Antigone: Tragic Prophecy Incarnate

It is reassuring to think there is a natural order to the world--that there is one unfaltering line between right and wrong that applies objectively to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Halfway through the fourth century B.C.E., Aristotle explained this idea of “natural law” as a set of rules dictated by nature under which all living beings must live, regardless of whatever set of standards they may want to live by. In his work “Rhetoric,” he wrote that if there were an inherent good in the world, than to violate it would be to go against this universal code of conduct, and would inversely result in an act of absolute evil.1 Yet it was nearly a hundred years before then that this purist worldview was first brought to light by an ambitious playwright from Athens named Sophocles. In his epic “Antigone,” one of his first entries in the annual Dionysus theater festival that went on to take top honors, he told the tragic tale of King Creon of Thebes who contradicts this “natural law” by considering the letter of the law before the fate of an innocent, and in an bitter turn of fate watches everything he loves obliterated as a result.

“Antigone” was a cautionary tale of the highest order, offered to an audience of wealthy Athenian theatergoers who gladly shelled out money to make it a commercial hit, but who were probably not looking closely enough to glean his searing political satire. Writ into Sophocles' groundbreaking play was an ardent warning to his fellow Athenians that they had over-politicized their reality, outgrown their surroundings, and ultimately alienated their neighbors. If Attica, as they referred to their city in their native Greek, was to avert a looming catastrophe its people would have to take a queue from Sophocles' play and rebel in the face of corruption, especially when brought on by the bureaucracy of the general assembly designed to keep the peace. In truth, Athens could expect the exact opposite for decades to come.

“If it ain't broke, don't fix it,” must have been the gut-level reaction for those in the audience sharp enough to recognize the social criticism between the lines of “Antigone” that was aimed at reforming an already-prosperous Athens. Though allegorical undertones are easily lost on a society thriving as thoroughly as the 5th century Athenians were. After half a century of consolidating its resources their great city-state had rolled out of the Greco-Persian war on top, with a top seat in the pan-Greco Delian league as a result of its ally Sparta's hesitance to fight a war past its borders.2 As money came pouring in from other Greek city-states to fund the production of trireme warships, Athens built itself the strongest navy ever assembled and enjoyed a booming economy brought on by the surplus capital. In addition, citizens of weaker poleis like the isle of Naxos were enslaved when they tried to back out of paying fees for a supposedly communal navy that always protected the interests of Athens first.3 In this way, the Delian League transformed gradually into an Athenian Empire. Yet Despite all this greed and corruption, Athens remains to this day a symbol of equality; painted as the world's first democracy yet rotten to the bone.

Athenians had to be male and official citizens in order to vote on matters that affected the whole community. Set a class above women and resident aliens, life must have seemed so sweet to these men. In all the glory of 5th century Athens, it must have seemed that only a blind pessimist could have suggested that their golden age was drawing near an end. In Sophocles' “Antigone” however, it was the blind prophet Tiresias who hobbled up to King Creon and dared tell him that what he was doing was naturally wrong.

4 In the story, Tiresias warned Creon--who was ironically more insensitive than this visionless old man--that he would pay “corpse for corpse, flesh for flesh…” if he let Antigone, his own family member, starve to death as he originally mandated5. Drawing a parallel with 5th century Hellas, Sophocles was warning Athens that it would also pay if it continued to out-step its diplomatic bounds and incited war with a rival like Sparta and the confederacy of support growing around it. Just as Creon's obligation to Antigone as family had been weakened after years of incestuous, over-lapping of bloodlines, Athens' view of Sparta as “family,” both as age-old, geographical neighbors and fellow enemies of Persia, had been muddled by Athens' greed and corruption.