Disapproval of acting and the theatre was a distinguishing Roman characteristic, in the eyes of many ancient authors. The significance Romans attached to the different ways actors were viewed in Greece and in Rome is indicated by Cornelius Nepos, in the preface to his Lives, where he sets out some of the principal contrasts between Greek and Roman culture ... While Greeks admired actors, according to Nepos, to display oneself on stage, to make a spectacle of oneself, was considered by Romans to be shameful. Other writers, too, saw differing attitudes to the theatre as a significant indicator of the contrast between Greek and Roman culture.

This chapter argues that the affirmative function of tragedy, by which it aligns with rather than opposes the funeral speech, has been underemphasised in recent critical trends. While this multivocal genre encompasses and promotes conflicting perspectives through which questions about the city are raised, the chapter argues that Athenian spectators viewing theatrical representations of the stories about Athens that they heard glorified annually in the funeral speeches were quite likely to interpret them as affirmations of Athenian political and military action. Moreover, the multivocality of tragedy actually enables affirmatory interpretations because spectators are always provided with ‘escape routes’ away from any uncomfortable self-criticism. This is especially true of the tragedies bringing ‘ancient Athens’ to life. Most tragedies were set outside Athens, and thus allowed spectators a degree of distance, within which questioning and criticising their own city, and especially its warmaking, could be easier.