ABSTRACT
Types of translation strategy range from the most literal, through close translation to creative literary and theatrical adaptations and versions, which transplant the Greek and Roman material across forms and genres. The Greek language, in particular, was crucial to the expansion of Roman power and cultural development. Latin translations of Greek texts included early versions of Greek plays and of Homer that led to an autonomous Latin literature in which intertextuality supplemented translation as the main aesthetic driver. The scope and influence of translations of Greek and Latin texts have been significant politically and ideologically, as well as linguistically and theatrically. South African workshop theatre, in which actors and spectators combine in a transformative experience, has drawn extensively on Greek plays as a source of resistance and reconstruction. The translation of Greek and Latin texts continues to be a means of negotiating intellectual, aesthetic and cultural status and of practising realignments.
