2.5 stars. The storyline of this ancient tragedy was well known to me. However, reading it first time in this graphic manner that the Ancient Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca presents it is too intense and utterly shocking. It engendered (at least to me) feelings of disgust more than any pity for the plight and suffering of Thyestes. I wonder what was the purpose of Seneca in this tragedy? If it was to cause us revulsion, he has succeded. If it was to make us feel the depth of Atreus' hatred for his brother Thyestes and to make us despise Atreus, he has succeeded as well.

Where I think he has fallen short is in making us feel also the depth of Thyestes' unimaginable grief and shock at the unspeakable horror he experienced. Maybe it is just me and that I was still too shocked by the graphic and grotesque details of the murders and cannibalism to feel anything else, but I didn't feel much for Thyestes. I felt for his children, but I think that the intensity of Thyestes' grief and shock that we should experience and feel for him and with him was lost to the revulsive details we had experienced prior to Thyestes coming to knowledge of what had just taken place; therefore, I felt a little sorry for him, but not intensely enough as I should have normally felt for any other character in another story. I felt more disgust at the actions of Atreus than pity or sympathy for Thyestes or even enough for the boys.

I think that the intensely grotesque way the graphic details were written and presented, it took away from the tragedy rather than strengthen it. I hadn’t read any play by Seneca before, and I expected to love it. Unlike the ancient Greek tragedies that I love, I didn’t enjoy Thyestes that much. There were some quotes, mainly by the Chorus that I liked, but overall it left me somewhat indifferent despite all the revulsion the graphic details made me feel.