The detailed knowledge and understanding of Philosophy and Tragedy during the 5th century BCE, the Golden Era of Athens, may take a lifetime of studying.
But even a simple overview of the basic players is not without its merits, as it can lead to impressive insights and possibly the desire for further research.
Being a Greek, I was raised and schooled in an environment where we believed that Ancient Athens Philosophy and Ancient Greek Tragedies in a structured coherent way are within everyone’s grasp.
From Homer to Aristotle and the in-between famous tragedians, here is a list of the most well-known leading figures in their order of appearance, and their most famous works. Here are the classics and the inside stories.
| Who | When | Selected work | What to know |
| Homer | c. 700 BCE | 1. The Iliad 2. The Odyssey | 1. Achilles’ heel (one’s weak point) 2. Odyssey’s 10-year adventures to return to Ithaka |
| Aeschylus | 535 – 456 BCE | The Oresteia | A trilogy of Greek tragedies where everybody kills everybody else – and with good reason! |
| Sophocles | 496 – 406 BCE | Oedipus Rex | – The first whodunit play ever! – The Oedipus complex (a son in love with his mother) |
| Euripides | 484 – 407 BCE | Medea | – In the tragedy, Medea in order to hurt her deceitful husband, killed their two children! |
| Socrates | 470 – 399 BCE | Dialogues | – Socrates’ Dialogues were written by his pupils after his death. He preferred oral communication. He viewed writing as flawed, without dialogue with the reader. |
| Aristophanes | 447 – 385 BCE | Lysistrata | -“No sex until peace is restored!” An ultimatum by women in both Athens and Sparta! An anti-war comedy. |
| Plato | 428 – 348 BCE | The Republic | – The allegory of the cave. What is real about the things we see/know? |
| Aristotle | 384 – 322 BCE | Nichomachean Ethics | – How men should best live? What is ethical? |
1. Homer c. 700 BCE
There is very little known about the bard who compiled the tales of The Iliad and The Odyssey. These poems, which were kept alive by oral tradition are surely the greatest and most influential in history.
The Iliad by Homer is an epic description of one episode in the Trojan War. Homer, as claimed by the 5th-Century historian Herodotus, was the one who first described the human characters of the Olympian gods and shaped the way people worshipped them.
The Odyssey describes Odyssey’s 10 years of adventures on his way back home from the Trojan War. We learn of his encounter with sirens, nymphs, and one-eyed Cyclops as he is trying to return to his wife Penelope, on the island of Ithaka.
2. Aeschylus 535 to 456 BCE
Museum: Department of Paintings of the Louvre
When the “Father of Tragedy” began writing, the theater was just in its first steps.
Aeschylus developed to a great extent the characters in his plays, the language was magnificent and the plot moved Athenians as no one ever before. His idea was that there is a plan of cosmic justice within which his characters developed. We see that in his works such as Prometheus Unbound and the Oresteia.
Oresteia is a brilliant trilogy, fully preserved, about the House of the Atrides the most dysfunctional family in ancient Greece!
Works as this one coined the phrase “like a Greek tragedy”!
3. Sophocles 496 to 406 BCE
Seven of Sophocles’ plays have reached our days.
Out of those, the following three
– Antigone,
– Oedipus at Colonus and
– Oedipus Rex
would be more than enough for his worldwide fame.
Antigone poses the question of whether one owes devotion and obedience, to the state laws or to their own system of values.
Oedipus Rex is the story of a king whose unavoidable fate is to murder his father and marry his mother. This is called by many the greatest masterpiece of Greek tragedy.
4. Euripides 484 to 407 BCE
Euripides was the last of the great Greek tragedians. He wrote radical reinterpretations of the ancient myths in which humans bore their suffering without reference to the gods or their fate.
One of his most famous plays Medea is about a woman whose husband is a traitor and he’s about to leave her for a Princess. She decides upon the ultimate revenge. She kills their two children so that he is devastated and without descendants.
Euripides enjoyed the challenge of dealing with such an unspeakable act and still manage to justify it, succeeding in convincing his audience.
Medea is played in the Ancient Theater of Epidavros almost every summer.
5. Socrates 470 to 399 BCE
Though Socrates himself wrote nothing, his teachings were recorded in the writing of historians and especially his pupil Plato.
He is considered to be the forerunner of Western philosophy.
At the height of the Golden Age of Athens, the original marketplace philosopher debated the great meanings of the Agora.
His opponents accused him of corrupting the Athenian youth and of bringing in new ideas (kena demonia). He was led to a trial. He acknowledged that he was guilty of such “crimes” and demanded to be thanked for his services to the city, by his fellow Athenians.
People in power at the time were afraid of him and his continuous challenge of the status quo. They eventually managed to have him sentenced to death by poison.
Socrates taught obedience to the law even when the law is unjust. In accordance with his ideology and against his pupils’ pleads, he took the poison and turned his ending into the ultimate example of living a life in accordance with one’s ideology.
6. Aristophanes 447 – 385 BCE
Aristophanes, the “Father of Comedy” as he is also known, is the greatest comic dramatist of Greece.
Through his comedies, he was repeatedly making caricatures of everybody in power. He also used to say that he was writing for a specially intelligent audience.
We have eleven out of the forty plays we know he has written and many of them are repeatedly presented in the Epidaurus Festival every summer in Athens.
One of the most well-known and applauded is his hilarious Lysistrata. In this anti-war comedy, the women of Sparta and Athens decide to refuse to sleep with their husbands until they stop fighting each other. Powerful anti-war messages during the 5th century BCE!
His plays offer not only major artistic quality but are also priceless historical documents on life and politics in classical Athens and have contributed to the history of European theatre.
7. Plato 428 to 348 BCE
If Socrates was the forerunner of western philosophy Plato was the foundation. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
Plato never forgave the Athenians for voting his mentor Socrates into the death penalty. He believed that majorities are wrong and not equipped to decide upon important state issues.
His works from his early dialogues presenting Socratic ideology, to later masterworks such as The Republic, comprise the backbone of every major intellectual movement that followed.
Although Plato was a powerful advocate against democracy, his work The Republic is still the blueprint for the best way to run a government.
8. Aristotle 384 to 322 BCE
by Lysippos, c. 330 BCE. Credit: Wikipedia
Aristotle addressed the issue of ethics for both the individual (Nicomachean Ethics) and the state (Politics).
He described ethics as a practical necessity instead of a theoretical study, i.e., people should strive to be ethical by doing the right thing, not just thinking about it.
Also, it was Aristotle the one who said that “man is by nature a political animal”.
After studying with Plato, Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great.
He later set up the Lycium a competitor school to Plato’s Academy. In modern Greece nowadays, the last three years of high school (students aged 15 yrs to 18 yrs) are called Lycium.
His poetics is still one of the most important works of literal criticism and his Nichomachean Ethics are among the greatest studies on ethics.
He wrote about aesthetics, biology, ethics, economics, politics, physics, logic, poetry, theatre, rhetoric, and more. He has had a unique influence on all forms of knowledge in the West.