SOURCE: Rudd, Niall. “Titus Andronicus: The Classical Presence.” Shakespeare Survey 55 (2002): 199-208.

In the following essay, Rudd traces the pervasiveness of classical Roman themes, contexts, and allusions—drawn from the writings of Virgil, Ovid, Plutarch, Livy, Horace, Seneca, and others—in Titus Andronicus.

This paper has to do with the play's Romanitas. By that I mean, not its tenuous relation to historical fact, but rather the characters' awareness of Rome's cultural traditions.¹ The plural is needed, because there were two such traditions. When, as Horace said, ‘Captive Greece made her rough conqueror captive’ (Epistles 2.1.156), she brought to Latium her poetry and mythology (along with much else). The point is so familiar that one tends to forget its exceptional nature. In the annals of imperialism how many victors have learned the language of the vanquished and set about acquiring their culture? From Homer and his successors the Romans learned about...