Antigone (Sophocles play)
Antigone ( ; ) is a tragedy by Sophocles written in or before 441 BC.
Women of Trachis
The date of the first performance of "Women of Trachis" is unknown, and scholars have speculated a wide range of dates for its initial performance. Scholars such as T.F. Hoey believe the play was written relatively early in Sophocles' career, around 450 BC. Often cited as evidence for an early date is the fact that the dramatic form of "Women of Trachis" is not as developed as those of Sophocles' other surviving works, advancing the belief that the play comes from a younger and less skilled Sophocles. Additionally, the plot of the play is similar to a story related by Bacchylides in Bacchylides XVI, but in some respects significantly different from earlier known versions of Bacchylides' story. From this, Hoey and others have argued that Sophocles' interpretation was more likely to have influenced Bacchylides than vice versa. Serving as further evidence is the relationship between the character of Deianeira and that of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus' "Oresteia", first produced in 458. In earlier known versions of this story, Deianeira has several masculine qualities, similar to those of Clytemnestra – who, in the "Oresteia", purposely kills her husband Agamemnon. In "Women of Trachis", however, Deianeira's character is softer and more feminine, and she is only inadvertently responsible for her husband's death. According to some scholars, Deianeira's character in "Women of Trachis" is intended as a commentary on Aeschylus' treatment of Clytemnestra; if so, "Women of Trachis" was probably produced reasonably soon after the "Oresteia", although it is also possible that such commentary was triggered by a later revival of Aeschylus' trilogy. Hoey also sees echoes of Aeschylus' "Prometheus Bound", particularly in the relevance of "Women of Trachis" to debates that were occurring during the 450s on the "relationship between knowledge and responsibility."