In the fourth episode of Among the Ancients, Emily and Tom ask: what was it like to go to the theatre in Athens in 468 BC? And how far do modern ideas about tragedy, derived from Aristotle, apply to Sophocles’ plays? They then look in more detail at Oedipus Tyrannos and Antigone and what the plays have to say about agency and knowledge, and consider issues particular to Sophocles’ time, including civic responsibility and the role of immigrants in Athenian society.

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Further reading in the LRB:

Hugh Lloyd Jones:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n24/hugh-lloyd-jones/gods-and-heroes

James Davidson:

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v21/n19/james-davidson/an-easy-lay

Emily Wilson is Professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and translator of the 'Odysse'y and the 'Iliad'. Thomas Jones is an editor at the London Review of Books and host of the LRB Podcast.

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