Note 659 — Chapter XXIV
Reading edition
It is possible Calderon may not have gone to the originals, but found his materials nearer at hand; and yet, on a comparison of the triumphal entry of Aurelian into Rome, in the third jornada, with the corresponding passages in Trebellius, “De Triginta Tyrannis,” (c. xxix.), and Vopiscus, “Aurelianus,” (c. xxxiii., xxxiv., etc.), it seems most likely that he had read them.
Sometimes Calderon is indebted to his dramatic predecessors. Thus, his fine play of the “Alcalde de Zalamea” is compounded of the stories in Lope’s “Fuente Ovejuna” and his “Mejor Alcalde el Rey.” But I think his obligations of this sort are infrequent.