About the work
Friedrich Dürrenmatt's „Romulus der Große" was premiered in Basel in 1949. Dürrenmatt called it an „unhistorical historical comedy" — the play uses the figure of the last Western Roman emperor to develop a moral parable about state failure and personal responsibility.
Plot
15 March 476 AD, country estate of Emperor Romulus Augustulus near Rome. The Roman Empire is collapsing under the onslaught of the Germanic peoples. Yet Emperor Romulus does not deal with affairs of state — he breeds chickens, names them after his predecessors („Marcus Aurelius", „Caligula"), neglects the army and the treasury. His wife Julia urges him to fight; she has the empire's last gold sold to finance the resistance. Romulus is unmoved. The minister of war Mares brings catastrophic news: the Germans are at the city. Roman officials, in panic, attempt to flee or appeal to Romulus. The trouser manufacturer Cäsar Rupf offers to save the empire if Romulus marries his daughter to him — Romulus refuses. The Germanic king Odoacer arrives — and turns out to be himself a man, a chicken-breeder, weary of the brutal politics of his nephew Theodoric. Romulus and Odoacer agree: Romulus retires, Odoacer takes power but will be killed by Theodoric. End of the empire — both walk away to chickens and country life.
Cultural significance
Romulus der Große is one of Dürrenmatt's principal works and a key text of post-war Swiss-German theatre. The play has lost none of its political force: the question of when state guilt and personal innocence can be reconciled remains contemporary. Productions by Erwin Piscator, Frank Castorf and Stefan Bachmann shaped the stage tradition. Dürrenmatt's grotesque-philosophical comedy is required school reading.