#horatii

[illustratus]

The Death of Camilla by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier

[daily-art-academy]

Oath of the Horatii

Jacques-Louis David, 1784

Oil on canvas, 330 x 425 cm, Louvre, Paris

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Plays

Round 1

Horace (Pierre Corneille) VS Be More Chill (Ned Vizzini)

Horace

Be More Chill

Show results

Voting ended onDec 11, 2024

Horace :

Corneille's very famous among French playwrights, mainly for Le Cid, a work based on a Spanish romantic figure. However, my favorite play from him is Horace, which is also about honor and romance and duty and emotions. Horace is a play about the fight between the Horatii (3 sibling warriors) from Rome and the Curiatii (3 other sibling warriors) from Alba.

The Horatii and Curiatii are friends.

Horace is married to Curiace's sister. Curiace is engaged to Horace's sister, Camille. The cities of Alba and Rome are allies. But suddenly the cities are at war and each pick 3 champions : the Horatii brothers for Rome and the Curiatii brothers for Alba.

It's beautifully tragic

Be More Chill :

[didoofcarthage]

The Death of Camilla by Jacques-Louis David. French, c. 1781. Black chalk and grey wash on paper. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

From the Met:

Before painting his Neoclassical masterpiece The Oath of the Horatii (Musée du Louvre, Paris), David explored many episodes of the story in sketches. In this sheet, David portrays the death of Camilla in the aftermath of the battle between the ancient Roman and Alban tribes. To spare lives, each tribe had delegated three warriors to settle the dispute. The lone survivor of the contest, Horatius, has returned to find his sister, Camilla, grieving for her slain fiancé, a member of the Curiatii clan. In his anger over her unpatriotic display of emotion, Horatius kills her on the spot. 

[notmanthelessbutnaturemore]

My entire thought process when I saw this in a tiny book shop near the Old Vic: OMG it’s my people, take my money kind sir! 

I had absolutely no idea what this play was about when I bought it (I spent the first act wondering when Rome went to war with Scotland (Alba) *face palm*) buuuuut it’s about the the battle between the Horatii (yay) and the Curiatii (boo).

So the Horatti and the Curiatii are all besties, everyone is marrying everyone, but then the gods decide to intervene (darn humans having too much merriment) and choose the three Horatii brothers to fight for Rome and the three Curiatii brothers to fight for Alba. Awkward.

So peeps die, cool cool, it’s looks like Rome has fallen and the elder Horatii is all ‘How dare my son run away from the battle? I shall kill him myself for such cowardice!” Turns out his son, Publius Horatius, is actually alive and totally saved Rome with his heroics and manly manliness. Cool! (His dad quickly flips to ‘behold my son, what a hero, what a man!’)

BUT, it turns out this is a tragedy. Cue Camila (Horatius’s sister) being distraught over the death of her lover, a Curiatii by the name of Curiatius a lot of creativity with the names there and Horatius is all ‘how very dare you mourn an enemy of Rome, off with your head!’. He then proceeds to kill her (offstage, must not have had the budget back then for fake blood) AND THEN I THREW THE BOOK OUT THE WINDOW!

The King is like ‘bro, you killed your sister, what the hell?!’ but it’s argued that Horatius did save Rome so what’s a little sororicide between friends?! I mean, hey, Rome was built on fratricide so.......

Camila gets to be buried with her Curiatii lover and everyone else (minus all the dead dudes) gets to enjoy the ceremony of purifying Horatius (don’t forget to pour one out for the sister you murdered) and thanking the gods.

The End.

p.s. an unforeseen Musketeers connection - the play was dedicated to cardinal Richelieu!

[illustratus]

The Oath of the Horatii

Copy of Jacques-Louis David's original by his student Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson

[illustratus]

The Oath of the Horatii by Armand-Charles Caraffe

[illustratus]

Battle between Horatii and Curiatii

by Giuseppe Cesari