The book consists of two parts. The first of these, the "Ultima Georgica" (the title refers to Virgil's "Georgics" but also to Francis Jammes' "Christian Georgics"), is a hymn that follows in the footsteps of the solomonic "Cretan" and the "Mother of God" by Sicilianos. The happy few who know and love this tradition will be able - hopefully - to familiarize themselves with it.
The three dramas of the second part may alienate the reader. That's why I hasten to prepare him.
In recent years, there have been many attempts to revive ancient tragedy, usually by poets, but the result has most often been lyrical visions in dramatic form (exceptions being Milton's "Samson Agonistes" and Goethe's "Iphigenia"). However, this incomplete dramatic form weakened the lyrical element, which was spread over thousands of verses and could only be found and enjoyed in certain powerful excerpts. The deep charm exerted by Sicilianos' "Asclepius" is due to the fact that the work remained unfinished, but also to the ingenious pursuit of the modern Greek lyricist to write a condensed trilogy.
On the contrary, in the short dramatic scenes written by Mallarme and Stefan George, the dramatic and lyrical elements reinforced each other.
In other words, if tragedy is a specific poetic expression and at the same time a distinct dramatic construction, then, since we admit that the dramatic element has been assigned to other arts (prose theater, novel, cinema), this particular poetic expression can only be preserved in short scenes. These thoughts led me to write three elaborated dramas or three bonsai dramas.
The first one, Alarichos, recreates the well-known anecdote mentioned by the national historian Zosimos, that when Alarichos besieged Athens, he saw Athena Promachos wandering around its walls (the walls themselves saw Athena Promachos - Zosimos 5 6.1). and that for this reason he did not sack the city. The second one, Andromeda, is a satirical intermezzo, while Eleazar, the third one, is based on the Third Book of Maccabees, which, in my opinion, is a small diamond of Hellenistic Jewish literature.