The Role of the Plague in the Tragedy of Athens.

Authors Avatar

The Role of the Plague in the Tragedy of Athens

Despair, hopelessness, lawlessness, loss of religion, custom and culture, total moral decay and chaos... It is indeed incredible how a catastrophe such as the plague that occurred in Athens in 430 B.C. could resume what was believed to be a perfect self-sufficient democratic power to an unimaginable collapse of morality on every level. Its effects on the polis and on the people resound in the contemporary writings of the time, which criticize, more or less ironically, the acute growth of human agency within the socio-political and cultural life of the polis, associated with its inevitable shortcomings. Both Thucydides - the historian - and Sophocles – the dramatist - employ the plague in their works, fact that suggests that it had a momentous role to play in the tragedy of Athens. It is important that we analyze the function of the plague within the context of Periclean Athens, when the polis was so blinded by its greatness that it could not see its faults. In his “History of the Peloponnesian War”, Thucydides juxtaposes his factual account of the plague to Pericles’ Funeral Oration that praises the grandeur of Athens with no reference to the gods. For the historian, this juxtaposition and the plague itself are used as tools to criticize the instability of democracy as a form of government that solely relies on the decisions of the self-interested demos, and the tragic repercussions that this implies. Thus, the plague allows him to analyze not only human virtue and honor, but also human response to adversity, and namely democracy’s failure in maintaining order in time of crisis. On the other hand, his contemporary, Sophocles, in the tragedy of “Oedipus Rex” – written shortly after the plague occurred – dramatizes not only Oedipus’ harmatia, but he is highly conscious of the increasing social and political confusion of Periclean Athens. The consequences of the plague make him realize the increasingly cold distance between the humans and the gods, and their diminished and almost inexistent role in the Athenian society. Hence, in “Oedipus Rex”, he ironically evokes that state of despair throughout the plague and reminds people the superiority of the gods and of fate, which can strike and destroy even the most powerful human force. We can thus observe the dichotomy that lies in the assumptions which determine the two writers’ points of view: Thucydides attributes the appearance of the plague to chance, seeing its unpredictable character as a natural calamity, whereas Sophocles focuses on the plague seen as a curse brought on Thebes by Oedipus and his predetermined fate. In spite of this dichotomy, both are concerned with the tragedy of the Athenians who cannot distinguish between appearance and essence, who cannot see for they are blinded by their self-sufficient superiority and sole reliance on human agency and who, because of all this, prove to fail in time of crisis.

Join now!

        In the “History of the Peloponnesian War”, Thucydides gives a factual account of the plague, highlighting the civic crisis and the breakdown of morality it brought about. Being a historian very much influenced by the sophistic movement, he sees the plague as a natural calamity determined by chance and expresses this view through Pericles’ speech: “In fact out of everything else this [the plague] has been the only case of something happening which we did not anticipate.”( 2.64). Completely relying himself on rationality, he gives no credit to the gods as a means of explaining the source of the plague, ...

This is a preview of the whole essay