boggling suggestive. We hear of the institutions, of King's counselors, who eventually formed the Republic's senate but under the Etruscan Kings merely had the "right" to say "yes." Not much of a right you may think, but one can always keep silent. ("You disagree?" – "Yes!!" Blimey.)

Mommsen discusses in great detail the introduction of the revolutionary office of the tribune and how the Gracchi employed the tribune’s veto power to blunt the executive powers of the Senate and briefly managed to assume the position of an elected head of state without the Senate’s backing.

The end of the Republic marked for Mommsen the end of Roman history proper. Francis Fukuyama’s ideas are not such a great novelty. Mommsen never got around to write about the emperors. In his eyes this would have amounted to little more than a gossip page of court scandals; and for this we have Gibbon. For Mommsen "it is in the agricultural towns of Africa, in the homes of vine-dressers on the Mosel, in the flourishing townships of the Lydian mountains, and on the margins of the Syrian desert, that the work of the imperial period is to be sought and to be found." Below are Mommsen's comments on Euripides and his effect on the Hellenistic sense of identity. One doesn’t need to agree with the assessment of this author’s artistic merits to confirm the influence. For centuries Euripides and Menander remained the most popular playwrights on the ancient stage. Kings and commoners alike quoted lines from their work, often spoken as famous last words on the deathbed.

michael sympson

When the Greek tragedy made its appearance in Rome it was a more valuable and in a certain sense more accessible acquisition than the Greek comedy.

The subject of a Greek tragedy – episodes from the Homeric epics – was not entirely alien to the Roman audience and indeed had a connection to the etiological legends native to the Romans. Generally speaking, the attentive Roman would feel much more at ease in an idealized world of heroic myths, than on the fish market in Athens. However, the tragedy as well, only not so blunt and without the vulgarities, advanced the anti-national and Hellenizing trends, and it is of great importance that everywhere Euripides (484 – 406 BC) dominated the theatre in the Greek world. He was influencing the zeitgeist of the Greco-Roman period to such extent, that it makes it necessary to scrutinize at least some of his typical contributions more closely.

Euripides was keen in his ambition to lift his art to a higher level, yet his progress revealed far more instinct for what ought to be achieved, than actual powers of execution. What characterizes the Greek tragedy is of course the profound insight that suffering is the price for decisive action, showing the heroic stature of man, yet it seems in essence it remained an alien concept.

In the plays of Aeschylus, the unsurpassed grandeur in the conflict between men and destiny depends mainly on the fact that the conflicting powers are conceived as forces of nature; the human element in "Prometheus" and "Agamemnon" is only lightly touched in the presentation of the individual characters. Sophocles shows understanding for the human condition – as a king, as an elderly, as a sister – but the universality of the human microcosm he fails to depict in even a single person. So a great aim had been accomplished, but not the ultimate.

If compared with Shakespeare, Aeschylus and Sophocles have been merely the imperfect stepping-stones in a development, which presents the human condition in its totality, weaving together a cast of rounded characters to a more complete representation.

Just how Euripides manages to show humanity as it is represents more a logical and in some way historical achievement, than a progress in poetry. He brought the ancient tragedy to a conclusion, but he did not create the modern play.

Everywhere he halted halfway.

The masks – translating the expressions of the inner life from the specific into the general – are as necessary for the ancient stage, as they are incompatible with a modern character play; yet Euripides kept them in use. Instinctively knowing that they could never manage to give the dramatic element free reign and present it in its purity, the older playwrights had the good sense to exploit the vehicle of epic stories from the superhuman world of gods and heroes and to keep utilizing the lyrical chorus. In the plays of Euripides one can, however, feel the author jerking his chains; in his choice of stories, he came as near as to prehistoric times. His choral lyrics receded more and more to the background; so much so, that in later performances they often had been left out altogether and hardly to the plays' detriment. Nevertheless, Euripides never brought his characters entirely down to earth nor did he away with the chorus altogether.

Everywhere and in every way he is lending his voice to an era, which on one hand accomplished the greatest feats of history, philosophy and the sciences, yet on the other hand he cast a dimming shadow on the purity and simplicity of national poetry.

The kind of skepticism, which is the disguise of despairing faith, has found in Euripides a voice of demonic power. If the reverent piety of the older playwrights had shone on the scene like an overflow from heaven itself, then mere speculation, which is as far removed from divinity as matter is from mind, is keeping the stage of Euripides in a treacherous twilight, which now and then is lit up by murky passions like lightening strokes in a dense cloud cover. The once deep-seated faith in destiny has surrendered the reins to the tyranny of fortune, and gnashing their teeth, its slaves rattle the chains. Naturally, a writer can never achieve an artistic concept that would transcend the limitations of his own creativity, and so Euripides never managed to achieve his poetic effects from the composition as a unified whole. That is why he seemed to be indifferent to the design of his tragedies, often making a mess of his attempt to construct a plot around the central character of the play. The slipshod way of introducing the story in a prologue and resolve it by divine fiat, or similar crude means, became the trademark of Euripides’ art.

All his effects flow from the situation, and with great skill indeed, he has mustered every means to cover up the irreplaceable want of poetic totality. Euripides is the past master of the sensual and sentimental effect, often titillating our sensitivity with a peculiar odor, for instance, when he combines murder with incest in a love story.

It is true, the stories of Polyxena, dying on her free will, or of Phaedra, who is secretly consumed by pains of love, and especially the mystically enchanted Bacchants facilitate moments of great beauty, but these are neither morally nor artistically pure, and Aristophanes' observation that this poet would never be able to give us a credible Penelope, is perfectly justified.

Under this aspect, the appeal to compassion in the tragedies of Euripides is a mere convention. His underdeveloped heroes often verge on the disgusting or ludicrous, or the ludicrously disgusting, like the cuckolded Menelaus in Helena, or Andromache and Electra working as impoverished dairymaids, or the founder of cities, Telephus, living as a sick and ruined merchant. The plays, which move in a more down-to-earth atmosphere, such as Iphigenia in Aulis, Ion, or Alcestis, give us perhaps the most delightful impression of his work, transforming tragedy into moving family sagas, almost setting the scene for the sentimental comedy of a later age.

Not infrequently, the intellectual preoccupations of this author have become a means to complicate his plots; instead of moving our emotions like the older playwrights, Euripides is flexing our curiosity – this farfetched manner of delineating a topic in the pointed repartees of a dialogue is almost unbearably for the rest of us, who are not born in Athens. The sententious sound bites are littering the plays of Euripides like flowers decorate a shop window, while the psychology of his stage characters is stating a common cliché rather than realistically observing individual behavior.

In so far as the heroine is concerned before her travel to supply herself with sufficient funds, Medea carries indeed an element of real life. As for the conflict between motherly love and jealousy, Euripides is giving us a flower bouquet of banalities and ideology.

Without actually commenting on the concerns of the day and quite resolutely focusing more on social than political matters, Euripides is predisposed to give his support to the political and philosophical radicalism of the period. It makes him the first and foremost apostle of a new cosmopolitan humanitarianism that is eroding the old national values.

Because of this, the irreligious and un-Athenian poet aroused opposition among his peers, while the younger generation, at home and abroad, with a moving enthusiasm gave in to the poet of sentimentality and love, to the cutting apothegm and the tendentious aphorism, to inquisitive philosophy and universal humanitarianism. Euripides overstretched the possibilities of his medium, thanks to him the Greek tragedy finally collapsed, but this rather confirms his success in a world where the nations, too, overstepped their boundaries and collapsed. The criticism by Aristophanes may have been right on the money; but historically the impact of a literature is rarely linked to its absolute quality and more a reflection of the zeitgeist. Under this aspect, Euripides is without rival.

Alexander the Great was reading him studiously and Aristotle formed his theory of the tragic effect with Euripides in mind. In Athens the poets and artists looked up to him as their model and Menander’s "New Comedy" is a transposition of Euripides into the comic genre. Even the potteries began decorating their vessels with motives from Euripides instead of Homer. Old Greece gave way to the new international Hellenism of Alexander’s successors and Rome; from Egypt to Spain, from Syria to India, the fame of Euripides was like a rising star over the Greek enclaves. His work became the defining backbone of a new cultural identity.

© – 1/12/2002 – translated by michael sympson, 2,150 words, all rights reserved