In this paper, I consider the ways the mutilated royal bodies are visually represented in Greek Tragedy. As is well known, the murder on stage is avoided in extant tragedies. This avoidance has sometimes been explained by the reference to the existence of some kind of religious taboo. I argue, however, it has its own dramatic and theatrical justifications and we do not have enough evidence to show the existence of such prohibition. The representation of the gruesome tableau resulting from the violent act with a narrative representing the act is much more effective than the murder on stage which lucks the narrative explanation and Greek Tragedy has developped a special contrivance for the presentation of this tableau, that is, ekkyklêma, a wheeled platform. Besides, although the murder on stage is avoided, a special kind of violent death, suicide, is visually represented in two extant plays, Sophocles' Ajax and Euripides' Supplices. I try to analyze the reason and the way the suicide is performed on stage in these plays with or without the help of ekkyklêma.
'The suicide on stage', however, is not the only way for the tragic poets to show the mutilated royal body. Euripides, whom Aristotle called 'the most tragic' among poets, made use of the severed head in his two extant plays； Aegistus in Electra and that of Pentheus in Bakkhai. I try to propose the reconstruction of each scene and conclude that the visual representation of the mutilated royal body is, pace Aristotle, who in his Poetics almost entirely ignores the visual effect because of his preference of the narrative, is one of the most efficacious means to achieve pity and fear, the Aristotelian tragic effect.
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