Seneca, (Saint) Hyppolitus and Prudentius: a recapitulation

Abstract

It was already back in the nineteenth century that scholarship established the blatant similarities between Saint Hippolytus’ martyrdom as told by Prudentius in Peristephanon 11 and the fate that the character of Hippolytus faces in classical mythology, specially as he is presented in Seneca’s tragedy Phaedra. This paper studies the common elements that both texts share as far as content and structure are concerned, and it also analyses the more relevant passages and pays attention to the bibliography published on the subject along the last thirty years. Prudentius builds his poem on the ekphrasis of an actual fresco that pictured Hippolytus’ martyrdom told in terms akin to Seneca’s version, in order to provide his readers with a new figure: that of the Christian martyr, who blends and overcomes the traditional traits of the epic hero, the tragic hero, and the stoic sage.