tragedy, Latin
tragedy, LatinVarro and Atticus put the first performance of a Latin tragedy in the year 240 BC at Jupiter's September festival. Performances continued at this and other public festivals down to the end of the 1st cent. bc and perhaps into the 1st cent. ad. Celebrations of temple dedications and funerals of men of the aristocracy also provided occasions of performance. In 240 new plays were still being staged at the Athenian festivals of Dionysus, but the practice had grown up of reviving each year a number of old ones. Travelling companies of ‘artists of Dionysus’ performed tragedy as well as comedy at festivals in other Greek cities and perhaps also in private houses. Three 5th-cent. poets, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, enjoyed the greatest continuing prestige both in the theatre and in the...
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