Philotas

Richard Lateware (1588?)

Historical Records

Exequiae Illustratissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnaei (1587)

Lateware (also spelled Latewar) refers to the composition of the play in one of the 21 elegiac poems he contributed to an Oxford collection, published in 1587, commemorating the death of Sir Philip Sidney:

Avthor meorum carminum,

Trinæ causa Tragædiæ,

   Cræsi, Philotæ, (proh scelus)

Et sæuæ Pelopis domus,

   Quas inchoaram prosperè

Nitens auspicijs tuis

   Sidnæe vates occidis.

Cuius sæua Tragædia

   Fato poetæ seuior

Trinam sola Tragædiam

   Cræsum, Philotam perdidit,

Et sæuam Pelopis domum. (Gager, sig. F2r)

Author of my songs, reason for my three tragedies, Croesus, Philotas (oh the crime!), and the one about the savage house of Pelops, which I happily began, relying on your auspices, bard Sidney, you are dead. Your savage tragedy, more savage than a fate invented by a poet, has destroyed my triple tragedies Croesus, Philotas, and the one about the savage house of Pelops. (trans. Dana Sutton)

At the time, Lateware was a student at St. John's College, Oxford: he had graduated BA in 1584 and would proceed MA in May 1588. In 1585–86, Lateware was paid by St. John's to compose a Latin poem on the life of Thomas White, the College's founder (Höltgen 424–25; STC 15266.5).

Samuel Daniel's "Apology" for Philotas (1605)

In 1605, Samuel Daniel's Philotas became the subject of government scrutiny when the Privy Council called him to answer the charge that the play was written as an allegorical depiction of the Earl of Essex. While the play was first published in Daniel's 1605 collection Certaine Small Poems with subsequent editions appearing in 1607 and 1611, it was only in the 1623 volume The Whole Workes of S. Daniel, printed four years after Daniel's death, that the play was accompanied by an "Apology."

The Apology.

The wrong application, and misconceiuing of this Tragedy of Philotas, vrges me worthy Readers, to answere for mine innocency, both in the choice of the subiect, and the motiues that long since induced me to write it, which were first the delight I tooke in the History it selfe as it lay, and then the aptnesse, I saw it had to fall easily into act, without interlacing other inuention, then it properly yeelded in the owne circumstances, we were sufficient for the worke, and a lawfull representing of a Tragedy. Besides aboue eight yeares since, meeting with my deare friend Dr Lateware, (whose memory I reuerence) in his Lords Chamber, and mine, I told him the purpose I had for Philotas, who sayd that himselfe had written the same argument, and caused it to be presented in S^t. lohns Colledge in Oxford, where as I after heard, it was worthily and with great applause performed. And though, I sayd, he had therein preuented me, yet I would not desist, whensoeuer my Fortunes would giue me I peace, to try what I could doe in the same subiect, where vnto both hee, and who were present, incouraged me as to an example worthy of note. And liuing in the Country, about foure yeares since, and neere halfe a yeare before the late Tragedy of ours, (whereunto this is now most ignorantly resembled) vnfortunately fell out heere in England, I began the same...

(Daniel, sig. 2E5r–v)

Daniel's "Apology" was presumably composed in 1605 between the first concerns voiced by the Privy Council and the publication of the play. As such, the conversation he recalls with Larewar would have taken place around 1596 or 1597. As Pitcher notes, Daniel and Lateware may have first become acquainted at Oxford in the early 1580s, although the "Lord" in whose "Chamber" they met was Charles Blount, 8th Baron Mountjoy: "By 1596 they were Mountjoy’s men; Lateware his chaplain, and Daniel his prized client" (Pitcher 49). (The "late Tragedy of ours" is the events of February 1601 that led to the execution of Essex.)

Theatrical Provenance

Performed at St. John's College, Oxford. The date of the performance is unknown, but it must have been sometime between 1587 (when Lateware describes the play as incomplete) and his conversation with Samuel Daniel in 1596/7.

Probable Genre(s)

Tragedy (Harbage)

Possible Narrative and Dramatic Sources or Analogues

The story of Philotas is told briefly in Plutarch's biography of Alexander in Parallel Lives and at greater length by Quintus Curtius Rufus in his History of Alexander.

References to the Play

[Information welcome.]

Critical Commentary

Elliott et al. (REED: Oxford, 2:831) give a date range of c. 1588–96 and note that the language of the play is unknown.

Wiggins (British Drama, #748) places "Philotas" in the context of "the earlier St John's tradition of plays based on classical history," noting in particular another play on the subject of Alexander the Great's life, the lost "Alexander and Bagoas," performed in 1582. Wiggins also suggests the play may have been performed as part of the Christmas revels at St. John's, perhaps by the second-year undergraduates responsible for those festivities.

Pitcher (50) notes the shared patronage of Latewar and Samuel Daniel and considers its political topicality in the 1590s: "The production at St John’s may have been staged or revived much later, as late as the mid-1590s, not long before Daniel spoke with Latewar in Mountjoy's 'Chamber.' There is thus an intriguing possibility that both men were at work on Philotas plays while they were in Mountjoy’s service, and in proximity to the Earl of Essex himself. (Latewar had a further connection through his friend John Buckeridge, another Fellow of St John’s, who became Essex’s chaplain in 1595). It is conceivable that Essex’s situation around 1596, after the raid on the Spanish port of Cadiz, lent itself to ideas about Alexander’s favorite Philotas and his path to tragedy."

For What It's Worth

In the first reference to the play in his poem, Lateware adds a parenthetical comment "(proh scelus)" ("oh the crime!" or "oh the villain!"). This may suggest that Lateware interpreted the Philotas story as one of a traitor rightfully punished. If this indicates something about how Lateware handled the narrative in his play, this would be markedly different from Samuel Daniel's play, in which the questions of Philotas' culpability and whether justice has been served in his execution are much more ambiguous. However, perhaps Lateware's parenthetical comment is not so easily interpreted. As Richard Stoneman notes, the historical narratives of Curtius and Plutarch could easily lead readers to conclude that the trial and execution of Philotas represented not treachery rightly punished but rather a miscarriage of justice: "Philotas became a byword for a man unjustly condemned. As Montaigne put it [in 'On conscience'], (the translation by John Florio appeared in the same year as Philotas), 'Thousands upon thousands have falsely confessed to capital charges. Among them, after considering the details of the trial which Alexander made him face and the way he was tortured, I place Philotas.'" Perhaps, for Lateware, the "crime" in this subject was not Philotas' but Alexander's.

Works Cited

Daniel, Samuel. The Whole Workes of Samuel Daniel Esquire in Poetrie. London, 1623.

Elliott, Jr., John R. et al., ed. Records of Early English Drama: Oxford. 2 vols. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2004.

[Gager, William, ed.] Exequiæ illustrissimi equitis, D. Philippi Sidnae. Oxford, 1587. STC 22551.

Pitcher, John. "Who Told on Samuel Daniel? Robert Cecil, Ben Jonson, and the Non-Scandal of The Tragedy of Philotas." Medieval & Renaissance Drama in England 35 (2022): 43–80.

Stoneman, Richard. "Alexander, Philotas, and the Origins of Modern Historiography." Greece & Rome 60 (2013): 296–312.

Sutton. Dana F. "William Gager (ed.), Exequiae Illustratissimi Equitis D. Philippi Sidnaei, Gratissimae Memoriae ac Nomini Impensae (1587)." The Philological Museum. February 22, 2006. <https://philological.cal.bham.ac.uk/exequiae/>

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