Polis and Tragedy in the "Antigone"

Author(s): Philip Holt

Source: Mnemosyne , Dec., 1999, Fourth Series, Vol. 52, Fasc. 6 (Dec., 1999), pp. 658-690
Published by: Brill

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4433045

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE

BY

PHILIP HOLT

I. Introduction

Sophokles' Antigone is an easy play for moderns, even mod

classicists, to get wrong.1) We are likely to see Antigone as the ch
pion of moral right, or conscience, or religion against the autho
of the state, as represented by Kreon. She is then a martyr f
cause, and our age is rather drawn to causes and martyrs.
does much to explain the scholarly predilection for what He
called 'the orthodox view' of the play: Antigone right and n
Kreon wrong and tyrannical.2) But these terms for describing t
conflict?and even more the ethical weight and emotional colo
these terms carry?are relatively modern. 'The state' to us m
a nation-state with extensive powers over the lives of its cit

1) The following works are cited by author's name (and short title where
essary) only: Giovanni Cerri, Ugislazione orale e tragedia greca (Naples 1979) (a sli
abridged version of the first chapter?the most important for our purpo
more readily available as Ideologia funeraria ?^//'Antigone di Sofocle, in: Ghe
Gnoli, Jean-Pierre Vernant (ed.), La mort, les morts dans les soci?t?s anciennes [Camb
1982], 121-31); Helene Foley, Tragedy and Democratic Ideology: The Case of Soph
Antigone, in: Barbara Goff (ed.), History, Tragedy, Theory: Diabgues on Athenian Dr
(Austin 1995), 131-50; Simon Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (Cambridge 1
Bernard M.W. Knox, The Heroic Temper: Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy (Berkeley
Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Assumptions and the Creation of Meaning: Reading Sop
Antigone, JHS 109 (1989), 134-48 and (with substantial overlap) Sophocles' An
as a 'Bad Woman', in: F. Dieteren, E. Kloek (ed.), Writing Women into Hi
(Amsterdam 1990), 11-38; and the commentaries of Brown (Warminster 1
Campbell2 (Oxford 1879), Jebb2 (Cambridge 1891), Kamerbeek (Leiden 1978),
M?ller (Heidelberg 1967). I have used the text of Lloyd Jones and Wilson (O
1990).
2) Hester's extensive review of scholarship on the play found this view to be
far more popular than what he called the 'Hegelian' view, which sees Antigone
and Kreon as being more evenly matched with flaws on both sides: D.A. Hester,
Sophocles the UnphilosophicaL? A Study in the Antigone, Mnemosyne 24 (1971), 11-59.
For a similar tilt in Germany (Schlegel over Hegel), see Erich Eberlein, ?ber die
verschiedenen Deutungen des tragischen Konflikts in der Trag?die 'Antigone' des Sophokles,
Gymnasium 68 (1961), 16-34 at 16-9.

Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 1999 Mnemosyne, Vol. LII, Fase. 6

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE AKTIGONE 659

and an extensive apparatus of bureaucrats and police to enforce

dictates. We worry about its powers and want to protect our fr
dom within it, especially after twentieth-century experience wi
totalitarian regimes. 'Conscience' and 'morality' to us mean the p
sonal values of an autonomous individuad, influenced by society
often at variance with it. 'Religion' to us is likely to include not
of divinely revealed truth and an organized body of believers, b
of them distinct from, and often at odds with, political authori
For us, then, conscience, morality, and religion set the indiv
apart from, perhaps even against, the state. It is easy for us to
Antigone into a heroic dissident. She upholds principle against p
ical authority, and she is right.
These terms for describing the conflict of the Antigone cannot
applied to ancient Greece without considerable modification.
original audience of the play?participants in a public festiv
Dionysos in Athens around 440 B.C.3)?brought their own me
and emotional baggage into the theatre with them: the assumpt
and outlook of their culture, their experience as a community,
norms, expectations, and values. They did not think as we do
it is no accident that critics who pay the most attention t
differences between them and us read the play very differently
their 'orthodox' colleagues. Such critics are a varied lot and d
all speak with one voice,4) but they tend to have two things in

3) The play is usually dated to the late 440s, but there is a strong case for
see R.G. Lewis, An Alternative Date for Sophocles' Antigone, GRBS 29 (1988),
4) Most recently Sourvinou-Inwood, to which this essay is principally addr
also important are William M. Calder III, Sophokles' Political Tragedy, Antig
GRBS 9 (1968), 389-407; Vittorio Citti, Strutture e tensioni sociali nell'Antig
Sofocle, AIV 134 (1975-76), 477-501 (a Marxist analysis); Foley (distinctly 'Heg
Knox; T.C.W. ?udemans and A.P.M.H. Lardinois, Tragic Ambiguity: Anthrop
Philosophy and Sophocles' Antigone (Leiden 1987) (an anthropological analysis). Histo
and strongly pro-Antigone are Nicolas P. Gross, Antigone and Archaic Thoug
Reading of the Antigone, Selecta 3 (1982), 17-25; Wm. Blake Tyrrell and Lar
Bennett, Recapturing Sophocles' Antigone (Lanham, Md. 1998). My discussio
read the history differently, and I must disagree with both. Gross sees An
as the exponent of an 'archaic world-view', a concept which needs to be
clearly defined and applied. Briefly, Tyrrell and Bennett draw heavily for thei
tory on Athenian funerary discourse (I think misapplied; see below, n. 31), w
supposed resentment against state control of funerals (undocumented), a
Athenian stereotype of nasty Thebans (pertinent, but of doubtful use in jud
conflict between two Thebans, and too heavily imposed upon the text of the

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660 PHILIP HOLT

mon. First, they make a thoro

the play through Greek eyes
principle, of course, classicists
but in practice, we follow them
modern dress far more readily
Oidipous. Second, they tend
atic, even shocking, to fifth-ce
appears fairly reasonable by G
under the pressure of Antigon
Teiresias reveals that he has m
his best intentions (so Sourvin
until the end (so Calder).
This study attempts to take p
sensibilities and explain how th
in spite of them than through
dations. We must understand f
the state, the role of the ind
religion, funerals, and related
before we can make sense of t
with some large debts to previ
dox' view is particularly weak,
tion. Over a quarter-century
litde to tilt the balance against
but more often it is bypasse
refuted. It deserves closer scrut
despite its frequent weaknesse
wrong.
Still, understanding Greek b
step towards interpretation. W
Greeks thought and felt gene
thought and felt under the c
this tragedy in particular. H
discussion of how decent Gre
the Antigone (part HI) and a co

5) E.g., Warren J. Lane and Ann M.

Euben (ed.), Greek Tragedy and Polit
Schmidt, Gr??e und Grenze der Anti
Bennett (?. 4).

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE AKTIGONE 661

generally (part TV). Tragedy is the polis' partner in an intricate

logue. She has her own agenda and her own ways of making
points, some of them quite sly,6) and she is rather more on Antig
side than the polis is. The main burden of this essay is to un
stand better her side of the conversation, an area where hist
minded critics, straining to catch the voice of the polis, often m
things.

II. Polis

"Why, then, have so many critics?most of them, no doubt, sober,

respectable men, who would be aghast if a sister of theirs behaved
like Antigone?accepted her at her own valuation? ... I do not think
we do the play any credit by missing the sense of shock and dismay
which her behaviour must have caused among the first audience and
which it could, perhaps, cause today."7)

Let us begin with a sketch of Athenian ideas on the state and cit-
izenship, ca. 440 B.C., and a more detailed discussion of some per-
tinent funerary matters. 'The state' meant the polis, the city-state, a
much smaller, more cohesive community than the sprawling mod-
ern nation-state. The citizen was an important part of it (especially
since Athens was a democracy), far less likely than citizens today
to feel neglected by, or alienated from, the ruling power. He was
also less likely to feel oppressed by it. Its police powers over him
were less developed, and he was more likely to share his neighbors'
oudook and values than we are in our diverse, and fragmented,
modern world. Athens was a community 'characterized by consen-
sus rather than coercion, participation rather than delegation'.8)
Hence the city-state was far less likely than the nation-state to be

6) 'Drama .. . unfolds as a complex dialogue that refuses to be bound in any

direct fashion by the discourses of the agora' (Foley, 132); it provides a 'radical
critique' of 'the city's discourse' (Goldhill, 78; on how this applies to some par-
ticular issues in the Antigone, see 104-6, 174-80).
7) Brown, 9.
8) Virginia J. Hunter, Policing Athens: Social Control in the Attic Lawsuits, 420-320
B.C. (Princeton 1994), 188. Hence the rudimentary police apparatus and heavy
reliance on self-help and citizen participation in law enforcement, detailed by
Hunter in chapter 5.

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662 PHILIP HOLT

an object of fear. 'It is doubtf

recognized the essentially rom
revolt against the state'.9) The m
state needs to protect its citizens
been alien to them.10)
By modern individualistic stand
with their state, their duties t
they contribute to it were rema
was a constant fact of life, fight
basic to a citizen's upbringing
citizen was expected to show cou
hardship, expected to be useful
He was not considered to have
his life his own way, without
the community.14) If Athenians
most Greeks, they also stresse
oration, the importance of 'ob
laws, especially . . . those which,
edged shame' (Thuc. 2.37.3). Th
in a community that is held t
attitudes and values, norms te
believed, not imposed. The unwr
ment mechanism ('acknowledged

9) Oudemans and Lardinois (?. 4), 3

10) A state could, of course, be taken
tyrants was their supposed disregard of
constitution: Hdt. 3.80.5 (???a?? te ??
????? / ??????); cf. Arist. Pol. 5.1310b
ranny disregards these foundations, co
11) Knox, 83-6; idem, Sophocles and th
quit? classique, 29; Geneva 1983), 1-2
12) Goldhill, 63 f.; idem, The Great Diony
Froma I. Zeitlin (ed.), Nothing to Do with
(Princeton 1990), 97-129 at 106-12.
13) K.J. Dover, Greek Popular Morality
1974), 161-4, 292-9.
14) Dover (n. 13), 157-60. Both critics
blame or praise, to how much personal f
Democracy (Oxford 1957), 43-5. But th
government in Greece, not to modern s
avoid anachronistic ideas about how m

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE AXTIGONE 663

'There does not seem to have been any limit... to the co

munity's rights over the property and lives of the individuals w
composed it'.15) Broad construction of the public interest gave t
Athenian polis considerable power to regulate what its citizens d
Among other things, the polis could regulate funerals. A funera
basically a family function, but the display and ostentation w
the family could employ were restricted by the state.16) The sta
could also restrict funeral rites for certain classes of people?
cides, for example.17)
This brings us to a fact which is troublesome for devotees of S
Antigone the Martyr but important for assessing how an Athen
audience would respond to the play: Athenian law forbade the bu
ial of traitors and sacrilegious people in Athenian territory. T
is abundant evidence of this law, and of similar laws in other state
Now, Polyneikes, who led an army against his homeland, was
tainly a traitor, and if Kreon is right that he planned to burn t
temples of the gods (Ant. 199-201, 284-7), he aspired to sacr
as well. Hence in refusing him burial, Kreon was imposing a s
tion that was recognizable to the audience as part of their law
had good reasons for it. In a small city-state, defeat in war c
mean civic destruction and the loss of everything one had; treas
was a serious business, a threat to the survival of the communit
The development of the law and its bearing on the play a
much debated and need further discussion. First, was the law
effect at the time of the play? Probably?or at least, the prin
behind it was. Our plainest statement of the law comes f
Xenophon's account of a debate in the assembly in 406 B.C. (
Hell. 1.7.22), well after the Antigone, and most attested cases of
law in action come from late in the fifth century and after. Bu
an earlier date, Themistokles, who died as an exile for treason (e

15) Dover (?. 13), 289.

16) Erwin Rohde, Psyche: The Cult ofSouL? and Belief in Immortality among the G
English trans. (London 1925), 164 f.; Robert Garland, The Greek Way of
(Ithaca, N.Y. 1985), 21-3.
17) Thalheim, Selbstmord, RE II Al (1921), 1134 f.
18) Gustave Glotz, La solidarit? de la famille dans le droit criminel en Gr?ce (P
1904), 460 f. gives an extensive collection of evidence; also basic, and long neg
for bringing the issue into discussion of the Antigone, is W. Vischer, Zu Sop
Antigone, RhM 20 (1865), 444-54 at 445-9.

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664 PHILIP HOLT

p??d?s?a fe????t??, Thucydid

Attika; his kinsmen smuggled h
or so they claimed. The Alkm
posthumous counterpart to th
dug up and cast out of Attika,
spirators.19)
Fuscagni20) has argued that th
times of severe political strife
not to sacrilegious people)
Themistokles, and it was not
Sophokles' efforts in the Aias a
war and mean times brought i
the coup of the Four Hundre
ily on the argument from si
of history. If denial of burial t
after the Peloponnesian War
simply that we have more evid
incidents, perhaps more trai
about how to treat them. Mor
practice, descended from th
corpses.21) The developing po
over much else), institutiona
invent it. Whatever the letter
could be denied to particularly

19) On Themistokles, see Thuc. 1.1

11.58.1; Plut. Them. 32.3-5; Paus. 1.
Isok. 16.26; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 1; Plu
differ, but the existence of the trad
20) Stefania Fuscagni, La condanna di
167-87, with further discussion in Sacril
Sordi (ed.), Religione e politica nel mo
21) H. H?ppener, Het begrafenisverbo
73-8; Vincent J. Rosivach, On Creon,
(1983), 193-211 at 196-9, 208 f. It ha
sure of corpses is often threatened bu
Fuscagni, Condanna (?. 20), 167; J.E.G
Disinterment and Reburial, G&R 30
leading to describe epic (or for that
rous or high-minded: see Emily Verm
Poetry (Berkeley 1979), 93-116, espec
on massacring noncombatants.

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 665

in people's minds well before Sophokles' day, and it stayed in the

minds well after. Given sufficient provocation, it could be aw
ened and put into action in generad laws or in sanctions aga
people or families in particular cases. The Alkmeonidai and Them
tokles were hit by recurring applications of a continuing princip
not by isolated incidents.22)
Second, is Kreon within the law? Basically, with some allow
for dramatic intensification, yes. It has been pointed out that K
goes further than Athenian law since he forbids Polyneikes t
buried at all and posts soldiers to ensure that the body is devour
by birds and dogs. The Athenians forbade traitors to be burie
Attika, but at least in theory, the bodies could be buried elsewh
by pious relatives. The importance of this distinction has been m
debated. It is sometimes argued that Kreon should have allo
Polyneikes to be buried outside Theban territory, or he should h
thrown the corpse over the border or into a pit, rather than lea
the body exposed; thus he could have disgraced Polyneikes witho
offending the gods.23) We should reject this as a judgment of w
Kreon should have done. No such course of action is considered
in the play, where we find only the stark extremes of exposure and
a full burial, and in fact Polyneikes is eventually buried in his own
land (???e?a? ??????, Ant. 1203). It is poor criticism to say that a
character in a play ought to have done something which he is never
given a chance to do and which is never proposed by anybody on
stage. We would do better to note that Kreon's severity might color
his action in Athenian eyes.24) Still, his edict is in keeping with the
law. The law might have permitted the burial of traitors and the like
outside Attika (for it could not control what went on outside Athenian

22) Cerri, Legislazione orale, 28 f. = Ideologia funeraria, 129.

23) Lane and Lane (n. 5), 169; Sourvinou-Inwood, Assumptions, 146 f. and Bad
Woman, 26-8; Vischer (n. 18), 450-2. Contra, Cerri, Legislazione orale, 18 f. = Ideologia
funeraria, 121-3; Hester (?. 2), 19-21; Oudemans and Lardinois (?. 4), 162. Rohde
(?. 16), 163 (with ??. 34 and 35) considers denial of burial in one's homeland
quite a severe sanction even if the body was given a proper funeral abroad.
24) Draheim, Die Bestattung des Landesfeindes bei Sophokles, WKPh 33 (1916), 447-
54 at 452; H?ppener (?. 21), 76-8; Rosivach (?. 21), 208-11; Whitehorne (?. 21),
135 and 138. Similar but more complex arguments in P.E. Easterling, Constructing
the Heroic, in: Christopher Pelling (ed.), Greek Tragedy and the Historian (Oxford 1997),
21-37 at 26-8; Eberlein (?. 2), 26.

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 666 PHILIP HOLT

territory), but it is unlikely th

certainly did not provide for it
of throwing criminals into the b
there would be no burial.26)
Kreon's edict, then, is not the
many critics assume. In Greek
legal. Indeed, Kreon is not a p
has followed Teiresias' advice b
reasons for believing that the
edict is severe, and we will need
It will also turn out to be mista
plot of the Antigone has fully u
for starting from a reasonable p
In fact, in his presentation of
in a far stronger position than
There was another version of
Thebans refused burial to the
Polyneikes, until the Athenians
by persuasion or force. Our full
Euripides' Suppliants, but Aischy
lost Eleusinians, and it became a sta
This story is probably an Athen

25) Cerri, LeguUvjone orale, 21 = Ideologia

of Ancient Greece, English trans. (Balt
and 208, n. 49. Tyrrell and Bennett (n.
stood that the bodies of such men wou
sible, buried secretly in Attica'. But t
understood', and the last clause rests o
secret burial in Attika was legal.
26) Cerri, Legislazione orale, 24-6 (= Ideo
(?. 21), 74 f. Throwing bodies into the
world, as a funeral does, but it denies
bodies thrown into the barathron coul
n. 32) or sprinkled with dust (Fuscagn
evidence of this.
27) Knox, 101 f.
28) This much emerges through the 'heroic vagueness' in which Easterling
(n. 24), 26-8 finds the issue enveloped.
29) On Aischylos (and Philochoros), see Plut. Thes. 29.4 f. In patriotic rhetoric,
the fullest treatments of the story are Lys. 2.7-10 and Isok. 12.168-74, but see also
Hdt. 9.27.3; Xen. Hell. 6.5.46; PI. Menex. 239b; [Dem.] 60.8; Isok. 4.54 f., 10.31,
and 14.54 f.; Paus. 1.39.2.

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 667

which had the Seven buried, apparendy without opposition,

Thebes.30) In the Athenian version, the moral lines are clearly dra
the virtuous Athenians stand up for divine law and the com
custom of the Greeks against the wicked Thebans. Not so Sophok
version, for the Antigone essentially turns on the burial of the
member of the Argive army who is not clearly entided to it;
is one of the most important, and most widely ignored, feature
Sophokles' premise. Polyneikes' army, as foreign war dead, w
entided to burial (by their own people if not by the Thebans)
the play pretty much ignores them; Polyneikes himself, as a Th
traitor, was not, and the whole play is about whether to bury him
Late in the play, we hear a hint that Kreon has left the rest of
Argive dead unburied too (Ant. 1080-3). But this is an oblique
sion,32) and (more important) it comes after Kreon has already h
the ground cut out from under him and we know what the
think of his edict. Basically, the Antigone, unlike other treatmen
the saga of the Seven, is fought over the burial of Polyneikes al
In that fight Sophokles gives Kreon a highly defensible case.
To sum up, in fifth-century terms Kreon is within his rights
the leader of his polis, and his ban on burying Polyneikes is a re

30) Pin. 01. 6.15-7; Nem. 9.22-4. Tydeus was buried at Thebes according t
14.114, and Paus. 9.18.2 f. reports his tomb at Thebes along with that of Et
and Polyneikes. On the tradition, see further Thomas K. Hubbard, Remaking
and Rewriting History: Cult Tradition in ?ndar's Ninth Nemean, HSCPh 94 (
77-111 at 92-100; M?ller, 21-4; Hubert Petersmann, Mythos und Gestaltung in Sop
Antigone, WS 12 (1978), 67-96.
31) This distinction is sometimes blurred. Larry J. Bennett and Wm. B
Tyrrell, Sophocles' Antigone and Funeral Oratory, AJPh 111 (1990), 441-56,
Antigone, burier of Polyneikes, to the Athenians, buriers of the Argive dea
their argument, since elaborated in their book on the play (n. 4), is received
some criticism and much agreement by Foley, 140-2. But this ignores two c
differences, that between the Argive dead generally and the Theban traitor Poly
and that between the patriotic Athenian version of the myth and the very dif
situation presented in the Antigone. Antigone is no representative of Athenian
values. Draheim's general category of Landesfeind (?. 24), which includes wa
as well as traitors, also ignores the distinction. The distinction is better obs
in Cerri, Ugishzione orale, 87 f.; Rosivach (?. 21), 207 f.
32) If that: the lines have troubled textual critics (see M?ller and the ap
tus of Lloyd-Jones and Wilson) and have been taken as a reference to Polyn
corpse alone (J.H. Kells, Problems of Interpretation in the Antigone, BICS 10 [1
47-64 at 63, n. 21), I think wrongly; Campbell and Jebb follow the more na
meaning of the words.

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 668 PHILIP HOLT

sonable sanction. In fifth-centur

ban is seriously, perhaps even s
defying due authority in the po
national enemy, and moreover a
Critics often see Antigone as a
nate, proud and cold to other
sons, both principled and pers
they should. To a degree whi
she stands alone, forced to rely
A modern Antigone comes wit
ing the community, respected a
she can appeal. The ancient
Conscience and religious author
of ideals, eccentricities and obse
mate under the name of Conscience' did not seem to Greeks to be
good reasons for defying the law".34) Religion was focused more on
prayer and ritual than on beliefs and ethical demands, more apt to
produce traditionalists and conformists than dissidents and martyrs.
Far from providing a basis for criticizing the polis, religion was an
integral part of it. The polis, after all, administered, financed, and
regulated much of the religious activity within it.35) It had large
scope in making decisions about religious matters.
There remains the family, whose entanglements with the polis,
interdependent yet often conflicting, were important in Greek his-
tory and have been important in Antigone criticism at least since

33) So (with considerable variation) Elizabeth Bryson Bongie, The Daughter of

Oedipus, in: John L. Heller (ed.), Serta Turyniana (Urbana 1974), 239-67; Brown,
7-10; Gerald F. Else, The Madness of Antigone (Heidelberg 1976); Knox, 62-8, 102-7,
113-6. Two important recent studies have done much to clear Antigone of the
charge of inconsistency: Helene P. Foley, Antigone as Moral Agent, in: M.S. Silk (ed.),
Tragedy and the Tragk: Greek Theatre and Beyond (Oxford 1996), 49-73; Matt Neuburg,
How Like a Woman: Antigone's 'Inconsistency', CQ 40 (1990), 54-76. But her consis-
tent reasons are nevertheless complicated and strongly rooted in the specifics of
her unusual situation, dying unmarried (Neuburg, 66-70) and acting on behalf of
a brother (Foley, 51-7). Complex situations produce complex motives. It is possi-
ble to see her as both consistent and self-willed: Martin Cropp, Antigone's Final
Speech (Sophocles, Antigone 891-928), G&R 44 (1997), 137-60.
34) Dover (n. 13), 309.
35) Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, What is Polis Religion?, in: Oswyn Murray,
Simon Price (ed.), The Greek City from Homer to Alexander (Oxford 1990), 295-322
and Further Aspects of Polis Religion, AION(archeol) 10 (1988), 259-74.

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE AKTIGONE 669

Hegel. There is no anachronism in raising family concerns. Ant

does, after all, break Kreon's edict on behalf of her brother,
cisely because he is her brother, and she appeals repeatedly to t
blood-tie to justify her action.36) Still, family and polis do not
in the play as an evenly balanced pair of opposites, a thesi
antithesis in search of a synthesis.37) The Antigone presents a s
tion which the fifth-century polis had already decided in its
favor. As we have seen, the polis could override the family to r
ulate funerals, or even ban them for certain classes of peo
including traitors like Polyneikes. No doubt the polis knew that
so doing it would cause great grief and distress to the family o
guilty party. The polis took that into account, expected it, perh
even relished it. Greek notions of la solidarit? de la famille often imp
far more severe suffering than that on a household for the cri
of one guilty member, even in the classical period.38) An Athen
audience may well have entertained reservations about Kreon's e
(more on that shortly), and family feeling may well have given
reservations a foothold in their minds. But in considering how
play might deal with such reservations, we must recognize that
Antigone is set on a playing field tilted heavily in favor of the p
Sophokles, then, gives Kreon a strong position, far stronger
we moderns are generally prepared or able to recognize. W
becomes of that position on the stage, however, is another mat

36) Ant. 21 f., 45 f., 80 f., 466-8, 502-4, 511, 517; see also 696-8 (spok
Haimon), 10, 73, 89 (philos and related expressions). Kreon's valuation of ki
ties is considerably lower (486-9, 658 f.). Antigone's notorious declaration th
would not have broken Kreon's edict to bury anyone but her brother (9
however odd critics find it, is consistent with her motives as repeatedly state
where. Antigone's loyalty to Polyneikes may not be simply a matter of blo
Patricia J. Johnson, Woman's Third Face: A Psycho/Social Reconsideration of So
Antigone, Arethusa 30 (1997), 369-98 raises the issue, with a highly spec
answer.

37) One can question more broadly whether Antigone's acti

proper family loyalties and proper responsibilities in burying d
Inwood, Bad Woman, 17-21 and 29-31. I find some of the argum
to be helpful in estimating a theatre audience's response to the
tion deserves fuller consideration. I confine my remarks here
involving funerals.
38) Glotz (n. 18), 456-514.

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 670 PHILIP HOLT

III. The Antigone

It should not escape the reader

is aimed at estimating how fift
Antigone's action if it were a
debating it in the assembly or j
or discussing it as a piece of r
based on conditions in the real-l
oratory and history) used for d
course, Polyneikes' burial is no
a tragic drama, which is to say
the playwright in a certain way
certain conditions. This complic
may know, more or less, what
what does the play do with it?
I shall argue that the structure
ment and presentation of event
ting his story across?does much
undercutting the shock and c
likely arouse in real life. Moreo
is of a piece with what tragedy
norms, gives a certain kind of
audience did not come to a tra
the characters; it came, I sugges
and exciting experience of watc
doxies.
We may begin with the prem
edict forbidding the burial of P
was in keeping with Athenian la
tion of how an Athenian audien
burial to traitors and temple-ro
exception to a widely accepted n
It was an extreme reprisal, and
reservations, and ambivalence in
Cerri finds such ambivalence in Athens' treatment of traitors in real
life:

"Le fonti, se correttamente interpretate, non attestano l'esistenza di

una legislazione coerente ed universalmente accolta, ma il perdurare

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 671

nel tempo di una tensione tra opposti principi etici, religiosi e giurid
un conflitto assai aspro a livello di pensiero politico e, consegue
mente, di ideologia funeraria, del tutto analogo a quello scenegg
?^'Antigone."39)

All the more reason, then, to look for ambivalence on the s

This is not material for cut-and-dried administrative rulings
ripe for exploitation in the theatre.
Sophokles in fact exploits it, taking Kreon's straightforward p
tion?a traitor is not to be buried?and putting it in a compl
unusual situation which soon gets very sticky. There are two extr
positions, with no thought of middle ground between expo
Polyneikes and burying him at Thebes. Such thoughts have occu
to later critics (see above, n. 23), but Sophokles resolutely
them off stage. The legitimate but severe sanction of denying b
ial to a traitor appears in its most severe form. There are
strong-willed antagonists, both of them given to intemperate u
ances and extreme actions and neither of them willing to comp
mise or back down. Then there are the family complications.40)
traitor is Kreon's nephew, and the person who buries him ag
Kreon's orders is his niece, the traitor's sister, and inciden
Kreon's ward now that her brothers are dead. Moreover, b
sort of coincidence more commonly associated with Hollywood t
with the classical stage, the sister is engaged to Kreon's son. Hen
Kreon cannot keep his edict out in the public sphere. It imp
into his household: his niece kills herself, so his son kills himse
his wife kills herself too. This improbable family melodrama
or may not call into question the general principle of denying b
ial to traitors. It has been argued that Sophokles was questio
Athenian practice on this matter,41) but unlikely 'what if scena
make poor political comment. Rather, the complicating fact
the extreme positions, the strong-willed antagonists, and the f
connections?serve primarily to intensify the drama. Kreon's
soon proves to carry some heavy unanticipated costs.

39) Cerri, L?gislazione orale, 20 = Ideologia funeraria, 123; see also Brown, 6
40) See inter alia Neuburg (?. 33); P. Roussel, Les fian?ailles d'Haimon et d'Ant
REG 35 (1922), 63-81.
41) Most prominently by Hans Joachim Mette, Die Antigone des Sophokles, H
84 (1956), 129-34. See also Fuscagni, Condanna (?. 20), 180; Vischer (?. 18),

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 672 PHILIP HOLT

To a large extent, the action

unfolding those costs. Kreon's p
repeatedly resists, but each ch
eventually he crumbles. Orthodo
as a foregone conclusion: Kreo
he is bound to end badly. This
basic reasonableness (in Greek
tends to read the play backward
of our advance knowledge of ho
fying small hints in those early
minded critics, on the other han
outcome as a surprise, as thou
tell us how wrong Kreon is.43) T
important signs in the text of t
undone. We would do better t
complications, with Kreon's po
outcome is not clear from the
the play goes on. Tragic comp
upon the dictates of the polis. S
hand and then has us watch him lose with it.
This argument calls for further discussion. A full reading of the
Antigone here is impossible, but we can examine in more detail how
Kreon's position is eroded as the play unfolds. Our main objectives
will be to read the play forwards, without retrojecting our knowl-
edge of the outcome into the earlier scenes, and to estimate how
a fifth-century Athenian audience (or at any rate a good part of it)
would respond to developments.44)
The play opens towards dawn, with two women in conversation.
Kreon, we are told, has already issued his edict but is on his way

42) A.S. McDevitt, Sophocles' Praise of Man in the Antigone, Ramus 1 (1972), 152-
64 at 159 f. and Sourvinou-Inwood, Assumptions, 135 f. both raise some powerful
objections to such backward reading.
43) Sourvinou-Inwood waits for Teiresias; Calder (?. 4), 401 f. holds out even
after that.
44) The thoughts and feelings of a people long dead are ultimately unrecover-
able, and there is no reason to believe that all 16,000 spectators in the Theatre
of Dionysos would react in the same way: Brown, 9 f.; Goldhill, 89 f. Still, we
can estimate tendencies and argue that the text is especially apt to encourage cer-
tain responses in rather a lot of the audience. This is basically what attempting
to read the play through Greek eyes means.

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANIIGONE 673

'to proclaim it clearly to those who do not know it' (Ant. 31-4).4
cusp of time gives Antigone a chance to respond to the ed
advance, after it is formulated but before any other charac
the audience hears it. Sophokles uses this bit of timing to l
launch a pre-emptive strike upon it to win the audience's sym
Her strike is an impressive one. The terms of the edict are re
only after a dramatic buildup. The house of Oidipous has su
everything imaginable, she says, Tor there is nothing pain
destructive0 or shameful or dishonorable which I have no
among your sufferings and mine' (Ant. 4-6). And now (?a? ?
on top of it all, this terrible proclamation, by which 'the evils in
on enemies are coming against our friends' (p??? t??? f????? st
t?? ?????? ?a??, ??).46) We have not yet heard what the pr
mation says, but by the time Ismene asks t? d' est?; (20), t
lines into this scene, we are primed to hear something terribl
Terrible indeed?so terrible that 'Antigone still cannot giv
news straightforwardly, without an indignant rhetorical questi
?? ?a? t?f?? ?f? t? ?as????t? ????? / t?? ??? p??t?sa?, t?? d*
sa? ??e?; (Ant. 21 f.). Eteokles' burial is described simply and ap
ingly (23-5), but the other brother and his treatment are desc
more fully, in more emotional terms:

t?? d' ?????? ?a???ta ?????e????? ?????

?st??s? fas?? ???e??????a? t? ??
t?ff ?a???a? ??d? ????sa? t??a,
?a? d' a??a?t??, ataf??, ??????? ??????
??sa???? e?s???s? p??? ????? ?????. (26-30)

Polyneikes is 'wretchedly dead', and the consequences of ex

his corpse are graphically depicted: no lamentation, no funeral

45) Aorists and perfects stress that the edict has already been proclaimed (?
?e??a?, 8; ???e??????a?, 27; ?????a?t* e?e??, 32) and in part carried out
??? p??t?sa?, t?? d' ?t???sa? ??e?, 22; ?????e, 25). On the timing, see Br
31-4.

46) On the meaning of this line, I follow Jebb and Kells (n. 32), 47-52
Kamerbeek and M?ller. This passage introduces early on the nub of he
tion to the edict, for she regards Polyneikes as a philos, a family membe
her own people, rather than an echthros, a public enemy.
47) Brown, ad loc.; on the force of ?? ?a?, implying that the answer o
be perfectly obvious, see J.D. Denniston, The Greek Particles2 (Oxford 1934

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674 PHILIP HOLT

the birds to devour him. She ta

?a? ???e, 31 f.) and ends her sp
First impressions are powerful,
edict comes to us filtered throug
We need not wait long for a
Kreon's entrance. Ismene elicits
tions, the details of Antigone's
and she finds it bold and dange
out Antigone's plan in stages,
and we are invited to share Ism
'do you really. . . ?' 44; ? s?et?
can rehearse the sad history of
differendy. It does not sting he
'Consider how we two, left alon
the law we transgress the ruler
also reminds us that Antigone's
repeatedly, in various ways, som
is forbidden (ap????t?? p??e?,
??a, 59; ?ict p???t??, 79), some of
resistance (61-68; t????a?a, 92
Ismene, notoriously, is no tr
critics, cheer Antigone's heroism
but the scene is not quite so o
reminds us that more than on
ble. The polis, both tragic The
to state its position. Antigone i
wanting to die for 'committin
74) and have her deed shouted
accustomed to finding this admi
mence should help us understa
have a hot heart for chilling th
Still, Antigone has had the ch
she has done it well, passionat
may well sympathize with her,
agree with her, but because sho

48) 'Thus we learn of the edict, not f

sense of outrage at it' (Brown, 135).

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 675

sympathy. Ismene's objections, although often underrated, d

erase this. Kreon comes to the plate with one strike against h
After the parodos, we move from the private world of Antig
to the public world of Kreon. Despite Antigone's pre-emptive st
Kreon's opening address to the Chorus gives him every chan
look good in the audience's eyes. The Chorus has just given th
to the gods for delivering Thebes from great danger, and their
has reminded us vividly of the impiety and violence of Polyneik
army, the sufferings that awaited the Thebans had they los
batde.49) As a new ruler in a difficult time, Kreon has a clai
our sympathy, and for the most part he comes off well. His sp
is reasoned, his tone moderate under the circumstances. His
is clearly in the right place: he seeks good advice in guiding
city (Ant. 178-81), he puts the city first, before private connec
(182-91), and he is determined to distinguish between the patrio
Eteokles and the treacherous Polyneikes (207 f.). As Demosth
approving quotation of the speech indicates, this all shows accep
Athenian attitudes.50) Kreon is rather given to fine-sounding g
alizations, and as more of them pile up we may come to do
how well he applies them to the situation at hand,51) but for
he is beginning well.
Still, the question is raised whether Thebes is in good hands,
the answer is not altogether satisfactory.52) 'It is impossible to
any man's soul and thought and mind', Kreon says, 'before
experienced in office and law' (Ant. 175-7). This puts us on n
that Kreon is untested at this point in the play, hence unkn
More telling, his edict forbidding funeral rites for Polyneikes,
sented after a slow, careful buildup, gets a remarkably luke
reception from the Chorus. Nowhere do they applaud Kreon's e

49) McDevitt (?. 42), 157-9.

50) Dem. 19.246-50; for other parallels, see Kamerbeek, ad 189 f.
51) Mary Whitlock Blundell, Helping Friends and Harming Enemies: A Study in Sop
and Greek Ethics (Cambridge 1989), 116 f.; Vittorio Citt?, Sofocle e le strutture di
nell'Atene del V secolo, BIFG 3 (1976), 84-120 at 103 ('Creonte ... non espo
principi tirannici. Se mai li applica in modo tirannico.'). On Kreon's heav
often inappropriate reliance on generalities and maxims, see Calder (?.
('There is a tendency to moralize. Clich?s avoid thinking issues through.'); F
Moral Agent (n. 33), 60.
52) R.P. Winnington-Ingram, Sophocles: An Interpretation (Cambridge 1980),
offers a more extensive discussion than mine of 'warning signals' in this s

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 676 PHILIP HOLT

or approve his reasons for it.

is the way he wants it (s?? ta
he likes 'concerning the dead
They assure him that they wil
not because they share Kreon's
one is so foolish that he is eag
Ismene, who regards Antigone's
her wrong.53) It also shows a re
the grave danger just past an
trusted inner circle (Kreon h
with proven loyalty towards t
through the play the merits of
his authority to impose it) go
Saying that he has the power or
is not the same as saying that
Kreon's position is almost im
enters with news that Polynei
dust. Kreon, untried in Office a
for we will see how he stands up
Our attention begins to shift, a
following scene, from the procl
The ruler does not come off we
anger, error, and obstinacy.
Kreon's anger needs little dem
him nervously, fearful about br
times written off as merely com
a reason. It shows us what to watch for in Kreon. The Guard
knows his master, and his nervousness is fully justified. Kreon at
once accuses him and his men of taking bribes against him, and
he threatens them with torture and death. Hanging alive?that will
teach them a lesson (308-12)! He also reacts angrily to the Chorus'

53) On the Chorus' lukewarm attitude, see Bengt Alexanderson, Die Stellung
des Chors in der Antigone, ?ranos 64 (1966), 85-105 at 87 f.; Christoph Eucken,
Das Drama zwischen Kreon und dem Chor in der 'Antigone', WJA 18 (1992), 77-87 at
78 f.; McDevitt (n. 42), 159 f.; Winnington-Ingram (n. 52), 123 ('studiously non-
committal').
54) Sourvinou-Inwood, Assumptions, 142; on the uses of comedy in the scene,
see Gary S. Meltzer, Subversive Comedy in the Antigones of Sophocles and Anouilh, CML
12 (1992), 343-59.

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 677

suggestion (278 f.) that the gods are somehow behind the 'first b
ial': 'Stop, before your talk fills me with anger!' (280). We wil
more of the same later, in his reactions to well-intentioned,
unwelcome, advice from Haimon and Teiresias. Antigone's ass
tion that the Chorus is afraid to oppose Kreon (504 f.) may be pa
tisan special pleading, but Kreon's conduct makes the idea q
plausible.
Kreon's error needs a fuller discussion, which will take us
the next scene, in which he confronts Antigone.55) Basically, Kr
jumps to conclusions which are reasonable enough given what
knows, but which are also dead wrong. This deed is the wor
malcontents and traitors, he says; some people in the city have b
murmuring against him for a long time, and now they have bri
the guards into conniving at their dirty work (Ant. 289-314,
326; cf. 221 f.). The conspiracy involves several people, all m
for he speaks of them sometimes as plural and regularly as m
culine.56)
Picture his surprise, then, when the Guard re-enters, not with a
gang of political plotters under arrest, but with a lone girl, Antigone,
announced in emphatically feminine terms?six feminine forms in
a line and a half: ?d' est' e?e??? t?????? ? '?e???as???? ? /t???' e????e?
??pt??sa? (Ant. 384 f.). 'He spoke of political opponents, of rebels,
of bribed criminals; it never for a moment occurred to him that he
would have to face as his opponent and victim, as now he does,
his own sister's child, a princess of the royal house'.57) So this is
the sinister conspiracy, not masculine plural after all but feminine

55) Foley, 137 and Walter Jens, Antigone-Interpretationen, in: Satura: Fruchte aus der
antiken Welt Otto Weinrich... dargebracht (Baden-Baden 1952), 43-58 (reprinted in:
Hans Diller [ed.], Sophokles [Wege der Forschung, 95; Darmstadt 1967], 295-310),
45 f. are helpful, although I wish to stress that Kreon's fears of conspiracy are
fairly reasonable.
56) Kreon uses both the singular (Ant. 248, 306) and the plural (290-4, 302 f.,
325) in speaking of the perpetrator(s); the Guard regularly uses the singular (239,
245-7, 252, 266 f., 319, 327 f.). Kreon also speaks of men, ??d?e? (248, 290), and
both he and the Guard regularly use masculine forms. M?ller and Kamerbeek
suggest (neither seems convinced) that t?? a?d??? in 248 simply means 'welcher
Mensch', 'who on earth', but the masculine form suggests something more definite,
natural, and erroneous. See in particular Jebb, ad loc; Citti (n. 4), 484 f.
57) Knox, 69; see also Jens (n. 55), 50, who notes the emphatic feminine forms.

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 678 PHILIP HOLT

singular! Kreon, normally not a

assurance that he has the right

??. ??e?? d? t??de tf t??p? p??

F?. a?t? t?? ??d?' ??apte? p??t'
??. ? ?a? ?????? ?a? ???e?? ?????
F?. ta?t?? ?' ?d?? ??pt??sa? d?
?pe?pa?. ??' e?d??a ?a? saf? ??

This exchange verges on the com

prise and disbelief. His first q
where did you arrest her?' but
fact: ??e?? d? t??de, 'You're brin
double interrogative, suggest su
this in. The Guard answers th
how. He has less trouble with th
as a bit simple-minded: "She bur
(a?t?); 'that's all there is to kn
again with a double question: '
out right? Is what you're telli
still treats him as a bit thick: ?
you forbade. Isn't that plain and
the Chorus (376-83). This is cont
The expectations and suspicio
probably sound more reasonable
audience than they do to us.
compact community where a sm

58) Jebb,
59) p??t' ?p?stasa? suggests the end of a messenger-speech (Jebb, M?ller);
putting it on the end of such a brief declaration makes the declaration sound espe-
cially conclusive.
60) ????? should be taken in its simplest sense, 'correctly'. There are more
strained interpretations: 'Do your words express what you really mean to say?'
(Jebb), 'Have you your wits when you say this?' (Campbell, Kamerbeek). But these
are not necessary if we appreciate Kreon's surprise, his slowness to believe that
Antigone, of all people, has broken his edict.
61) ?d??, emphatic, stressing that the Guard is an eyewitness. The Guard's clos-
ing words are 'said triumphantly' (Jebb; so also M?ller, who compares Aisch. Ag.
269); we could translate, 'Got it?'
62) The Guard's opening reflections about how life often turns out contrary to
expectation (388-91) reinforce this idea. They refer immediately to the Guard's cer-
tainty that he would not come back to Kreon again, but they can be applied more
generally to the unexpectedness of finding that Antigone was the perpetrator.

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANIIGONE 679

a considerable effect. In the absence of organized parties an

lic pressure-groups, political leaders tended to work through s
circles of friends and followers.63) Much of this work mus
taken place behind closed doors; the smoke-filled rooms of our
democracy had an ancient wine-filled equivalent. It was easy to
spire, to represent other people's activities as conspiratorial, a
believe tales of conspiracy?particularly under the stress of wa
furor inspired by the mutilation of the herms and wartim
noia about conspiracy and tyranny (satirized by Ar. Wasps 488
suggested by Lys. 616-25) come from later in the century; but
an earlier date, we may note the unrest and rumors provok
the shield-signal flashed to the Persian fleet from Sounion aft
batde of Marathon (Hdt. 6.115, 121-4). Besides, a city under
really did have to worry about fifth columnists within; more
one campaign in Greek history was decided when a group o
tors, motivated by money or politics, opened the gates of the
to the enemy. 'In nearly every instance in which an attack
city is described, there is some allusion to a party within the
who are making preparations to betray the city into the h
the enemy, and numbers of captures testify to the success of
plots'.64) A Greek audience might well share Kreon's suspi
it were in his situation, knowing that the edict had been v
but not knowing by whom or why.
This particular audience, however, is not quite in Kreon's
tion and has far less reason to be surprised. They have already
the prologue, so they know that Antigone is acting alone (for I
refuses to help her) and that she acts from obstinate principl
family loyalty, not political calculation or money. This kno
is likely to weaken whatever credit they might give Kreon fo
reasonable. Kreon's rage against the imagined conspirators
threats against the Guard are based in part on a misappreh
and that misapprehension makes him look bad on stage, h

63) See especially George Miller Calhoun, Athenian Clubs in Politics and L
(Austin 1913); W. Robert Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-Century Athens (P
1971), 22-32, 66-75.
64) Calhoun (n. 63), 141 (fuller discussion at 140-7). Philip of Maced?n
ited with saying that he could take any fort if he could reach it with
loaded with gold: Cic. Att. 1.16.12; cf. Diod. 16.54.3 f., Plut. Mor. 178a-

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680 PHILIP HOLT

reasonable it might be in real

ticularly since the play stresses
with the truth. Likewise, the au
of Ismene65) is wrong as well
weak and fearful. Kreon is pr
mistakes.
Finally, obstinacy: Kreon goe
decision, and opposition only ha
decrees death as the penalty for
for Greeks applied the death p
threats (if not precisely on his
and the Guard tells us in grisl
stink: 'When we got there, spurr
we swept off every bit of du
laid the clammy body quite b
the windward66) to keep the s
It is a picture designed to provo
to it later in the Teiresias scen
as in the prologue, Antigone's
stressing the terrible conseque
a bird robbed of its young, la
bare', and curses those who le
not change his plans when he f
crime is his own niece and his
to put her to death. These dev
his intention as the emotional
based on sound principles, but
stomach to maintain his positio
play presents. Unfortunately, K
By this point in the play, prin
personalities. We have come aw
Kreon's 'inaugural address' and

65) Ant. 488-92, 531-5 (both spoken

the issue), 565. I take it that Kreon's s
Rouse, The Two Burials in Antigone,
the "first burial" requires too much u
66) On the sense see Jebb and Brown
Antigone 411-12, Hermes 125 (1997), 3

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE AXTIGONE 681

of Kreon himself He is less impressive than his ideals, and h

not doing terribly well on the test he set for himself?how well h
performs 'in office and law' (Ant. 175-7). Still, a Greek audie
might well hold back from shifting all its sympathy to Antig
Her ringing declaration of the unwritten laws, eternal and not
be altered by human decree, makes a fine sound to modern ea
but fifth-century Greeks were not so well primed to hear it. Mo
important, the unwritten laws occupy only half her speech to Kr
(450-60). The other half (460-70) is more specific and person
sometimes sympathetic (she could not leave her brother unbur
and sometimes distincdy quirky: she would have to die sooner
later anyway, she might as well do it sooner under present
cumstances, and anyway, Kreon is a fool. The Chorus' response
all this is that she is her father's daughter, all right, 'raw' and st
born (471 f.). This is not an endorsement of the unwritten la
and it is not altogether complimentary to Antigone either. L
Kreon's rule, Antigone's defiance is a complex combination of pri
ciple and personality, and she is driven by will, pride, and fam
honor at least as much as by devotion to the unwritten laws.67) T
conflict is between two characters, Kreon and Antigone, not betwe
the principles of state and family, or human and divine law, to wh
they appeal.68) It is more personal and thereby more dramatic, an
neither comes off unscathed.
Kreon's scene with Haimon shows his weaknesses as a ruler to
a higher degree. We have seen hints before that he is given to gen-
eralizations but has difficulty applying them to the situation at hand,
and we have seen clear evidence that he is harshly intolerant of
dissent. The signs now become clearer. Kreon's long speech in this
agon (Ant. 639-80) is a remarkable piece of generality and irrele-
vance. Haimon enters with protestations of his loyalty and no specific
advice or pleas. Here is how Kreon responds: children should obey
and honor their parents; bad children are trouble; a man should
not lose his head over a bad woman?they are not worth sleeping

67) This deserves fuller discussion, for which I must refer the reader to Bongie
(n. 33) and Knox, inter alia. Bongie, 252 goes so far as to call the speech on the
unwritten laws "a rationalization of the more compelling personal motives".
68) See inter alia Eberlein (?. 2), passim; Else (n. 33), 42; Hester (n. 2), 40;
Knox, 102-16.

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682 PHILIP HOLT

with; Antigone must die; a man

well to be good in public affair
cut both ways); people should obe
is bad; it is bad to be beaten by
failure in this to connect with
the situation at hand. As at 211
warm and circumscribed (681 f
Haimon's reply to all this is ex
tial in tone, heavily laden with
his own terms: there is room f
councils of state; it is important
to change one's mind and not be
cumspect, and with good reaso
appears prepared for Kreon's rea
His assertion that the Thebans ar
king (688-91) is quite consistent
already, and with what we will
Nesded in all Haimon's defere
the people of Thebes pity Antigo
This has been questioned as an un
be accepted at face value.69) Gr
for conveying basic informatio
area, few changes of scene, the s
actors. Playwrights compensate
sive reports of actions off-stage:
logues, narrative flashbacks ('The
and the like. Audiences must h
such reports; it is highly likely t
value unless they were proven
disguise in Sophokles tend to be
in advance (like the Pedagogue's t
and Neoptolemos' pretended quarr
or carefully unmasked afterward
We should take it as a general ru

69) The doubts of Sourvinou-Inwood, A

on this point make this digression nec
A. Maria van ?f Taalman Kip, Truth in
Character's Words?, AJPh 117 (1996), 5

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 683

should be accepted at face value unless they are explicidy pr

wrong, and Haimon's report of muttering among the Thebans pa
without contradiction. Indeed, we have seen that even the Ch
is only lukewarm about the edict (Ant. 211-4), and the Choru
cadre of trusted counselors close to the royal family (164-9),
cross-section of the people of Thebes. Why should the people emb
Kreon's edict any more enthusiastically? Haimon's news, then, sh
that popular opinion is beginning to tilt against Kreon.
Kreon, predictably, prefers to talk about something else, and
reacts with rage and disbelief. His world is being turned up
down: a younger man is venturing to instruct an elder (Ant. 726
Antigone is rebellious (730-2), the city is not submitting to its r
(734-9). Perhaps worst of all, women are getting the better of m
(740, 746, 756; the point has also appeared at 484 f., 525, 677
The world thus disturbed is actually that of the polis to a
degree; most Greeks in the audience would probably have b
quite content with the idea that the young ought to submit to t
old, people to authority, women to men.70) But accepting a prin
ple does not mean that we will automatically agree with ever
who invokes it. Kreon's nervous insistence on these principles be
to look like a sign of weakness, inflexibility, or even tyrann
does not so much espouse civic norms as hide behind them.
The denouement of the play can be discussed more briefly
least for the issues that concern us here. Antigone's kommo
final speech draw critical attention mosdy for what they tell us
her, about her motives for defying Kreon and her feelings a
faces death. These are important questions, but for this enquiry
is worth stressing a simpler and more obvious point, what K
is doing to her. The Chorus begins invoking the pathos of he
uation (Ant. 801-5), and in her first strophe she elaborates the r
sons for it (806-16): she is going to her death, seeing the lig
the sun for the last time, being married to Hades because her y
life is being cut off before she can be married properly. As
kommos began, so it ends; its closing epode, again sung by Anti
is basically a lament for her death (876-82), like her anapaests la

70) Citt? (?. 4), 487-92 and (?. 51), passim; Sourvinou-Inwood, Assumptions, 13
144 f.

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 684 PHILIP HOLT

as she exits (937-43). Amid t

whether the Chorus is sympath
in comparing herself to Niobe
other kin?we are invited to
different key something which
we saw at close range Antigon
edict. In both scenes, whateve
throwing out traitors unburied,
to pity her.71) Pity can be po
grieved for Antigone (?d??eta?
her. The Chorus grieves in spite
break with him openly. We may
tion, like the Thebans, or dec
way, we are invited again to con
and of his way of running the
The costs become far more app
the seer first reports dire omen
then announces that it is all because of Kreon. Kreon tries to make
amends, but too late: three people die, and Kreon is left ruined.
The verdict of the gods is in at last, but as often, the verdict is
plainer than the story leading up to it. We miss much of the story,
and much of the achievement of the Antigone, if we make Kreon
merely impious in issuing his proclamation and Antigone merely
noble in defying him. As we have seen, Kreon starts in a stronger
position, and one more in keeping with fifth-century values, than
we often recognize. Consequendy, the play takes on a larger task
than we often recognize in making his ruin credible and satisfying.
In succeeding, it is a better play than we often recognize?not only a
great one, but a deft one as well. 'That the play is weighted against
him [Kreon] is clear: that an Athenian audience would not have
thought his actions sound is, to my mind, not at all obvious. That,

71) Sourvinou-Inwood, Bad Woman, 17 notes the shift from portraying Antigone
as a threatening rebellious woman earlier in the play to showing her as a pitiable
bride of Hades here.
72) The Chorus says that they are 'carried outside the thesmor (?es???/e??
f????a?, 801 f.) upon seeing Antigone and are unable to restrain their tears. I
take it that the thesmoi here are Kreon's (Jebb, Kamerbeek), whether his sentence
against Antigone or his royal authority generally.

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 POUS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 685

of course, is the strength of the play?that it uproots a certa

which to most intents and purposes would seem admirable'.73
I have attempted to set out how the play uproots a certainty,
at least has some dramatic play with generally accepted opin
How the audience responded to this effort is uncertain; there is
reason to believe that all 16,000 of them reacted to a complex
in the same way. Still, we can estimate how a great many of th
would have been likely to react, and we can note that the
does much to nudge their sympathies towards Antigone, con
to the inclinations of their civic sensibilities. We may grant tha
play does not conjure up such a response entirely out of thin
As we have seen, it may have found some footholds in Greek id
about the importance of a decent burial (even if those same Gre
made exceptions for traitors) and of family loyalty (even if fam
funerals were subject to regulation by the polis). Still, the trage
works against the claims of the audience's civic loyalty and agai
the response which Antigone's action would likely have pro
in real life. On this point, the modern picture of Antigon
heroic dissenter is not altogether wrong. Only we must reco
that the play does not generate sympathy for Antigone by app
ing to any widely held notions about martyrs for causes or
science against tyranny. Rather, it works by the way it arr
events and shades their presentation?perhaps even by manip
tion. Antigone's distress and passion are given full play, her
nent is made to appear weak and foolish, and she and her
get most of the good lines.74) The play encourages the audien
root for a rebel against the values which they would likely espo
and practice in real life.

73) Graham Ley, On the Pressure of Circumstance in Greek Tragedy, Ramus 15 (1

43-51 at 49; for similar conclusions by other lines of argument, see Citt?
497-501; Cropp (?. 33), 153 f.
74) A few 'zingers': The doer grieves your mind, I grieve your ears (Ant.
I would have died even if you hadn't sentenced me (460 f.); if my action
foolish, I'm accused of folly by a fool (469 f.); there is no city which belon
one man (737); you'd rule well over a desert alone (739); I speak for he
you and me and the gods below (749). Kreon's only approach to pithiness (a
tinguished from his usual maxim-spouting) is his declaration that one of his
has just lost her mind and the other never had any (561 f.).

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 686 PHILIP HOLT

On this reading, the Antigone

I have called polis and traged
audience would likely respon
they would likely respond to
ditions of a performance, giv
text. The difference between t
the reception of things in the
It is easy to miss this distin
logue drown out the other. T
about the tragedy, but it tend
or misreading the history?th
defiance would have looked to
and by reading the play backw
way back to the prologue. Tr
is played, after all, on her ho
ing a fifth-century Greek aud
business than it looks. It takes
play develops to appreciate how
get the history right, on the o
tragedy wrong, asking us to o
we are told, Greeks thought v
Since this study has spent a lo
both, it is worth stressing tha
the best of both.
Foley sees the crucial dialectic differendy, as lying not between
polis and tragedy but within democratic ideology. That ideology (she
argues) can be used to support either Kreon (so Sourvinou-Inwood)
or Antigone (so Bennett and Tyrrell), so there is not much to choose
between the two positions. Anyway, both tragedy and Athenian civic
discourse are open-ended, filled with tensions, ambiguities, multi-
vocality, and dissoi logoi.76) Actually, there is quite a lot to choose

75) Foley, 143 righdy complains that historic readings tend to be too one-sided,
and we may add that except for Knox they often fall into one-sidedness by scant-
ing literary and dramatic values.
76) For the school, see inter alia Goldhill; Jean-Pierre Vernant, Tensions and
Ambiguities in Greek Tragedy, in: Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Tragedy
and Myth in Ancient Greece, English trans. (Brighton 1981), 6-27. Richard Seaford,
Historicizing Tragic Ambivalence: The Vote of Athena, in: Goff (ed.) (?. 1), 202-21 offers
a bracing note of protest.

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANTIGONE 687

between the two positions, for like Bennett and Tyrrell, Foley un
estimates how much Sophokles slanted the myth to give Kre
case (see above, n. 31, and the accompanying text). The prem
of the Antigone is skewed almost as heavily in Kreon's favor as
conclusion is skewed in Antigone's. Tragedy is indeed, like a l
other things, ambivalent and multivocal, but in this case the voi
of the polis is rather more on Kreon's side. The voices against
come rather more from elsewhere, and we can make some progr
in distinguishing them, identifying where they come from, and obser
ing how they converse.

IV. Tragedy

If this reading of the play is reasonably close to the truth, then

Antigone does something which tragedy does generally. Defiance
the norms is part of its stock in trade. Tragedy is a 'genre of tr
gression' and features an 'interplay between norm and transg
sion'?an important part of the current lively discussion of d
in relation to the polis.77) The Antigone presents quite a lot of tr
gression. Antigone's defiance of Kreon involves a degree of
assertion and boldness which would be hard to find, perhaps
hard to conceive of, in a real-life Greek city, but her play lets
antisocial voice speak on stage and gives the audience reason
root for it in spite of itself. In relating the Antigone to its larger
context, we should note some special reasons why the audie
would come to the theatre primed to listen to that voice, pr
in fact to respond to the play along the lines which I have
gested.
Tragedy was first of all a festival activity, performed on holidays.
A tragic performance was not an isolated entertainment; it was part
of a larger whole, the entire festival. People took time out from the

77) Quotes from Goldhill, Great Dionysia (n. 12), 126 and 127, a basic study for
delineating the paradox of anticivic discourse in a highly ordered civic setting. For
the discussion more generally, a good starter bibliography would include the col-
lections edited by Goff (n. 1), Pelling (n. 24), and Winkler and Zeitlin (n. 12). My
sketch of these matters will be in broad strokes, without marking particular areas
of agreement or disagreement.

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 688 PHILIP HOLT

usual business of life for proces

honor of Dionysos, a god who
emphasis on the release from ca
ods of license (Frazer's term) o
tive but temporary, provide a
from civilization and its discon
simply, a formal paid entertain
ways it was closer to Mardi Gra
ties, spring break, New Year's
from the ordinary and license
differendy, and act differendy
Perhaps they also give us licens
The Dionysian festivals of At
license. At least, they put on
conduct that fulfills some stron
ruptive, or imprudent to be i
wishes are acted out only with
real life; they come to an end
to work. Plays are not real ?f
reminding us that they are only
tive wishes at arm's length even
The carnival and wish-fulfillment elements of Greek drama are
most evident in tragedy's sister art, Old Comedy.78) In comedy, real-
life problems?war, demagogic politicians, and a general shortage
of food, drink, and sex?give way to utterly fantastic remedies. A
comic performance in a festival context is a complex compromise
formation in which everyday life and its restraints are both defied
and affirmed. The audience can enjoy watching the hero triumph,
even as they know that they will not really sign a separate peace
with Sparta or persuade the birds to build for them a city in the
clouds. The fantastic quality of comic solutions is in itself a sign of
their unreality.
Tragedy is closer to comedy, and closer to Dionysos, than is often
recognized. Like comedy, it traffics in wish fulfillment, although the

78) See Jean Claude Carri?re, L? carnaval et la politique (Paris 1979). On carni-
val elements in comedy in other periods, see C.L. Barber, Shakespeare's Festive Comedy:
A Study of Dramatic Form and its Relation to Social Custom (Princeton 1959); Erich Segal,
Roman Laughter: The Comedy of Plautus2 (Oxford 1987).

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 POLIS AND TRAGEDY IN THE ANUGONE 689

genre is more serious (and more lurid) than comedy, the w

fulfilled darker and more destructive. At least, it is difficult w
resorting to wish fulfillment to explain why the Athenian aud
on its Dionysian holiday would enjoy watching people kill their f
and marry their mothers, or kill their mothers to avenge their fath
or kill their husbands because their husbands had killed their d
ters, or kill their children because their husbands were abo
leave them for somebody else, or proposition their stepson
then accuse them of rape and commit suicide when rejected
deeds have a sinister allure, an attraction combined with repuls
They are powerful but also forbidden. Tragedy allows the mon
to come out of their cages and play a bit.
At the same time, tragedy, like comedy, puts some safeguard
the play of the monsters. Like comedy, it is presented in a fes
setting, that is, during an acknowledged time out from real lif
unhappy ending, common in tragedy although not inevitable, m
help reinforce the idea that society is right after all. Besides, tr
is not real. The action is distanced from the audience by bei
in the remote past, with figures drawn from legend (and often
outside Athens), and presented in elaborate poetic language
masks and costumes. Part of the experience of watching a trag
then, is having some of one's own worst wishes indulged and a
out, but in safe ways, vicariously, at a distance, and within lim
How, then, do polis values enter into shaping the audience's l
response to a play? It is highly doubtful that an audience w
judge the characters or actions of a tragedy entirely by the
dards they would use in real life. The festival setting and the
ventions of the tragic genre take the audience out of its eve
world and quite likely out of its everyday frame of mind a
Conventional values in a carnival setting become suspended,
tioned, defied, even trounced. This can afford a lot of pleasure
uproars and calamities at the expense of all we hold dear
life are scary, exciting, fascinating, and fun?particularly if pe
feel (as most of us do) some ambivalence about all they hold
Rooting a bit for the bad guys becomes permissible in a fe
world where (for the spectators if not for the characters) ther
no adverse consequences, not even for the wildest dreams. I
a lot of good, dirty fun.

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690 PHILIP HOLT

This might seem like an odd w

appears more civic-minded a
of good, dirty fun at all. We m
violence, and family conflict,
in sneaking about sprinkling di
Still, the Antigone, on the inter
tern that can be seen in Greek
social feeling unleashed, in a
Oidipous, Medeia, and the hou
alluring, yet horrifying, as in
Antigone's actions are shocking
kind?precisely the kind, as it
the time of the play. A prop
values and attitudes helps us to
authority on behalf of a nat
nant to most right-thinking G
tival nature of Greek tragedy
our understanding of the play
have thought all that right wh

Laramie, WY 82071-3603, Uni

Department of Modern and C

79) Some of the later work on this

the University of Wyoming and sp
grateful to both institutions. Earlier
Sciences, Arts and Letters and the
South. A later version was presented
School of Classics, University of L
mented on a draft; for this I thank
judgments, errors, or omissions.

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