Abstract

Michael Winterbottom , 39) criticizes Costa's edition of Seneca's Medea for failing to annotate sic fugere soleo . ‘Did Medea’, he asks, ‘habitually escape by chariot - or is this a coy allusion to Seneca's predecessors?’ Of course it is neither; sic fugere soleo means Medea was accustomed to flee by leaving dead bodies behind to encumber her enemies . According to. Seneca's usage, and that of Silver Latin rhetoric in general, once would be enough to establish such a ‘habit’, for in that fairy-world wonders and horrors become, as Atreus says petulantly, immane…sed occupatum on repetition. At Troades 249 and 360 soleo is used of the virgin-sacrificing ‘habit’ of the Achaeans, i.e. the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, which makes the sacrifice of Polyxena seem a good idea