What, if anything, is particularly Athenian about Greek tragedy?

Authors Avatar

What, if anything, is particularly Athenian

about Greek tragedy?

One could say that the whole institution of Greek tragedy is particularly Athenian; no other polis fostered such a dramatic tradition to the same extent. However, I aim to discuss exactly to what extent such an Athenian background is reflected in tragedy, its origins and its performance. It could be argued that what we call Greek tragedy might just as well have been called Athenian tragedy, since much of what we study, e.g. the famous plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, was staged, written and conceived within Athens.

        To start by looking at tragedy’s origins, one can focus on the word from which tragedy derives, tragōidia. Until recently, the tragos (‘billy goat’) element in this word was understood as referring to the goat-like satyrs in the saturikon (‘satyr play’) from which Aristotle suggested that Athenian tragedy is derived. However, a modern hypothesis, which perhaps has more weight behind it, is that tragōidia means ‘song for the prize goat’ (on the analogy of arnōidos, an earlier term for rhapsōidos [‘rhapsode’], meaning ‘he who sings for the prize lamb’). The competitive aspect of ancient tragedy, emphasised by this etymology, is all important: a tragedian would compete with two other playwrights, each staging three works. This competitive aspect highlights the important social function of tragedy at Athens. For example, it has been estimated that the theatre of Dionysus at Athens may have held around 12,000 people. There is no doubt that such performances would have had a monumental impact not only on Athenian citizens but also on foreigners invited to the polis for the festival, often engaging too in diplomatic meetings. Such a competitive aspect drew the crowds not only to tragedy but to the city of Athens itself.

        As I have briefly mentioned, tragedy in the fifth-century (the period during which most of our attested plays were written) was inexorably linked with the Great Dionysia festival, named such in religious reverence to the god Dionysus. Indeed, it actually comprised two separate festivals, the Rural Dionysia [kat’ agrous Dionysia] and the City Dionysia [en astei Dionysia], at different times of the year: the former took place between December and January, the latter between March and April. The latter festival was the larger one and, accordingly, took place at Athens. It has been argued that this festival was mainly one of entertainment, but it can be seen that it had a clear religious purpose for Athenians, which is linked with tragedy itself. To look, for example, at the eisagōgē apo tēs eskharās [‘the leading in from the sacred hearth’], we can see that the reenactment of the original arrival of Dionysus from Eleutherai invested the city with a religious significance that also invested the subsequent performances with such a significance, unique to Athens and the city’s connection with Dionysus. The connection was that the god had punished the Athens with a plague affecting the male genitals (cf. the annual procession of phalloi), until the Athenians accepted his worship. Tragedy can thus be seen as the result of a  particularly Athenian submission to the revelry and mystery of Bacchus.

Join now!

        Another aspect of this Dionysiac connection can be seen in tragedy’s precursor, the dithyramb. Aristotle says that both tragedy and comedy ‘originated in improvisation’ within a specific Athenian context: ‘The one came from the prelude to the dithyramb and the other from the prelude to the phallic songs which still survive as institutions in many cities’. Although we now believe that tragedy did not evolve from the dithyramb, it is beneficial to note that such dithyrambs were hymns in honour of Dionysus, especially relevant in Athens. The following fragment of Archilochus exemplifies this strong link to Dionysus: ‘I know how to ...

This is a preview of the whole essay