I Write the Plays (Very Old Plays) Quiz

Answer: "Thyestes" by Seneca.

Seneca (4 BC to AD 65) was a dramatist from the Roman period, who was among other things the tutor of the young emperor Nero. His "Thyestes" is one of the most gruesome plays from any world literature. Atreus, father of Agamemnon and Menelaus, pretends to be reconciled with his estranged brother, Thyestes, but in fact murders Thyestes' children and then serves them in a stew to their father.

Answer: Lysistrata

"Lysistrata" was staged in 411 BC, during the long and bloody war between Athens and Sparta (the Peloponnesian War). In Aristophanes' comedy all the wives of Greece stage a sex-strike to force their men to make peace and thus come home from fighting the war. The strike is very effective and the enemy states of Athens and Sparta are reconciled.

Answer: "Dyskolos" by Menander

Before 1957 we had only fragments and incomplete scenes by Menander, who had an immense reputation in the ancient world for his comedies. "Dyskolos", first produced in 316 BC, refers to the main character, Knemon, and has been translated as "The Grouch", "The Bad-Tempered Man", and "Old Cantankerous". Unfortunately for Menander, "Dyskolos" did not live up to his reputation.

Answer: Terence

Terence (195 - 159 BC) was a Roman comic dramatist, known for his comic dramas with elegant language and subtle interaction between characters. He wrote only six known plays, of which "Brothers" (produced in 160 BC) is considered his best work. It depicts a crotchety old man, with two very different sons, the "brothers" of the title.

Answer: The Women of Trachis

"The Women of Trachis" tells the story of the death of Heracles at the hands of his unwitting wife, Deianeira. "Ajax" and "Philoctetes" are both set during the tenth year of the Trojan War, while "Electra" is part of the aftermath of Agamemnon's return home from Troy.

Answer: Alcestis

In "Alcestis", first produced in 438 BC, Admetus, king in Thessaly, has been granted a favour by the god Apollo by which he does not have to die if he can persuade someone else to die in his place. Only his wife, Alcestis, is willing to die for him, and the play shows her death and his intense sorrow, before an unexpected happy ending reverses all that has gone before.

Answer: The Brothers Menaechmus

Plautus (254-184 BC) was a Roman comic dramatist, of whose plays twenty have survived complete. In "The Brothers Menaechmus" we have a pair of twins, separated while they were still young and both now conveniently called "Menaechmus". One, Menaechmus of Syracuse, travels to Epidamnus, where unknown to him his brother lives. A comedy of mistaken identities ensues.

Answer: Suppliants

"Oresteia" was first produced in 458 BC and is made up of "Agamemnon", "Libation Bearers", and "Eumenides". It dramatises the story of Agamemnon's return from Troy and his murder at the hands of his wfie Clytemnestra, her murder some years later by her son Orestes, and Orestes' trial and acquittal at the first murder trial in human history, held at Athens and presided over by the goddess Athena.

Answer: "Iphigenia at Aulis" by Euripides

There is family murder in Euripides' "Iphigeneia at Aulis", but it is Iphigeneia who is killed by her father, Agamemnon. Medea slays her own two children to spite their father Jason, Clytemnestra kills her husband Agamemnon to avenge Iphigeneia, and Electra (with her brother Orestes) murders Clytemnestra in her turn.

Answer: Antigone

All these are characters in Sophocles' plays. In "Oedipus at Colonus" Antigone goes into exile with her father Oedipus when he has blinded himself after discovering the horrible truth about his own life. Ismene is her sister, who does join them during the play, but has not accompanied her father all through his exile. Deineira is the wife of Heracles who unwittingly brings about his death in "The Women of Trachis", and Tecmessa is the concubine of Ajax in "Ajax".