Actors and conspirators: civic anxiety in late Attic tragedy

In the year 411 BC, Athens endured a brief but violent political revolution at a moment when the city’s fortunes were declining in the late stage of the Peloponnesian War. This “coup of 411” was driven by a relatively small number of oligarchic sympathizers who conspired in secret to overthrow the democratic Athenian government and install themselves at the head of a new oligarchic regime, that, they believed, would secure desperately needed aid from the Persian Empire against their Spartan enemies. For all of the civic turbulence these oligarchic conspirators caused, their government collapsed after only a few months and Athenian citizens were left to reinstall their fragile democracy. In the aftermath of the coup of 411 (and other conspiracies that preceded it) the citizens of Athens were particularly agitated by the possibility that other conspiracies may have been active in the city, and there is evidence that a sense of mutual suspicion was pervasive. And yet, in spite of the political upheaval many of Athens’ civic and cultural institutions remained active – including the annual celebration of the City Dionysia, the festival that served as the venue for the production of Greek tragedy. As a genre, Greek tragedy is keenly sensitive to the civic experiences of its audience, and symbiotically it is informed by and helps its audience process the political realities in existence outside of the theater. As it happens, three tragedies – Euripides’ Phoenissae (410 BC), Sophocles’ Philoctetes (409 BC), and Euripides’ Orestes (408 BC) – survive from these apprehensive years in Athens, and each depicts the formation and implementation of a conspiracy alongside all of the ethical complexities conspirators raise. After closely examining the languge at critical moments in all three plays, I conclude that these dramas helped Athenian citizens contemplate the answers to questions still lingerieng in the city: namely, how co-conspirators or political allies can make distinctions between trustworthy and untrustworthy citizens, and the efficacy for those engaged in conspiracies to provide safety for those under their protection.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Scott Asher William Barnar