The Nomos Debate in Antigone and Ancient Athens

Abstract

Drama in classical Athens was inexorably linked to political life in ways that seem truly foreign to modern audiences, and the works of master tragedian Sophokles were no exception. Sophokles wrote in the golden age of Greek theater, the mid- to late-fifth century BCE, which was also a time of great political upheaval in Athens. Antigone, one of the most famous works of classical tragedy, takes place in the distant city of Thebes in the mythic past, yet the political issues addressed in the play would have resonated with fifth-century Athenian audiences. Ancient Greek tragedy was fundamentally political in nature, and it simultaneously reinforced and challenged political norms. Antigone addresses one of the great political debates of the age, the conflict between the relatively-new written laws and the age-old customs that had previously governed. The primacy of man-made law was advocated most strongly in the public sphere by Perikles and in Antigone by Kreon. This view is challenged by real-life philosophers like Antiphon the Sophist as well as the fictional Antigone. While Sophokles acknowledges that each party has a claim to the truth, his ultimate sympathies lie with Antigone and the authority of custom.