아테네 비극의 정치적 함의와 페르시아 전쟁 -오이디푸스 및 아가멤논 왕가의 비극을 중심으로-

Abstract

Traditionally, the Greek tragedy has been considered as ‘the tragedy of the fate’ or as ‘the tragedy of the character’. This paper, however, attempts to argue that the main subject of the extant tragedies were related to the Persian War. The subjects of the Attic tragedy mostly centered on the two royal families, the royal family of Oedipus of Thebes and of Agammenon of Argos. In my opinion, the reason is because Thebes and Arogs were the representative states in Greece taking the side of Persia during the Persian War against the alliance of Greek cities. To prove this, in the first part, the paper portrays the political meaning of theatre and drama in Athenian life. In the second part, the paper discusses the political stands of Thebes and Argos during the Persian War, and the attitudes or opinions of the Athenians towards them. In the third part, the paper compares the contents of Attic tragedy such as Oedipus, the King, to the related traditional myths, analyzing the difference between them, thus traces Athenian writers' intentions and aims of writing them. In conclusion, all Athenian tragedy was political, in that it was staged by and for the polis of the Athenians. In the tragedies, Thebes is described as a polis, full of incest, autochtony, murder and despotic powers. For this, Athenian tragic poets, such as Aeschylos and Sophocles present a fictive version of Thebes and Argos, even changing the traditional contents of myths. Those Attic tragedies were a response to the Persian attack and a propaganda of their victory against the Persian Empire and pro-Persian polis. Performing tragedies (related to the two royal families) was to be an important part of the ideological project by which Athenian imperialism sought to weaken Persia influence or pro-Persian influence.