Euripides' Hecuba: Nothing to Do with Democracy?

Abstract

Over the last decade it has become fashionable to discount democracy as a factor in the production and reception of Athenian tragedy. This trend began in earnest with Jasper Griffin’s review of Nothing to Do with Dionysos in which he reduced the relationship between tragedy and democracy to a tautology. 1 Simon Goldhill and Richard Seaford responded to Griffin after publication of his article. Goldhill stressed the power of democratic ideology to encompass and recuperate difference, arguing that “From within democracy, it is hard to think transgression, alternatives, contestation except in democratic terms” (Goldhill 2000: 46). Since then, Peter Rhodes has argued that the City Dionysia and the plays staged there are generic polis events. Identifying elements of the festival in non-democratic poleis, he concludes that “...Athenian drama...reflect[s] the polis in general rather than the democratic polis in particular” (Rhodes 2003: 119).