Spectacle, Stage-Craft, and the Tragic in Philo’s In Flaccum: A Literary-Historical Analysis

This article provides a literary analysis of how references to spectacle and stage-craft function in Philo’s In Flaccum, which is a valuable text for understanding Philo’s complex and seemingly contradictory attitudes toward the theater, stage-craft, and drama. After marching Jews into the theater of Alexandria for punishment during the pogrom, Flaccus becomes a spectacle himself when Philo portrays Flaccus’s deportation to exile as a procession. By staging an elaborate textual spectacle starring the deposed Flaccus, Philo exploits the well-attested punitive dimension of spectacles. Through exhibition he is able to maximize justice, comfort the Jewish victims, and issue a deterrent to future powerholders over Jews. Philo, moreover, imbues the narrative of Flaccus’s demise with an overriding sense of tragedy by eliciting several of tragedy’s motifs and moods, including reversal, revenge, recognition, lamentation, and emotionalism. This elicits sympathy for Flaccus, which reinforces the warning that his plight could be the plight of any Roman ruler, each of whom must decide how like or unlike Flaccus he will govern. Philo thus shows himself to be deeply acculturated in the communicative dynamics of the spectacles and, through these references, is able to craft his own complex textual display. He thus participates in spectacle-creation himself, and this allows him to comfort and defend his people and speak powerfully back to leading power holders.