Book presentation Basil Nelis: 'Revenge in Seneca's Tragedies: Anger, Philosophy, and the Feminine'

You are warmly invited to the presentation of a new book by Basil Nelis, postdoctoral researcher in Latin language and culture at LUCAS (Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society). The book, which is titled Revenge in Seneca's Tragedies: Anger, Philosophy, and the Feminine (Oxford University Press, 2026), is a revised version of Basil's 2022 Oxford DPhil thesis. It surveys for the first time all the instances of revenge in the eight tragedies written by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, arguing that it is primarily through the revenge of female characters that Seneca interrogates the boundary between proportionate and excessive revenge and explores the problems inherent in like-for-like violence. It then goes on to compare revenge as it is depicted in the tragedies with the account of revenge that Seneca gives in his Stoic philosophical treatise On Anger, while taking special care to these two parts of Seneca's literary output, the tragedies and the philosophy, within the broader context of the Greco-Roman tragic and philosophical traditions.

Basil's presentation will be preceded by two short talks by Antje Wessels, Professor of Latin at Leiden University, and by Christoph Pieper, University Lecturer in Latin at Leiden University.

The event will take place at Leiden University on Friday 1 May 2026 at 15.30 in the Lipsius building (room 148). After the presentation, everyone is cordially invited to join for drinks at Café de Keyzer.