Greek theatre emerged from the same creative spirit that fuelled many enduring ancient Greek innovations. Democracy, philosophy, art, architecture, medicine, warfare… Athens’s achievements alone remain monumental. Yet alongside these intellectual and structural advances, Greece also embraced vibrant social traditions like symposiums and bacchanalias, celebrating communal experience and reflection.
In more recent times, historians have started shifting focuses from power structures and institutions that brought Athens wealth and dominance, towards cultural forces that shaped how Greeks understood themselves—especially in times of crisis; as the Peloponnesian War against Sparta dragged Athens into increasingly self-destructive conflicts, self-reflection became central to the city’s identity. The Delphic maxim “know thyself”, inscribed at the Temple of Apollo, became not just philosophical advice, but a cultural imperative. Drama, particularly tragedy, became the vehicle through which playwrights educated and provoked the masses, encouraging individual and collective contemplation.
Among the towering figures of Athenian dramatic tradition was Sophocles. His plays reveal a profound engagement with life—not only through heroic figures of Greek myth, but also in the lives and struggles of his contemporaries. Alongside fellow dramatists Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes, Sophocles attracted thousands of theatregoers, drawing them into stories questioning human nature, justice, power and divine will.
[ABOVE: Marble relief of a Greek poet, thought to be Sophocles]
His plays are marked by deep irony, as characters often misunderstand their own fates, allowing the audience to share their journey of self-discovery. Tyranny, suffering, warfare, vengeance and violence born of passion— these themes course through his work. More than 2,400 years later, his tragedies are still performed and beloved, not just as literary masterpieces, but as timeless reflections on the human condition.
Check out my previous post on the Battle of Aegospotami, the final battle of my Peloponnesian War series.
AJAX
A hero of the Trojan War, Ajax was regarded as the second of the greatest Greek heroes, behind only Achilles. After Achilles’ death, Ajax was deemed the one worthy to inherit his armour, however it was instead awarded by Agamemnon and Menelaus to Odysseus. Angry, Ajax sets out to kill them both, intervened instead by Athena, who convinces him instead to kill the Greek army’s animal loot. Realising the shame of his actions, he commits suicide.
[ABOVE: The suicide of Ajax depicted on a red-figure Etruscan calyx-crater, form c.400 - 350 BC. Now held in the British Museum]
To the people watching Sophocles’ plays during the tumultuous time of the late fifth century BC, Ajax epitomised the Homeric hero figure, with a tenth of the population revering him as their ancestor. He was written of having saved many Greeks several times over with his “savage discipline”, being rather full of himself. But his lacking in ability to understand himself and his limits lead him to realise his learned “savage discipline” was so engrained into his nature and that he couldn’t, if he wanted to, act outside of it. His thought was that his honour could only be regained by suicide. Yet in doing so, the world, of course, doesn’t end, and the play continues with Ajax’s lifeless body front and centre the rest of the way through.
[ABOVE: Achilles tending to an arrow wound sustained by Patrocles, depicted on a red-figure Attic kylix found in Vulci, near Rome, c.500 BC]
Preparing his body for burial, his family and fellow warriors regroup. Menelaus and Agamemnon among them, they intervene, insisting that the body be left for the carrion birds. Odysseus, however, comes to persuade Agamemnon into letting the burial procession proceed. The reason for this delay in the play to discuss the fate of Ajax’s body relates to earlier in the play; between Ajax dying and his body being discovered, the Chorus, divided into two search parties, stumble disoriented out calling to each other. Within this hole in time, (literally, a historic void) the play entirely shifts its perspective as Teukros, Ajax’s half brother, talks to Agamemnon and Menelaus, bringing the concerns and tone of the play ingloriously downwards to a more realist earth. The terms of perception turned to those of fifth-century Athens, in which the heroic age of Greece is long gone… So, given the play’s original setting, why didn’t Sophocles leave the play at that?
[ABOVE: Telamonian Ajax preparing for his suicide, depicted on a black-figure Attic amphora, c.530 BC, attributed to the painter Exekias. Now held in the Château-musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer, northern France]
He was not only a great playwright, but a great teacher. “Ajax”’s theatrical and philosophical heart is Sophocles’ grand attempt to resolve civic conundrums, namely the issue of how a political entity and its conjoining culture adapt to an ever-changing geo-political environment without falling apart, since the state at this point was not even a century old after converting from a tyranny that relied on upholding the age of heroes to an electoral, democratic, self-reliant state. Sophocles was attempting to tackle how a democratic nation could continue to honour the age of heroes as much as it use to. These types of concerns drive the plot of “Ajax”.
Relied on heavily in the war for his strength and courage, circumstances would come to render Ajax’s aretê (valour) obsolete. As Agamemnon described, Ajax became comparable from going from a Greek war hero to an ox commanded by a whip, and the more brainy men like Odysseus became more needed. Following Ajax’s death, Greek audiences would become more violent; once captivated with Ajax’s life, now so swiftly and ingloriously taken away and for his lesser known half brother to swoop in and, too late, save the da, bringing with him his characteristics reminiscent of the fifth-century Athenian but not reminiscent of the Bronze Age of heroes. Outrage from the Athenian audience, therefore, seems almost inevitable. As Sir Francis Bacon put it,
Narratives made up for the stage are neater and more elegant than true stories from history, and are the sort of things people prefer.
Sophocles’ audience wanted a recreation of a by-gone age of heroes, not an unfamiliar view that challenged it. Yet this is exactly what Teukros does, redirecting the audience’s contemporary views on myths onto themselves. Sarcasm in the play’s script played over Ajax’s body, which would have shocked the audience more than anything else, and aristocrats watching the play would have felt greatly uneasy seeing Teukros’s great contempt and siding with kings Agamemnon and Menelaus. Everyone else would have been thrilled to see the portrayal of Menelaus, the Spartan king they loved to hate. To summarise, what the fifth century audience would be seeing was less of a tragedy and more of a politically, civically and ethos-challenging drama, very much its own unique experience altogether.
[ABOVE: The Roman Belvedere Torso, depicting Ajax, carved in the 1st century BC, copied from a Greek original from the 2nd century BC. Now held in the Museo Pio-Clementino, Vatican Museums]
Shifting tones from an aristocratic, heroic ethos to a democratic one would suggest narrative progress. However, within the heroic ethos, Tekmessa, who tried to convince Ajax not to commit suicide, speaks with grand authority. Her royal line, her concubine relation to the hero and her sôphrosunê (the Greek ideal of the excellence of character) clarified by the Chorus, rightly earn her that. However, in the more democratic air that follows Teukros, this all falls absent as she remains silent. She must come to defend Ajax’s body alongside her son, Eurysakes. The fact that women had no say in democratic fifth century BC Athens reflects this.
All Ajax had to offer in terms of paternal nurturing and mentoring was placing his son’s hand into the monster shield loop which the boy could not bear, but Ajax could. Teukros had humanising depths to himself. Being a good mentor unlike Ajax and organising his funeral procession, Teukros spoke to the young, speechless Eurysakes,
You too, boy, with what strength you can muster, and with love, put your hand on him and help me, I need your help to lift your father’s body.
Sophocles’s envisioned ending isn’t one of justification, judgement, blame or praise, rather one of a socio-political way of living. Hard as that goal may be, Odysseus does come to feel great pity for the deluded, deceased Ajax, despite their previous feud which resulted in Ajax trying to kill Odysseus. Odysseus reflects that their shared characteristics as humans trumped all other previous feuds and doing all he could to let his funeral go ahead, against Agamemnon’s wishes. As Odysseus puts it,
‘Right’ means not what is expedient, but what human beings as human beings ought to do. One day, I will have the same need.
WOMEN OF TRAKHIS
Women of Trakhis stars Deianeira, a wife of Heracles. While Heracles dealt with his gruelling Twelve Labours, causing her great anxiety and making her fear that their love was drying up, Deianeira puts up with his overly-masculine conduct, however her actions ultimately come to destroy them both. In the late fifth century, Heracles was widely worshipped as a cult-figure-like god, known for being one who could slay any beast invented for him to kill yet having an overblown ego and lust for vengeance. Sophocles undermines accounts that held Heracles’ selflessness by noting the accounts of his brutality and crimes just as much, recounting him in a far more balanced light. When Heracles does finally appear in Sophocles’ play, the hero is writhing in an acid-smeared robe, yet the author makes it easy for his audience to feel sorry for him.
[ABOVE: "Hercules on his Funeral Pyre" engraving by Hans Sebald Beham, 1546]
In early versions of myths surrounding Heracles, Deianeira is a largely shadowy, unspoken-of figure. In making her the centre character here, Sophocles successfully dramatises ancient Greece’s destructive hero cult fascination. He turns this woman into one of the most realistic and sympathetic characters in Greek drama, while showing Heracles as ego-fuelled and cruel. The play opens with Deianeira, telling of how hard it is loving the best man alive. She quotes an old saying:
You don’t know your own life, whether it’s good or evil, not until it’s over.” Mine I know now. It’s unlucky and it’s harsh.
She resents Heracles’ recent fifteen month absence, but when she soon comes to confront Iole, a good-looking young aristocratic slave woman sent ahead to be his third wife, she tolerates his sexual exploits and conquests no longer. Struggling to reconcile any passion, Deianeira, remembering a love charm granted to her that would work on someone so as to not make them love anyone else ever, decides to use this charm on Heracles. The charm was given to her by a centaur, who rubbed his blood into the written charm, stating that the blood, upon being touched, would make the charm work. Deianeira therefore had the blood rubbed into a robe, sending it off to Heracles as a house-warming gift. Upon making contact with the robe, Heracles was inflicted horribly; his epitomising of the warrior culture is rendered useless by a frail woman. Both craving and fearing his passion, Deianeira stabs herself in the heart.
[ABOVE: Etching depicting Deianira being captured by the centaur, Nessus]
Deianeira did not resent Heracles’ other women, but just did not wish to share a roof with both Heracles and another women for it would be too much for her to bear. Instead of letting Iole speak for herself, likely leading to a stand-off between her and Deianeira, Sophocles shows his lover as evidently intimidated, incapable of speaking. Iole was instead brought to Trakhis against her will. Her silence coupled with Deianeira’s pity towards her give the audience a chance to focus on the growing conflict between a dedicated wife and a husband married to his own legends.
[ABOVE: "Deianira" by Evelyn De Morgan, 1878]
Our notion of what a hero is today is quite different from an ancient Greek’s. Our idea of great men placing themselves in harm’s way to accomplish something glorious contradicts an ancient Greek’s, picturing overtly violent and angry men going to whatever odds necessary to finish their tasks, often seeing this as a divine attribute. Zeus will grant Heracles immortality after Heracles evaluates his own life. In conversation with his son Hyllos, Heracles tells of what it cost to keep Greece safe from outside savage tribes, and how much of a toll his years performing the Twelve Labours took on him. Evidencing their abandonment of him, Heracles explains to Hyllos that the Olympians didn’t protect him from Deianeira’s lethal gift, and didn’t allow himself to enact his wanted revenge onto her, to which Hyllos explains why Heracles doesn’t deserve to be able to take revenge:
You wouldn’t hate her if you knew. Her good intentions hurt you - that’s the truth. When she saw the woman who’s in our house, she used love medicine to keep you. It went wrong.
Realising, Heracles obsesses over himself and his own shame of being defeated by a woman, calling himself a “miserable creature” and taking zero regret or responsibility for Deianeira’s jealousy over Iole. He instead imposes a series of his own Labours onto Hyllos, forcing him to swear to Zeus that he’ll carry them out. Heracles first wished for his son to carry him to Mount Oita in Lamia, central Greece, and burn him alive atop a pyre. Going against Hyllos’s wishes, Heracles compromises, saying Hyllos should build the pyre but that lighting it could be left to someone else, named Philoktetes from another of Sophocles’s plays. Horrified, Hills agrees, before agreeing to marry Iole too. Before carrying his father’s body to Lamia, Hyllos gives a defiant speech:
Lift him up, friends. Forgive me
for what I am about to do.
But look at the cruelty of what
the ruthless gods have done
to us - the Gods who we call
our fathers, whose children we are -
and yet how coolly they watch us suffer.
No one foresees the future,
but our present is awaited with grief
that shames even the gods, and pain
beyond anything we can know
strikes this man who now meets his doom.
Women, don’t cower in the house.
Come with us. You’ve just seen death
and devastating calamity, but
you’ve seen nothing that is not Zeus.
Hyllos shows great grief for Heracles’ pain, just not for losing him. In condemning the gods’ cruelty, Hyllos expresses great distress in Heracles’ treatment of him, concluding by blaming Zeus for his father’s misfortunes. This would not have been seen as impious to Sophocles’ audience; the gods’s cruelty was well discussed and a regular part of their stories. Women of Trakhis, amongst Sophocles’s other plays, would contribute in the eroding popularity of Zeus and the Olympians in their ever-growing cruelty in favour of the idea of more compassionate deities over time.
[ABOVE: Heracles, Deianira and Nessus, depicted on a black-figure hydria, 575 - 550 BC. Now held in the Louvre, Paris]
PHILOKTETES
First performed in 409 BC when Sophocles was 87 years old, the play follows the titular character after his abandonment on the isle of Lemnos by Odysseus and the Greeks before the siege of Troy. Ten years later, the war is coming to an end and now Odysseus and his men realise they cannot take the city without Philoktetes and his bow, granted to him by Heracles, or without the son of the then-dead Achilles, Neoptolemos. Philoktetes, however, would rather kill Odysseus himself than rejoin the Greeks at Troy. Neoptolemos must therefore entice Philoktetes back while being stuck at sea, struggling with shifting and ever-mixing feelings towards each other, while Odysseus, the cleverest amongst the Greek army, utilises any means possible to complete his task.
[ABOVE: Philoktetes at Lemnos, depicted on a red-figure Attic squat lekythos]
In a way, this play is multiple plays in one. Philoktetes and Neoptolemus’s drives are what they want to achieve and their unbidden psychologies. Odysseus’s task to Neoptolemus makes him have to balance between being himself in order to achieve his commander's wishes, and playing a version of himself that can win over the trust of Philoktetes, whose visceral pressure mixed with his mis of fatherly kindness and bitter hostility, will eventually wear Neoptolemus down. Interestingly, there are no off-stage events carrying the play; everything is very in your face, in the moment, and very personally.
Philoktetes is a discarded veteran of the Trojan War. The play portrays him as a typically old man, what with his sickliness, odour and occasional drunkenness, however he is no expendable character; Menelaus and Agamemnon cannot win their war without his skills, and the times necessitated the aged wisdom people at his stage in life offered. He cares for those he knew of in the war, asking if any know the fates of his friend Nestor, wondering what life would be like with good men like Nestor, Achilles and Ajax gone while men who he claims should be dead, like Odysseus still live.
Odysseus’s goal isn’t evil, but rather understandable; his wish is simply to unite Philoktetes with his bow in order to bring the war to as swift an end as possible. However his means of doing so are historically and culturally non-integral, making him very untrustworthy. His goal is to bring Philoktetes in via Neoptolemus, and the two are polar opposites of each other. Their polar opposite personas meet and act together within the soulless plain that is not the isle of Lemnos, but the ever-present cynicalness of Odysseus. Philoktetes wants help but refuses it, wants to leave Lemnos but won’t - he’s stubborn, to say the least.
Given his old physical state, what with his pus-filled foot, short-sighted eyes, fever, combined with his solitude, Philoktetes vests Lemnos, his afflictions and his body with vital existences each of their own. This, often taken as personification, is the antithesis of that, stemming from relations to nature that respects its self-driven integrity. With this, one can appreciate the power Philoktetes draws from the natural world of Lemnos that would otherwise fall to desolation through his great will to live on. His decision to stay instead of return to Troy, then, makes sense.
[ABOVE: "Philoctetes on Lemnos", by Jean-Germain Drouais, 1788]
Socially, his decision is also wrong. His self-isolation dilutes his civic duty to help his friends. It takes Heracles to socialise the ground he stands on, giving them staying power by historicising them. Heracles’ bow shows off their mutual history, for is was Philoktetes who lit Heracles’ funeral pyre, when no one else would do it for him.
Philoktetes was first performed four years after the Sicilian Expedition finished, and two years after the Oligarchic Coup of 411 BC. While democracy was restored the next year, the ongoing civil strife foreshadowed the end of the Delian League, which would come in only five years time with the siege of Athens and the instalment of the Thirty Tyrants. Given the tumultuous time, Heracles speaks very much to the audience as much, if not more, than he does to Philoktetes. Reaching deeper than the ongoing factionalism of the time, Heracles gives the final word on what is holy and right, as ordained by Zeus, telling Philoktetes what’s required of him and predicting his cure and success at Troy. More importantly, Heracles demonstrates to him the attitude he must have in victory:
You will sack Troy and be honoured
with the choicest spoils. Bring these
home with you to the Titan highlands
to please your father, Poias. The other
spoils such as common soldiers get
lay on my funeral pyre: as a tribute
to my bow.
A most illustrious of soldiers, Heracles aligns himself with the ordinary soldier, putting his aristocratic background behind him - how could anyone else do less?
As for Neoptolemus, coming of age with his ambition, righteousness and youth mellowed by Philoktetes and growing morally conscient. Heracles speaks for him too, speaking of him to Philoktetes:
Yes remember, when
you sack Troy show piety toward all things
relating to the gods. To Zeus, nothing
matters more. The sacred don’t die
when men do. Whether they live or die,
holiness endures.
Some values are sacralised, transcending the moment and outlasting all factions. Even as Heracles makes this pronounced, the audience knew the youth they watched fittingly blossom into a decent, feeling man will become known for his savagery at Troy, such as when he comes to kill Troy’s king, Priam at the Altar of Zeus, after Achilles, his father, spared his life. Asking then if nothing is to be sacred is answered by the end of Sophocles’ life, and at the very tail end of the Athenian Empire.
ELEKTRA
This play is centred around revenge, as our titular character and her brother Orestes seek vengeance against Clytemnestra, and her lover Aegisthus, for the murder of her husband and their father, king Agamemnon. Alongside them is the Elder, a trusted slave mentor to Orestes. Orestes himself was just a boy when his father returned from war, only to have his skull caved open with an axe. Fearing for her brother’s life, Elektra entrusted Orestes to the Elder, who took him safely away into exile in north Greece, to the home of a man named Pylades. Elektra, living in misery, must now await the return of her brother to avenge their father and kill Clytemnestra and Aegisthus, who later marry and come to rule over Mycenae.
[ABOVE: Electra and Orestes, from Project Gutenberg, 2005]
The Elder has to let the two younger men know what ordeal faces them. Their plans must be in place before everyone in the Mycenaean palace awaken. Encouraged to take charge, Orestes devises a strategy, taking precautions in knowing that his return may be expected. Orestes tells the Elder to disguise himself as a messenger, carrying false news of Orestes’ death to lower the rulers’s guards, allowing Orestes and Pylades to kill them. Orestes becomes uneasy during the plan, concerned that pretending to be dead may lead to it becoming a reality. His real goal in the assassination, however, is not revenge, but to take the gold Clytemnestra stole.
[ABOVE: "Electra at the Tomb of Agamemnon", by Frederic Leighton, c.1869]
“Help one’s friends, harm one’s enemies” was a common maxim for people of fifth century BC Athens. However Sophocles points out that vengeance is a never-ending cycle. In portraying Orestes as a cold materialist and Elektra as brave yet deranged for revenge, Sophocles is discouraging revenge, accepting vengeance as a sacred obligation which ennobles anyone who undertakes it.
[ABOVE: Orestes, Electra and Hermes at the tomb of Agamemnon, depicted on a red-figure Lucanian pelike, c.380 - 370 BC. Now held in the Louvre, Paris]
The play’s first third is taken up by Clytemnestra and Elektra who both invoke their justifications for their homicidal vengeance. Clytemnestra sees it as justified, since Agamemnon once had their daughter, Iphigenia, sacrificed to please Artemis in order to gain their favour during the Trojan War. Elektra states otherwise, saying it was a military necessity. While both stand from a point of “an eye for an eye, a life for a life,” both of them ignore principle and evidence, as they cannot hide their antipathies. Sophocles highlights that sanctioning revenge is impossible by just debate and sanction. Revenge only comes from blind hatred, immune to logic and morality.
[ABOVE: Orestes at Delphi, flanked by the goddess Athena and the prince Pylades among priestesses of the Delphic Oracle, depicted on a red-figure Paestan bell-krater, c.330 BC]
When the Elder tells Clytemnestra of Orestes’ “death”, Elektra is devastated while Clytemnestra is overjoyed. Orestes encourages Elektra by revealing the plan to her in secret, however her overjoyed reaction forces him to silence her; Elektra’s grip on reality is fading and her oblivion to danger ever-growing. The Elder remains intent on the goal of killing Clytemnestra while Elektra and Orestes remain distracted over their reunion. Audiences of the time were familiar with these characters, having only recently been exposed to Aeschylus’ “Oresteia” trilogy. Sophocles branches off from Aeschylus by allowing Elektra to become fully absorbed by vengeance. The play’s chorus supports Elektra but disapproves of her conduct, who in turn comes to accept that it has all unbalanced her:
How could I be calm
and rational? Or god-fearing?
Sisters… I’m so immersed
in all this evil, how
could I not be evil too?
Sophocles’ greatest departure from Aeschylus is the exclusion of the Furies, who punish and haunt kin killers. They appear and swarm in Aeschylus’ “The Eumenides”, chasing Orestes across Greece until Athena herself intervenes, allowing Orestes to cleanse himself of pollution at the Oracle of Delphi. Sophocles, however, saw that while jurors and priests can absolve murderers from guilt, they can’t undo the mental damage of the killer. One theory by R.P. Winnington-Ingram suggests that Elektra and Orestes are proxy-Furies, as they pursue and punish Clytemnestra and Aegisthus. By taking revenge, the siblings, once “agents”, later become “victims” of the Furies, as their continuation of the cycle of violence will inevitably come around to haunt them again, or perhaps their descendants down the line.
[ABOVE: "Orestes Pursued by the Furies", by William-Adolphe Bouguereau, 1862]
Throughout the play, Orestes hints that his part in the plot to fake his death may backfire, or that in trying to get revenge he may become a victim of it. Firstly, he meets an old friend who served in the war, who too was mistakenly reported as killed in action, who returns home to find himself revered. Secondly, when Elektra is presented with an urn she is told are her brother’s ashes, she comes to savour the effects of his death on others. Finally, Aegisthus comes to realise that Orestes is in fact still alive and after him and his wife, this being a metaphor of how those once murdered emerge from death to get revenge.
[ABOVE: The murder of Aegisthus by Orestes and Pylades, depicted on a red-figure Apulian oinochoe (wine jug), c.430 - 300 BC]
Orestes may have the final word, yet Aegisthus’ ominous prediction conveys unwelcoming truths: that Greek blood feuds only bring an end to all. Orestes believes that killing them both will discourage evils, yet Aegisthus remains stating that the two siblings will keep their house and family cursed, reinforcing revenge’s self-perpetuation being. The play’s abrupt end leaves the audience pondering on what Orestes and Elektra have to celebrate.
OEDIPUS REX
This is almost undoubtedly Sophocles’ most famous play, in which a man kills his father and marries and sleeps with his mother… buckle in.
[ABOVE: Fragmentary papyri shards of Oedipus Rex, 4th century BC. Part of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri]
Having its origins possibly as far back as Homer’s days, many poets alike adored the story, trying their own hands at it, including Sophocles’ co-tragedians Aeschylus and Euripides. Aristotle was enamoured by Sophocles’ version, citing it as the finest example of the art of a playwright. Even today, it sparks debate: is Oedipus truly innocent, even when prophesied by Apollo to commit patricide and incest? What does Oedipus Rex say about divine nature, family and people’s psyche? And how should people define “the ultimate tragedy” if it isn’t this?
In the late fifth century BC, the majority of Greeks believed their fates were bound to a daimon, divinities that presided over everyone’s lives. The Greek word for happiness, “εὐδαιμονία”, “eudaemonia”, literally means “well-daimoned”, implying that one so blessed may well be well-protected. Yet daimons could just as easily devastate people and their entire families. One question Oedipus comes to have is whether his destiny is in his, Apollo’s, or his daimon’s control. Sophocles deploys metaphors to answer this, firstly a common Greek metaphor for a king: that he is a helmsman encountering trouble at sea, an image that supports our confidence in a leader handling threats from a god.
Nearly all in the play come to view Oedipus as a brave sailor. However, his intellect proves no use for the dangers he comes to face. Oedipus Rex’s second metaphor appears through a line of images which portray the daimon as a dynamic force, striking, leaping and/or plunging straight for its targets. While Oedipus commits to each act of violence, the audiences would see the daimon taking him down present for every blow Oedipus gives or takes, also seeing every blow he gave to someone else as one given to himself. Thus, with his attack on his father, his consultation of the Delphic Oracle, the sexual tension mounting with his own mother, and his self-blinding towards the play’s end, and his search for his true father - these all take a physical toll on Oedipus’ proactivity, right up until it ruins him; Apollo makes Oedipus both his weapon and his victim, while the daimon lurks ever-presently in the play.
Oedipus Rex (literally, “Oedipus the King”) opens with Oedipus as king of Thebes. Fifteen years have passed since Apollo revealed his secret to Oedipus, who then refused to return to his birth city of Corinth. Going to Thebes, Oedipus kills a man, King Laios of Thebes, who was attacking him, leaving the rest of Laios’ travel company for dead too. When Oedipus risks his life to rid Thebes of a Sphinx which tortured the city, the grateful citizens asked of him to take up the kingship. Accepting, he marries Laios’ widow, Jokasta, and the two would come to have four children.
[ABOVE: Oedipus after solving the riddle of the Sphinx, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1864. Now held in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore]
A later plague outbreak striking Thebes requires solving the mystery around Laios’ murder. As an investigator, Oedipus refers to himself in the investigation as “the hunter”. Growing closer towards discovering his responsibility, the audience comes to realise that Oedipus is in fact the one being hunted, feeling the Damon’s effects in the first scene as Oedipus reveals to the Thebans that while they are all plague-stricken, none are more-so than he. The Damon’s effects are felt stronger even as Jokasta’s brother Kreon describes his brother’s disappearance:
He told us his journey would take him
into god’s presence. He never came back.
The word expanded and translated with the phrase “take him into god’s presence” is theoros which typically refers to a devotee or pilgrim who partakes in a rite. Using this word, Kreon is implying that Laios’ destination before his disappearance was Delphi, yet in not naming it directly, Sophocles can use theoros inclusively to suggest that “god’s presence” is manifest in an on-the-road confrontation, or when consulting the Oracle.
[ABOVE: "The Murder of Laïus by Oedipus" by Joseph Blanc, 1867. Now held in the Ecole Nacionale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris]
While Jokasta is giving a speech to prove Oedipus’ innocence, she instead supplies information which proves his guilt. A long time ago, a prophecy declared:
that Laios was destined to die
at the hands of a son born to him and me.
Yet, as rumour had it, foreign bandits
killed Laios at a place where three roads meet.
Hearing these words strikes Oedipus a deadly blow, which Jokasta notices and asks him about. He replies,
Just now, something you said made my heart race.
Something… I remember… wakes up terrified.
He goes on to tell her of how he departed from Corinth, visited Delphi and killed a man along the way.
The play’s suspenseful plot, brilliant characterisations, eloquence and terrifying subject set it apart. Oedipus Rex’ growing intensity is also worth discussing. Well into the play, it becomes understood that Apollo’s Delphic priests told Oedipus of a looming threat to his parents, that their newborn would kill his father. Jokasta and Laios took preventive measures when they gave their child to a shepherd, giving him instructions to expose the child on a mountainside far from Thebes. Feeling great compassion, the shepherd instead refused, giving the child instead to another shepherd from Corinth. Apollo was perfectly willing to use human kindness against his victims.
Oedipus, meanwhile, conceptualises his task of finding Laios’ killers:
Unless I can mesh some clue I hold
with something known of the killer, I will
be tracking him alone, on a cold trail.
Symbolon, meaning “clue", was an object, typically a pot shard (ostrakon) which fit with another like it to form a message brought about by, sometimes, a stranger or to reunite those who were long lost from each other. Simply using the word symbolon, Sophocles brings about the context of a child looking for his long lost parents. As the play’s action unfolds, Oedipus will mesh several clues, yet the decisive fit takes place when two men meet after several years: a compassionate Theban herdsman and his Corinthian shepherd friend, who took the child and sought to have him raised by King Polybos of Corinth.
[ABOVE: Greek amphora depicting Oedipus and the Sphinx, c.450 - 440 BC. Now held at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston]
This very Corinthian would be the one to bring news that proved Apollo’s prophecy wrong: Polybos, the father that Oedipus thought Apollo predicted would kill him, has died, leaving Oedipus as his heir. Now, the reunion of the Corinthian herdsmen, both of whom admitted to their actions earlier, link Oedipus’ Theban-based birth to his Corinthian life as Laios and Jokasta’s son. In the flesh, the two Corinthian shepherds are Oedipus’ symbolon that he believed right from the play’s beginning that he must find. Now he’s combined this final clue with its other half, Oedipus sees his incest and murder as a part of a divinely-ordained whole, with the audience seeing it as a set of events that wouldn’t have happened if someone didn’t take pity on a small boy who was left to die. Although this sort of compassion isn’t held by everyone, it does come from a healthy family’s environment. Any unforgivable act against family love drive the plots of all Athenian dynastic plays of the time.
[ABOVE: "Oedipus and Antigone" by Charles Jalabert, 1842]
Oedipus refuses to forgive himself for the murder and incest. He sees no escape from the loving and unloving crushing embrace of his family, leading Oedipus to his most shocking imaginative leap: he states that the sexual act of marriage, the act that creates families, is humanity’s self-immolation:
O marriages! You marriages! You created us,
we sprang to life, then from the same seed
you burst fathers, brothers, sons,
kinsmen shedding kinsmen’s blood,
brides and mothers and wives — the most loathsome
atrocities that strike mankind.
Wherever danger is most present, love’s bonds are strongest. Oedipus is aware that he’s suffered the most, while also stating that every person is as easily susceptible. He comes to see that love, that causes this pain, is Apollo’s irresistible weapon he uses against him. He’s the victim of his own loyalties, through which Apollo can control his choices and responses.
[ABOVE: "The Blind Oedipus Commeding his Children to the Gods", by Bénigne Gagneraux, 1784. Now held in Stockholm's National Museum]
Oedipus, in grief, foresees his daughter’s looming lonely future. Taking his daughters into his arms, the audience sees the result of the incest here: the father’s arms are the brother’s. Sophocles shifts the audience’s attention towards what is left of his family instead of on the gods. Oedipus’ love becomes as palpable to the viewer and reader as his intelligence, energy and wrath, and his special relation with divinity. This side towards his character is forefront in the viewer’s minds when the play ends, reminding them of the truth lost in the drama’s fury, that the intensity of his love towards his city and family underlies his misery’s intensity, and is as full a partner in his destruction as divinity.
OEDIPUS AT KOLONOS
Sophocles’ hometown of Kolonos was a luscious country village just a mile north from Athens. The tragedian sets Oedipus here in his next play, having him raised through years of poverty, blindness and exile. In this play, Oedipus is older and frailer, yet still very much recognisable as his vengeful and fearless old self. Traits from his childhood still energise his older self as he recalls his earlier conduct. Only towards his journey’s end, towards the afterlife which is when Apollo promised would make him stand out, does Oedipus become a gentler and more caring person.
[ABOVE: "Oedipus at Colonus", by Jean-Antoine-Théodore-Giroust, 1788. Now held in the Dallas Museum of Art]
The Greek word for grace and favour given by men and gods to needy, damaged and worthy people is charis. By setting the play right at the edge of a sacred grove adorned with much luscious plant life, Sophocles created a physical setting wherein men and the gods can and do converge, one that creates the space where both pay respects and offer charis to one another. Charis becomes a presence on the stage, its promise becoming more relevant when the drama takes centre stage.
Within the sacred groves of the Eumenides, Oedipus shall find the rebirth and mercy Apollo once promised for him at Delphi, when as a young man he was told he would kill his father and his mother would bare his offspring. In the grove, Oedipus grows into a revered hero. As classicist John Gould states,
Nowhere else in Greek tragedy does the primitively mysterious power of boundaries and thresholds, the ‘extraterritoriality’ of the sacred, make itself felt with the fierce precision that Sophocles achieves.
A sense of primitive dread from the grove’s godly inhabitants can be sensed immediately. Guided by Antigone, Oedipus hides himself in the trees while the chorus comes on stage, and the Old Men denounce him. With the choir, the old men attempt to escape by lowering their eyes and walking away, fearing making contact with the Furies, making only silent prayers as even uttering the name of the Furies was forbidden.
Oedipus emerged from the trees to the Old Men, giving himself up. He will not go back in until a godly voice calls him back in at the play’s end. In dramatising Oedipus’ claim to deserve the gods’ charis, Sophocles explores the idea that a hero’s death is a paradigm for the full empowerment of the human spirit. Oedipus enters Kolonos as a broken exile, yet he is also resolute and defiant. He recalls his past without shame, insisting that he did not sin knowingly, and therefore bears no guilt, only suffering unjustly imposed by the gods’ will.
Throughout the play, Oedipus transitions from seeker to prophet. His death, he claims, will sanctify the land that accepts him, turning pollution into protection. As both victim and agent of divine purpose, Oedipus assumes the role of a hero in death, similar to cult figures in Greek religion whose burial sites brought strength to the cities that venerated them. Sophocles here inverts the tragic arc: Oedipus’ death is not a punishment but a reward, a chance to assert moral authority and leave a legacy. The gods’ promise, long elusive, now nears fulfilment.
[ABOVE: "Oedipus at Colonus" by Fulchran-Jean Harriet, 1798]
Oedipus is courted by both Thebes and Athens, each seeking to claim his burial site. His native Thebes, under his sons Eteocles and Polyneices, is torn by civil war, and both seek divine favour through their father’s bones. Theseus, king of Athens, offers refuge and protection, guided by compassion and justice. Sophocles presents Athens as a moral exemplar, upholding piety, law, and mercy in contrast to Thebes’ corruption and betrayal. Through Theseus, Athens is shown as the city of charis, capable of granting redemption and honour to the suffering. The portrayal likely resonated with Athenian audiences facing wartime hardship, reinforcing the city’s moral identity amid chaos.
As the play concludes, Oedipus is called into the grove by divine signs—thunder, lightning, and a voice only he can hear. He blesses his daughters, especially Antigone, whose loyalty and love have sustained him. Accompanied by Theseus, he walks alone into the sacred space and disappears, never to be seen again.
A voice summoned him… not of man but of god. And so he passed… to that place where no mortal may tread, and the earth sealed him in grace.
His death without witness, unmarked by grave or tomb, ensures that his memory becomes sacred—a source of strength to Athens and a final vindication of a life long burdened by divine wrath.
Written at the end of Sophocles’ life, Oedipus at Kolonos is both a personal farewell and a vision of redemption. It reflects on old age, suffering, and the quest for meaning, offering hope that grace can be found, even for the most afflicted. It is also a political statement, praising Athens’ capacity for mercy and justice, a city that embraces the outcast and transforms suffering into sanctity. Sophocles leaves behind not just a tragedy, but a spiritual testament: that through endurance, acceptance, and honour, the human spirit can transcend even divine punishment, achieving peace and purpose at life’s end.
ANTIGONE
Set after the events of Oedipus at Kolonos, Antigone is the final act of Theban tragedy, focusing not on gods or kings, but on a young woman’s defiance of power. In this play, personal duty, divine law, and civic authority collide, raising questions about morality, governance, and individual conscience—themes that resonated deeply with an Athens divided by war and political strife.
First performed around 441 BC, Antigone emerged during a period of Athenian expansion and internal tension. The Delian League had morphed into an empire, Athens was at the height of its power, and Pericles was reshaping the city’s political landscape. Yet this grandeur was shadowed by the looming threat of conflict with Sparta, and debates about authority, law, and freedom were central to public life. In Antigone, Sophocles probes these tensions, dramatising the cost of rigid rule and unyielding resistance.
[ABOVE: "Antigone on the Side of Polynices", by Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant, 1868. Now held in the Musée des Augustins, Toulouse]
Following the civil war between Eteocles and Polyneices, both sons of Oedipus lie dead. Creon, now king of Thebes, decrees that Eteocles shall be honoured, while Polyneices, branded a traitor, must remain unburied—a fate worse than death in Greek thought. To leave a body unburied was to deny the soul peace, condemning it to wander eternally. Antigone, sister to both men, refuses to obey. Guided by divine law and familial piety, she buries her brother’s body in secret, openly defying Creon’s edict. Her act of moral rebellion is not driven by ambition or vengeance, but by a sense of justice rooted in religious duty and personal honour.
[ABOVE: "Antigone in Front of the Dead Polynices", by Nikiforos Lytras, 1865]
At the heart of the play is the clash between Antigone and Creon, between unwritten divine laws and man-made civic order. Antigone insists that the gods’ laws supersede any mortal decree:
Nor did I think your edicts strong enough / to overrule the unwritten, unchanging laws / of the gods.
Creon, meanwhile, upholds the primacy of the state, believing that obedience ensures stability, especially after war. He fears that leniency will invite chaos, and sees Antigone’s defiance as an existential threat to his rule. Sophocles does not paint either figure as wholly right or wrong. Antigone’s unyielding stance leads to her death, and Creon’s stubbornness destroys his family. His son Haemon, betrothed to Antigone, pleads for mercy, warning Creon that tyranny isolates leaders:
A man, though wise, should never be ashamed / to learn, and to bend when times demand.
Creon refuses. Antigone is entombed alive, and tragedy unfolds swiftly. Haemon dies by suicide, followed by Creon’s wife Eurydice, leaving the king broken and alone. His epiphany comes too late, as he realises the folly of inflexible rule:
It is right to learn, when one has erred. / Stubbornness and pride / are the twin evils of a ruler.
In fifth-century Athens, Antigone spoke to real anxieties about governance, law, and the limits of authority. Creon’s absolutism echoes the fears Athenians held about tyranny, while Antigone’s defiance evokes the city’s cherished ideal of freedom of conscience. Yet, Sophocles warns that extremes—whether of power or principle—can be destructive. Antigone’s martyrdom is noble, but tragic; her refusal to compromise leads to needless death. Creon’s rigidity, meanwhile, undermines the very order he seeks to preserve. Amid Athens’ own debates about law, imperial power, and individual rights, Antigone serves as a cautionary tale. It asks: when is it just to obey the law, and when must it be resisted? How can a state balance order with compassion, and how do rulers avoid becoming tyrants in pursuit of control?
[ABOVE: Antigone being acptured and arrested for the burial of her brother, Polynices, depicted by Sébastien Norblin, 1825. Now held in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris]
Antigone endures because it addresses universal dilemmas: family vs state, divine law vs human law, conscience vs duty. Sophocles explores these conflicts without offering easy answers, instead inviting the audience to grapple with complexity. The play’s tragedy lies not in villainy, but in flawed humanity. Both Antigone and Creon are principled yet inflexible, driven by duty yet blind to consequence. Their collision is inevitable, and through it, Sophocles challenges all audiences to reflect on power, justice, and moral courage.
Sophocles lived through Athens’ greatest triumphs and deepest trials, witnessing the city’s golden age, the horrors of plague, the Sicilian disaster, and the Peloponnesian War’s ruinous end. Born around 497 BC and living into his nineties, he outlasted many of his contemporaries, including Aeschylus and Euripides, and became a revered figure not just in theatre, but in Athenian civic life. He served as a general alongside Pericles, held the priesthood of Asclepius, and enjoyed wide public acclaim throughout his life.
Of the over 120 plays Sophocles is said to have written, only seven survive in full. Yet these plays are sufficient to secure his place as one of history’s greatest dramatists. They showcase a mastery of form and character, a deep empathy for human suffering, and an unyielding engagement with the moral and political challenges of his time.
[ABOVE: Dutch actor Louis Bouwmeester as Oedipus, c.1896]
Sophocles refined Greek tragedy into its most sophisticated form, introducing innovations like the third actor and expanded chorus, but his true legacy lies in his depiction of humanity. His characters are not mere puppets of fate, but complex individuals, struggling with choice, duty, and consequence. His tragedies explore the tension between human will and divine order, between personal conscience and civic law, between heroic ideals and democratic reality.
[ABOVE: Actor Vittorio Gassman depicting Oedipus, shown in the Teatro Manzoni theatre, Milan]
In an age of warfare, political upheaval, and societal change, Sophocles offered his fellow Athenians a mirror to their own condition—a chance to reflect on the fragility of power, the cost of pride, and the endurance of suffering and compassion. He did not preach or dictate; he posed questions, inviting audiences to “know themselves” and to confront the complexities of life, death, and justice.
[ABOVE: Roman mosaic of Sophocles, discovered in 1844 underneath a garden. Mosaic now held in the Romano-Germanic Museum, Cologne, Germany]
More than two millennia later, his plays remain profoundly relevant, their themes timeless, their characters enduring symbols of human resilience and fallibility. Through suffering and endurance, Sophocles’ heroes reveal the depths of the human spirit—and through his artistry, he bequeathed to the world a dramatic legacy unmatched in influence and power.
Next Post: EURIPIDES, 480 - 406 BC: The Tragic Tragedian
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SOURCES
- "The Complete Plays of Sophocles, a New Translation" by Robert Bagg and James Scully
- Sophocles, "Antigone", translated by Don Taylor
YOUTUBE LINKS
(I do NOT own these videos)
"Classics Summarized: Oedipus Rex" by "Overly Sarcastic Productions"
"Oedipus the King - Sophocles - So You Haven't Read" by "Extra History"
"The Story of Oedipus (Complete) - Greek Mythology" by "See U in History / Mythology"
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