Ancient Greek & Roman Influences in "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"
Image: Murray Close/Courtesy of Lionsgate
By Isabela Contreras
The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (or TBOSAS) by Suzanne Collins was first published in 2020. At the time, fans of The Hunger Games were excited by the prequel book (myself included), but its popularity didn’t peak until the movie adaptation was released last year on November 17. I first read the book four years ago, the summer before my senior year of high school, long before I was at college as a classics major. In honor of the film coming out, a few friends and I decided to read it together. I was initially reading it again just to give my memory a refresher; however, I found myself engrossed by its constant references to ancient Greek and Roman mythology and history.
The first time I read the book, I had no way of knowing that more than half of the character’s names came from ancient Greece and Rome. The very small amount of knowledge about classical studies I had at that age was limited to Percy Jackson and Lore Olympus. It had also never occurred to me that their names could have major significance to the roles their characters play in the book. Though none of these characters are particularly important in terms of Coriolanus Snow’s development, it’s fascinating to analyze their names and archetypes, especially when considering what they reveal about the Capitol itself.
The first character who stands out to me in this way is Lysistrata Vickers. Now, the name Lysistrata comes from an ancient Greek comedy of the same name written by Aristophanes in 411 BCE. It tells the story of an Athenian woman, Lysistrata, who is fed up with the ten year Peloponnesian War. She radically manages to convince her fellow women of Athens, and eventually Sparta, to go on a sex strike in order to persuade the men to end the war. The women are ultimately successful in their strike at the end of the play, bringing peace to Sparta and Athens.
Lysistrata Vickers in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes is one of Coriolanus’s closest friends in the Capitol. Both of them are assigned tributes from District Twelve: Lysistrata is paired with a man named Jessup, and Coriolanus with Lucy Gray. This Lysistrata certainly isn’t as radical as her namesake, but she does go on an anti-war tangent which Coriolanus dismisses as ridiculous. Speaking about the Hunger Games, she asks, “I know it’s to punish the districts, but haven’t we punished them enough? How long do we have to keep dragging the war out?” (Collins 2020, 202).
Lysistrata Vickers expresses disdain at the current war which, bearing similarity to the war in Lysistrata, has been going on for ten years. Therefore I find it extremely crucial to her character that she is named after one of the most infamous anti-war plays of ancient Greece—the parallels between the two Lysistratas are clear and serve as a way to establish The Ballad’s version of Lysistrata as against injustice, one way or the other.
This next character, much like her mythological namesake, is mentioned only once in the entire book but is one of the examples that I feel very strongly about. Iphigenia Moss is a classmate of Coriolanus who is assigned to be tribute from District Five. Not much is said about her aside from one significant quote:
“Iphigenia always seemed on the verge of malnutrition, often giving her school lunch to her classmates and even blacking out on occasion…it was the only revenge she could take on her father” (252).
Iphigenia in TBOSAS comes from a wealthy Capitol family, privileged at a time in which many people in the Capitol are still recovering from the war. Her family is lucky enough to provide her with hearty lunches to take to school, but it’s clear in this quote that Iphigenia rejects the food her father gives her. But why would she willingly starve as an act of vengeance against her father? There isn’t any reason apparent in TBOSAS, but Collins could potentially have been alluding to the origin myth of Iphigenia and her father.
Iphigenia in Homer’s Iliad is the daughter of Agamemnon, a leader in the Trojan War. Agamemnon ends up offending the goddess Artemis, who, as punishment for the Greek troops, stops the winds, subsequently preventing them from sailing onward to Troy. The only way for them to appease the goddess is by making a great sacrifice to her. So, Agamemnon lies to his wife Clytemnestra and daughter Iphigenia that the latter is to be married to the hero Achilles; yet upon her arrival, Agamemnon tragically sacrifices Iphigenia instead.
Coriolanus describes Iphigenia in TBOSAS as “forgettable”—but when I read the line about her revenge on her father, I instantly knew what Collins was referencing. Iphigenia in the myths is disgraced by her father, and isn’t able to do anything about her death. Human sacrifice was an atrocious act to commit, even for a ritualistic society like the ancient Greeks. Homer offers no extensive description of Iphigenia’s death besides the appeasing of the goddess, but I would imagine that in her final moments she felt an indescribable sense of betrayal and helplessness at being misled by her own father. For as miniscule of a detail as it was in Homer’s Iliad and in TBOSAS, the addition of Iphigenia Moss constantly starving herself as revenge against her father acts as an ode to the myth and the rage the original Iphigenia must have felt during her final moments.
Now, the death of Arachne Crane is one of the first in TBOSAS, and the name association with her character is one of the clearer decisions Collins made. Arachne Crane is another close childhood friend of Coriolanus. She is extremely prideful, and according to Coriolanus it was one of the things “that were so annoying about her and ultimately brought on her death” (105).
This is much like the original myth of Arachne. Her story is told in the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphosis. Arachne was a masterful weaver whose biggest fault and ultimate demise was that she did not credit her weaving to the goddess Athena. She was prideful and boasted that she could beat the goddess in a challenge, which Athena accepts. When Arachne’s tapestry turned out to be better than that of the goddess, Athena tore it apart and cursed Arachne to turn into a monstrous spider. The transformation doesn’t kill her, but Arachne is forever condemned to a life of misery and wretchedness due to her own hubris.
While the death of Arachne in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes does not result in a transformation of any sort, it is evident that, much like Coriolanus said, she brings her death upon herself. In an attempt to teach her tribute a lesson, Arachne taunts the girl with food, assuming she’s completely out of harm’s way. That is until her tribute manages to grab hold of a butter knife and, well—due to her prideful actions and arrogance, Arachne Crane is very publicly killed.
The details of each Arachne’s story remain individual to their situations, but their character types are exactly the same. Each Arachne leads herself to her demise by making an imperious decision under the assumption that they are in a position of superiority—Arachne Crane thinks so because she is a Capitol citizen above the Districts, Arachne from the myth thinks so because she believes herself a better weaver than the goddess. However, their stories tell the true lesson: Arachne Crane is no better than the tribute who kills her, and Arachne is no more skilled than the goddess who curses her. Each woman individually pays the price for their pride.
The last characters I’d like to discuss are a father-daughter pairing: Nero Price and his daughter Persephone. In ancient Greek mythology, Persephone, goddess of spring, is the daughter of the goddess Demeter. She is also the wife of the god Hades, additionally making her the queen of the Underworld. Through this, Persephone has this special connection to death in that she can exist in both planes of existence, living and dead, at once. Nero, on the other hand, was the fifth emperor of Rome in 54 CE. He’s notoriously known for having been one of Rome’s cruelest emperors. He was credited by early historians for the nine-day-long fire that burned through the entire city of Rome in 64 CE, and with the murder of his mother and first two wives.
Nero and Persephone have virtually no connection in mythology or history, so why would Collins pair them as father and daughter in her book?
Well, when Coriolanus is a child, he witnesses Nero Price commit cannibalism in order to feed his family during the war. The act disturbs him beyond measure. Later he finds himself utterly repulsed by his classmate, Persephone—he describes her to be the prettiest girl in their class, but because he knows she has committed cannibalism (albeit unknowingly), he feels strangely afraid of and disgusted by her (123).
While there are no mythological examples of the goddess Persephone eating people, there is the myth of her eating the pomegranate seeds in the Underworld. Upon eating the fruit, she is condemned to stay in the Underworld—possibly like how Coriolanus imagines Persephone Price to be damned for committing cannibalism.
Additionally, barring the lack of historical accounts of Nero committing cannibalism himself, some scholars have revealed that he did attempt to have someone else commit cannibalism (Tristan 2013). The significance of Nero Price committing such an atrocious act within TBOSAS is more so symbolic of the cruelty associated with Nero. In Roman history, he was willing to go as far as he needed to in order to achieve his goals; meanwhile, Nero Price is willing to do whatever it takes to keep his family and his legacy alive during the war. In both scenarios, each Nero goes to extreme lengths in the name of self-preservation.
The list of characters with significant classical names goes on and on. Other examples include Apollo and Diana Ring, Androcles Anderson, Gaius Breen, Io Jasper, Juno Phipps, Pliny Harrington, and lastly Vispania Sickle. Again, none of these characters are people whom Coriolanus finds particularly important to his life (typically viewing them as childhood friends at most), but it begs the question: why is the Capitol riddled with citizens who have these historically and mythologically powerful names, especially when the Districts do not? I believe that this is to represent ideas of supremacy within the Capitol in a way that directly mirrors the use of classics in modern notions of white supremacy in America.
For as long as people have been studying it, classics has been used as justification for systems such as slavery, racism, and misogyny. It is no coincidence that Western society has prided itself on following the legacy of Greece and Rome, both of which had eugenic philosophies that have inspired ideas of genetic supremacy in modern society. And it is certainly not a coincidence that Panem’s Capitol is explicitly said to have once been North America, a signature monument of the West. Notions of genetic supremacy have even appeared to carry over from the ancient world to America and finally to Panem. Coriolanus makes this observation as he is on his way to serve as a Peacekeeper in District Twelve:
“Sometimes he stared out the windows at the dead cities they passed…and wondered what the world had been like when they’d all been in their glory. Back when this had been North America, not Panem. It must have been fine. A land full of Capitols. Such a waste…” (331).
The implications of Coriolanus believing that North America was once a land full of Capitols means that he believes North America was populated with genetically superior human beings, and that the Districts must have been some outside group of people who came in and polluted the land. But what’s this have to do with classics? For as long as classics has been studied, it has been used as a weapon against progressive beliefs. In the name of following the footsteps of great philosophers like Aristotle, classics have been used to push notions of white supremacy in modern society. The fact that the Capitol has so many citizens with names derived from classical studies feeds into this idea of superiority; because the Capitol is tied to this great, honorable past of ancient Greece and Rome, they are superior, more intelligent, and more genetically fit to be in positions of power. Whereas, the districts, who do not have these associations and ties to this ancient history, are barbaric and inhuman in comparison. (It should be noted that calling the other “barbaric” is something commonly found in ancient Greek texts and is often the word Coriolanus and other Capitol citizens use to describe the people in the districts.)
I personally do not know what background Suzanne Collins has in classical studies, however I do not believe that these references are mere coincidence or a way to make the setting of the Capitol more dystopian. These are deliberate choices that are made to signal to the readers the subtle ideas of white supremacy and genetic superiority within Panem that directly parallel our own American society. As insignificant as some of these characters were in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, I believe they tremendously contributed to the overall world-building of the novel.
Bibliography
Collins, Suzanne. The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes (a Hunger Games Novel). Scholastic Inc., 2020.
Power, Tristan. “NERO’S CANNIBAL (SUETONIUS ‘NERO’ 37.2).” Harvard Studies in
Classical Philology 107 (2013): 323–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24615600.