Greek myths in general embody and explore fundamental social institutions and the beliefs and values associated with them. Greek tragedy in particular examines these institutions and values by dramatizing moments of extreme crisis, violent conflict, and emotional distress, moments in which traditional values are threatened and social bonds break down. Greek poets, including tragedians, sometimes employed myth for overtly didactic purposes by presenting heroic characters as decidedly positive or negative models, inspiring emulation or deserving censure. Pindar in his victory odes, for example, celebrates athletic champions by recounting the similarly praiseworthy achievements of mythic heroes, and conversely he cautions against human excesses by recalling legendary offences like Tantalus’ misuse of nectar and ambrosia (Olympian 1.59-64), Ixion’s attempt to rape Hera (Pythian 2.21-48), and Bellero-phon’s attempt to scale Olympus (Olympian 8.84-92, Isthmian 7.44-47). The Odyssey exhibits clear moral inclinations in rewarding its hero’s exemplary conduct with a successful homecoming while punishing the overweening suitors and their accomplices with dishonorable deaths. Some tragedies share this moralistic view of a just universe in which the virtuous are rewarded and the wicked punished. The villains in these plays are often unquestionably villainous, and the concluding scenes appear to validate the actions of some characters while condemning the errors of others. Few spectators of Iphigenia among the Taurians, for example, could condone the barbarian practice of sacrificing strangers to Artemis, even if Athena did not intervene visibly at the play’s conclusion and sternly reprimand the barbarian king. More commonly, however, the tragedians eschew simplistic illustrations of moral codes in their myths and instead inspire a more complex debate, presenting ethical dilemmas without assigning unqualified approval or condemnation. Such dramas are often more closely aligned with the Iliad, which is concerned less with Achilles’ ethical choices than with the depth of the hero’s suffering and the extremes of behavior that this suffering provokes. Thus Oedipus in Sophocles’ Oedipus the King exemplifies not reprehensible conduct or poor judgment so much as the inscrutability of human fortune and the fallibility of human intent. And the chorus’s hollow attempts to find fault with his behavior only emphasize the failure of popular morality to explain extreme personal suffering. The trial in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, with its balance of votes for acquittal and condemnation, offers a productive political resolution but not an objective ethical judgment of Orestes’ matricide. Instead of sanctioning an individual act of homicide, the play venerates an institution that reconciles deadly differences peaceably.
By far the most widespread instances of crisis and conflict in tragedy are those that threaten the institution of the family. Not only did the tragedians frequently dramatize disputes between family members - between sisters in Antigone, between husband and wife in Medea, for example - they repeatedly drew upon myths in which one family member kills or nearly kills another, thus dramatizing the most transgressive violations of the most fundamental human bonds. The frequency and variety of such violations are astonishing. They include the killing of one’s own offspring (Iphigenia at Aulis, Medea, Hippolytus, Heracles, Ion, Bacchae, recalled in Agamemnon; compare Oedipus’ curse in Oedipus at Colonus), of a husband ( Agamemnon, Women ofTrachis) or a wife (Heracles), of a mother (Libation Bearers, Sophocles’ Electra, Euripides’ Electra, Ion), of a father (recalled in combination with incest in Oedipus the King, figuratively of Polynices in Oedipus at Colonus), and of siblings (Seven against Thebes, Phoenician Women, Iphigenia among the Taurians). Related instances of kinship conflict include the debates over the relative values of family members’ lives in Alcestis and Orestes’ near murder of and subsequent betrothal to Hermione in Orestes. In addition to these many instances of strife within the family, tragic conflict also frequently arises from attempts to honor kin or preserve kinship bonds against external threats. Antigone insists on performing burial rites for her brother despite Creon’s prohibitions. In Hecuba the former queen blinds Polymestor in retaliation for the murder of her son Polydorus. Menelaus attempts to preserve his marriage against Theoclymenus in Helen, and in Andromache he intervenes violently in Phthian affairs in support of his daughter. The revenge killings in the Oresteia and the Electra plays combine these two categories of family-based conflict, as retribution exacted on behalf of one family member entails the killing of another.
Family crisis in Greek tragedy frequently centers upon a character’s transition from youth to adulthood. In ancient Greek communities, as in contemporary societies, arrival at physical and sexual maturity entailed a considerable reconfiguration of kinship and other social relationships, as young women left their birth families to assume the roles of wife and mother, and young men gained some measure of independence from paternal authority and entered the ranks of the citizenry. Heroic myth is rich in reflections of the passage into adulthood and its attendant rituals, and Greek tragedy in particular explores several instances of incomplete or otherwise irregular transitions. An extreme example is Euripides’ Hippolytus. Heroes like Perseus, Jason, and Theseus typically mark their entry into adulthood with a hunting exploit, the slaying of a beast or monster, and then proceed to secure wives by surpassing rival suitors or successfully challenging the bride’s father. In the case of Hippolytus, however, the hunting rite and the marital rite are systematically inverted. Though on the threshold of adulthood physically, Hippolytus emphatically shuns the rites of Aphrodite and instead declares perpetual devotion to the virgin huntress Artemis. Refusing to assume an active sexual role, to pursue a wife, he becomes instead the passive object of his stepmother’s incestuous desires. And when she paradoxically accuses him of rape, Hippolytus’ alleged wooing catapults him into conflict not with a bride’s father, but with his own. Finally, instead of confirming his manhood by slaying a monster, the perpetual adolescent himself falls victim to the monstrous bull of Poseidon. A similarly perverted passage into adulthood lies behind Sophocles’ Oedipus the King. Conforming to the heroic model, Oedipus has slain a monster and thereby secured a wife, but his present investigations reveal that, as the oracle of Apollo predicted and despite his contrary intentions, he has married his mother and slain his own father. Instead of directing adolescent aggression and sexual desire outwards and maturing beyond the kinship ties of his youth, he has in fact directed these impulses against his own family, violating the closest of kinship bonds through incest and parricide.
Sophocles’ Antigone and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis provide notable examples of female characters who fail to reach adulthood. Instead of leaving her father’s house and forming a new family with Haemon, Antigone devotes herself completely to her brothers and ultimately joins them in death (see in particular the disputed lines 90420). Sophocles underscores the contrast between her tragic death and the marriage she might have enjoyed by characterizing the subterranean enclosure in which she dies as a kind of perverted bridal chamber (891; compare 806-16). Euripides engineers a similar opposition between marriage and premature death in Iphigenia at Aulis. Although led to Aulis with the promise of marriage to Achilles (another hero, incidentally, often characterized by failure to enter fully into adulthood), the virgin daughter of Agamemnon will instead be sacrificed to the virgin goddess Artemis and never attain maturity. Several scenes of the drama feature disturbing juxtapositions of marital and sacrificial motifs, as for example when Clytemnestra anxiously inquires about the wedding preparations and Agamemnon’s equivocal responses anticipate instead the imminent sacrifice (716-41). And the chorus paints a vivid contrast between the joyful festivities that once accompanied Thetis’ marriage to Peleus and the bloody ritual killing of Iphigenia soon to be performed (1036-97). In both of these plays attention to marriage as the traditional rite of passage for young women may be understood as emphasizing the perversity of the execution or sacrifice. Insofar as Antigone and Iphigenia embrace their deaths, however, the juxtaposition with marriage also distinguishes these heroines as extraordinary figures and monumentalizes their sacrifice.
In contrast to these premature deaths, Sophocles’ Women of Trachis concludes with a successful but decidedly unconventional entry into adulthood. Heracles’ deathbed instructions to his son Hyllus - to light his funeral pyre while he still lives and to marry his concubine Iole - carry troubling undertones of parricide and incest. Yet these near violations of kinship bonds serve to salvage the remains of a family in turmoil. By burning his father’s body Hyllus releases him from the torments of Deianira’s poisoned robe, and the paternally sanctioned marriage between Iole and Hyllus neatly replaces the disastrous extramarital relationship between Iole and Heracles. A less ambiguously successful coming-of-age myth is dramatized in Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Here Neoptolemus, whose assumption of Achilles’ role at Troy was traditionally symbolized by the inheritance of his father’s armor (see Proclus’ summary of the Little Iliad in West 2003, and compare Philoctetes 62-63), aligns himself with Achilles also in ethical terms. Though at first tempted to adopt Odysseus’ stratagem of deception, he instead joins the recalcitrant Philoctetes in resistance to the entire Achaean army, thereby adopting a stance of indignation and defiance commonly associated with his father. Other dramas that address entry into adulthood include Aeschylus’ Suppliants and the many plays featuring Orestes and Electra.
Another typical concern of tragic myth is conflict between an individual or family and a larger community, specifically a polis or an army. Myths of the Trojan War, in particular, highlight disagreements between individual warriors and the wider contingent of Greeks. Aeschylus’ lost Myrmidons was modeled on the hero’s withdrawal from the fighting as previously narrated in the Iliad. And Achilles is again featured acting upon his individual convictions and preserving his own honor in Iphigenia at Aulis, where he alone among the leaders contests the decision to sacrifice Iphigenia.
Conflict arises in Sophocles’ Ajax when the hero’s assessment of his value as a warrior differs from the assessment rendered by the army’s leaders. And abandonment on the island of Lemnos has left the title hero of Sophocles’ Philoctetes bitter and enraged against the Greek army at Troy. Examples of discord between individuals and citizen communities are also abundant. The Argive citizenry condemns Orestes and Electra to death in Euripides’ Orestes. In Oedipus the King Oedipus banishes the murderer of Laius from Thebes, thereby unknowingly banishing himself, in order to rescue the community from a plague. Creon in Antigone, claiming to speak for the community, condemns the heroine’s resistance as an affront to the state. And in Oedipus at Colonus Oedipus declares allegiance to Athens while adamantly renouncing his former ties to Thebes. In addition, tragedies occasionally depict, or rather recount, military confrontation between communities, but such hostilities are viewed primarily through the lens of personal enmity or private suffering. Thus the war in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes centers upon a feud between two brothers. Euripides’ Suppliants, while recalling the war of the Seven and recounting a subsequent engagement of Athens and Thebes, foregrounds instead the burial of the fallen Argive warriors. And rather than focusing on ambushes and battles during the night of Troy’s capture, Trojan Women displays the lamentations of Hecuba and her fellow captives in the immediate aftermath of the city’s fall.
Several tragedies examine relationships between individuals and communities by dramatizing an act of supplication. The suppliant, in seeking refuge at an altar, cult statue, or other hallowed place, technically invokes the protection of the gods, but it is incumbent upon those who control the sacred precinct to grant the suppliant’s request and thereby preserve the sanctity of the location. Although some tragic instances of supplication serve as a focal point for conflict within or between families (Andromache and Ion), the convergence of suppliant, pursuers, and community representatives upon a sanctuary provides several dramas with an ideal setting for political conflict and debate over communal values. When, for example, Orestes takes refuge at a statue of Athena in Aeschylus’ Eumenides, the goddess appoints an august body of Athenian citizens to settle the dispute by trial (470-88). The act of supplication thus precipitates a radical redefinition of the conflict, as justice is left neither in the hands of individuals (Orestes and Clytemnestra) nor in the realm of the divine (Apollo and the Furies), but entrusted instead to representatives of the Athenian community. In assuming this authority, the community risks incurring upon its entire populace strife originally centered solely upon an individual (476-79, 719-20, 78087). But this risk is far outweighed by the city’s ultimate gains, Orestes’ pledge of a perpetual alliance between Athens and Argos (762-77), and the promises of the rehabilitated Eumenides to protect the city, safeguard its internal peace, and ensure its prosperity (916-1020). Acts of supplication prompt states to intervene in foreign or private disputes also in Aeschylus’ Suppliants, Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and Euripides’ Suppliants and Children of Heracles. The choice to support the suppliant in these plays again endangers the community with the threat of military conflict, but intervention simultaneously offers substantial potential benefits. In both Oedipus at Colonus and Children of Heracles the establishment of hero cults promises Athens future protection against enemy states: against Thebes in the former play (607-28), while in the latter, paradoxically, the hostile pursuer Eurystheus is entombed in Athens as a talisman against future Heraclid aggression (1026-36). In Euripides’
Suppliants the bones of the Argive heroes are returned to Argos for burial, but the substitute burial in Athens of a sacrificial knife provides the city with protective powers analogous to those of hero shrines (1183-1212).
A third general category of conflict witnessed in tragedy pits a mortal character against a divine antagonist. Oedipus’ self-discovery in Oedipus the King is the climax of a long and unsuccessful struggle against Apollo’s oracle. Euripides’ Andromache recalls that Neoptolemus challenged Apollo at Delphi (49-55, and compare 10851165). In Prometheus Bound a Titan with pronounced mortal sympathies suffers for opposing the will of Zeus, while lo suffers as an object of Zeus’ lust and Hera’s jealousy. Artemis confronts Agamemnon with a painful dilemma in Iphigenia atAulis and in the parodos of Agamemnon. This category of opposition is also easily recognizable in Eumenides, Ajax, Hippolytus, Heracles, and Bacchae, where adversarial divinities actually appear on stage. While Orestes prevails in Eumenides with the assistance of other divinities, the typical confrontation between mortal and god instead highlights the supremacy of the latter and the limitations of the former. With the exceptions of Dionysus, Demeter, and some lesser divinities, the immortals of Greek myth existed largely above the reach of the deepest mortal suffering. Although Artemis, for example, can feel sorrow over Hippolytus’ misfortune (Hippolytus 1338-40), she cannot defile herself by witnessing his death (1437-38). Thus the gods were never, it seems, chosen as the principal subjects of tragedy without some accompanying involvement of mortals. The experiences of these greater-than-human beings simply could not generate in an audience the pity and fear that Aristotle judged essential to tragedy.
Insofar as it explores institutions common to all or most societies, tragedy can lay claim to near universal cultural significance. But Athenian tragedy developed out of a specific cultural tradition and within a specific cultural environment, and many of the institutions it explores and the forms they assume are particular to ancient Greece. One element that frequently advertises tragedy’s local significance is the inclusion of an aetiology - an interpretation of the play’s action as the foundation story for a contemporary cultural institution - at the close of the play. In this, tragedy continues a long tradition of poetic mythmaking that grounded religious practices in the distant past. So, for example, the myth of Prometheus’ duplicitous sacrifice at Mecone, as narrated in Hesiod’s Theogony (535-60), explains why the Greeks customarily offered to the gods the less valuable portions of sacrificial animals. And the Homeric Hymn to Demeter records the foundation of the sanctuary at Eleusis and implicitly characterizes the Eleusinian mysteries as a commemorative reenactment of the goddess’ sojourn there. Several tragedies end with divinities announcing the establishment of religious institutions in Attica, thereby setting a seal upon the action of the drama with the promise of perpetual ritual commemoration. Examples include the worship of the ‘‘kindly goddesses’’ instituted in the Eumenides, of Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus, of Hippolytus at Troezen in Hippolytus, and cults of Artemis at Halae and Brauron in Iphigenia at Aulis. Tragedy also provides aetiologies for a variety of other social institutions. Eumenides offers a foundation myth for the court of the Areopagus, together with the custom of counting a tie vote as an acquittal (741-42, 75253; compare Euripides’ Electra 1266-69, Iphigenia among the Taurians 1469-72). Thetis in Andromache announces the continuation of her own, Peleus’, and Andromache’s lineage in the succession of Molossian kings, thereby celebrating a contemporary dynasty (1243-49). Aeschylus’ lost Women of Aetna dramatized the foundation of the city of Aetna. Ion identifies its hero as the eponymous ancestor of all the lonians and proclaims Athens the ancestral origin of lonians, Dorians, and Achaeans (1571-94).
Aeschylus’ Persians, with its detailed account of the naval victory at Salamis, is anomalous in its attention to specific events of the recent past (compare Herodotus 6.21 on Phrynichus’ Capture of Miletus), but several plays reflect more generally upon the politics and history of fifth-century Athens. Sophocles in his Oedipus at Colonus and Euripides in his Suppliants portray Theseus as a prototypic democratic ruler, a king who shares political authority with the populace (compare the Argive Pelasgus in Aeschylus’ Suppliants). Creon’s adamant disavowal of tyrannical ambitions in Oedipus the King (583-602) and the chorus’s moralizing dictum, ‘‘insolence breeds the tyrant’’ (873), suggest democratic unease over concentrating political power in the hands of a single individual. Conspicuously anachronistic is Menelaus’ characterization of his brother in Iphigenia in Aulis as a politician who curries favor with all when canvassing for votes but grows aloof once in office (337-48). Courts of law do not appear regularly in tragedy outside the Oresteia and Orestes, but the extended formal debates, or agones, common in Euripides’ plays, attest interest or at least familiarity with the judicial system. Several plays allude to current Athenian foreign policy: alliance with Argos in the Oresteia and Euripides’ Suppliants, hostility toward Thebes in Oedipus at Colonus and toward Sparta in Andromache. Athens’ reputation as a dependable sanctuary for suppliants in tragedy also finds parallels in contemporary history. Herodotus records that the alliance between Athens and Plataea began with an act of supplication in the Athenian agora (6.108). Euripides’ Trojan Women is often read in conjunction with the Athenian destruction of Melos in 416 BCE (see Thucydides 5.84-116), although chronological considerations argue against a clear causal relationship between the historical event and the drama (see van Erp Taalman Kip 1987). It is also tempting to believe that the plague in Oedipus the King was inspired by the plague that devastated Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (see Thucydides 2.47-54).
While thus deeply embedded in its particular cultural context, tragic myth nevertheless preserves neither an exact nor a comprehensive account of Athenian society and history. Although, for example, Athens was a highly successful mercantile state, tragedy lacks crisis centered upon manufacture and trade. This avoidance is due in part to the inherited traditions of Greek myth, whose heroes are warriors and kings of illustrious lineage, not merchants or industrial entrepreneurs, and in part to the limited cultural esteem of these occupations in contemporary Athens, where they were pursued not by Athenian citizens, but predominantly by foreign residents and visitors. The images of the contemporary world in tragedy’s mythical past are selective and often oblique, emblematic rather than descriptive. Historians must turn instead to Athenian comedy to find a more inclusive and more direct fictional engagement with contemporary society.
World History
