Abstract: Plato’s Socrates and Sophocles’ Antigone are often seen as models of free inquiry and action in the face of unjust political power. In the Apology of Socrates, Socrates argues that he spent his life questioning the authoritative opinions that supported the laws of Athens. Socrates’ philosophic life resulted in his trial for not believing in the city’s gods and corrupting the young. He is found guilty and condemned to death, a death which Socrates’ accepts rather than cease his unique way of speaking. In Sophocles’ Antigone, Antigone defies Creon’s decree to leave her brother Polynices unburied, accepting the penalty of death for her actions. Before being buried alive she speaks against Creon’s tyrannical rule of Thebes, claiming that she gives voice to a citizenry too afraid to critique their ruler. Although both Socrates and Antigone can be viewed as ancient precursors to the democratic defence of freedom of speech and conscience, this paper will also explore important ways in which they differ. Whereas Antigone puts loyalty to family and divine law above human law, Socrates acknowledges that he has not cared for the things of his family and, despite characterizing himself as a gift of the god to the city, gains a rational self-knowledge that can put military necessity ahead of the desire to give the dead a proper burial, coming to light in his defense of the generals of the Battle of Arginusae. This paper will thus conclude that Antigone would be one of Socrates’ accusers rather than defenders.

Paper / Communication

Abstract: There is a long tradition of criticizing Euripides’ innovations of the tragic genre, including his use of “new” musical modes and granting a voice (and often the rational voice) to the common man, women, and even slaves and beggars. So associated was Euripides with such ideals of radical democracy that in his Frogs Aristophanes imagines Euripides defending his democratization of the stage by claiming it was a way to encourage democratic people “to think, to see, to understand . . . all aspects of a question (970-75).” This paper takes seriously Aristophanes’ assumption that Euripides’ plays were intended as a “democratic act” (950). Examining several plays, including the Hecuba, the Phoenician Women, and, the Electra, the paper explores both the form (way in which he selected to present material) and the content (things said and done) concerning the practice of ancient democratic governance. In particular, the paper explores what Euripides might have encouraged his primarily Athenian citizen audience to think, to see, and to understand about four crucial elements of their democracy: freedom (eleutheria), equal and open speech (parrhÄ“sia), equality before the law (isonomia), and the value of democratic institutional mechanisms, such as voting. The second part of the paper applies the lessons drawn from Euripides’ exploration of the meaning of democracy to contemporary debates on democratic government. It concludes by arguing that one persistent contribution of this ancient playwright is the importance placed on the role of literary texts to how citizens understand and experience democracy.