A Tale of Two City-States: Athens and Thebes from 500-440 BCE

Welcome! Often times, knowing a text's geography and history can help us better understand it. Sophocle's ancient Greek tragedy Antigone is no exception. To specify, the relationship between the ancient city-states of Athens and Thebes gives the play a deeper meaning. I invite you to explore this relationship by following the viewing order below. Get ready to step back into a world thousands of years prior...

Viewing Order:

     *When viewing waypoints, I recommend switching from the Google Satellite to the Google Streets layer to observe the location names.

1. What Were Ancient Greek City-states?
     (Orange Waypoints)
2. Brief Context on Athens
     (Yellow Waypoints)
3. Brief Context on Thebes
     (Green Waypoint)
4. Historical Tensions
     (Blue Waypoints)
5. Reexamining Antigone

Works Cited

Cartledge, Paul. Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece. Abrams, Inc., 2020.

Freeman, Kathleen. Greek City-States. Hauraki Publishing, 2016.

Heaney, Seamus. The Burial At Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2004.

Rice, David G. “Agesilaus, Agesipolis, and Spartan Politics, 386-379 B.C.” Historia: Zeitschrift Für Alte Geschichte, vol. 23, no. 2, Franz Steiner Verlag, 1976.

Steinbock, Bernd. Social Memory in Athenian Public Discourse: Uses and Meanings of the Past. University of Michigan Press, 2013. 

Weiner, Eric. "What Made Ancient Athens a City of Genius?" The Atlantic, Feb. 10, 2016.

Zeitlin, F. 1990. "Thebes: Theater of Self and Society in Athenian Drama," in J. J. Winkler and F. I. Zeitlin (eds.), Nothing to Do with Dionysos?: Athenian Drama in Its Social Context. Princeton. 130-167.