Civilization #9: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as Prophets of Democracy

okay so we we will do Greek Theater today now as a society every society has a problem the problem is how do we organize the thinking of the people within our society okay how do you create an identity and in modern society there are three institutions that create a collective identity for society okay so the first would be what exactly thank you schools right so Public Schools you're here to learn about the history of China you're here to learn about the politics of China right the idea is to make everyone think alike or have the same basic knowledge and worldview okay what's another institution that does that does this in society the media right okay so mass media so when you when you turn on a TV when you read a chence newspaper it's presenting a particular worldview and when you absorb this worldview you become more Chinese right and what's the last institution that helped us form a collective identity in China entertainment right mass culture this includes um you know TV shows this includes movies okay this includes books does that make sense so through these three institutions societies can create a national identity and um depending on your Society you create a different worldview right so in America Americans would want to create an individualistic identity where's in China we want to create a um collectivist identity okay so what I will show you today is Greek society Athenian Society was doing the same thing okay but it was doing it it through theater and the main function of theater was to create an identity as an as a democratic citizen okay Democratic citizen why do we have a democracy what does it mean to live in democracy what is your responsibility as a citizen to be in a democracy okay so that's what theater um uh does in Athens so um let me give you some background about theater theater was the uh formed the basic structure of Athenian Society so uh there are two months of the year when everyone went to the theater okay so uh once in Winter and once in the summer time and they were called the Festival of dionis okay dionis was the god the Greek god of um the theater of art of music of sex of wine and so the Festival of dianis there were religious elements to it um but it was mainly about watching theater and through the process of watching theater Athenians um created a national identity that they all believed in okay so this happened twice a year for one month and it was free for everyone so it's the rich who um paid for all the place to be performed and that's how the rich the aristocratic families won favor from uh the people in fact Athenians considered going to the theater the greatest Birthright of being an Athenian okay that was the privilege and the right of being an Athenian it was the um highest honor in Athens to participate in the festival as a playright and every Festival there' be two there would be two competitors okay and they were called the protagonist okay and the antagonist so today um we know that protagonist means the hero of a novel antagonist means the villain of a novel but back then all this meant was you were the first competitor and then the antagonist was the second competitor okay and the entire point of theater was to promote democracy in Athens and they did that through many mechanisms um first of all whoever won the festival was decided by popular vote okay the entire process of theater was Democratic so there were no professional actors in Athens people were selected from the community uh to act out the the play and everyone participated in watching um the play in fact the largest EMP theater these are all outdoor theaters in a could hold 10,000 people okay 10 15,000 people the maximum population of Athens was 50,000 people okay so this a a huge Community event that brought everyone together and they loved the theater um the three most famous playwrights in Athens at that time were Isis um sopes and Europe uh europees okay and the these were really playwrights poets but they were first and foremost prophets of democracy they were teachers of democracy who told the Athenian people why do we have democracy why is democracy good and what and how should we protect and promote our democracy all right so in their place the very heart and soul of their plays was about the promotion of democracy in Athens and these three were the most admired of all the playwrights everyone at that time wanted to be a playwright because that was the highest honor um in Athens okay so to win first place at the festival Dianes is like winning the Nobel Prize in physics today okay so um what I will do now is go over the most famous plays so we can understand how they promoted democracy uh through their artwork but are there any questions so far before I continue yes it's an Ampitheater okay so that's a great question about Acoustics we call this Acoustics so how the theater was designed was like this okay you had the stage and then um the theater was designed design like this like an oval okay so in other words um the sound was captured in like a cavern in a cave so there was resonance but obviously you were required to shout out the words slowly soone can hear okay that's the first thing second thing is these plays were so popular everyone memorized the lines you understand so they already knew the content of the plays and they but they wanted to participate in the community aspect of the play does that make does that make sense so the two things is uh the theater was designed in a way so that sound traveled very U freely in the theater so everyone can hear but also everyone memorize the lines anyway okay does that make sense okay great question all right any more questions before I continue all right so let's talk about issus okay because he was really the first of the major play rights and he wrote a play called oresa and I will explain to you the plot of the Ora before I explain to you the meaning in an interpretation of the play okay so um all these plays comes from Greek mythology because everyone knows mythology um and so what the play rades did was they took material from Greek mythology and and package it in a contemporary context to explore modern themes okay all right so therea um the play set in a place called Aros and during the masine period okay so this is before the Bronze Age collaps Ming in Greece um Argos was the most powerful City in Ming and Greece and um when the king died he left the throne to his eldest son named at trees okay but often what happens in these cases is the younger brother refuses to accept the authority of the eldest and he Rebels okay so a war was thought over the Argos Throne a treaties won and then his brother comes and begs for forgiveness and a treaties being the king says you're my brother I want to show I'm I'm a benevolent King so I will forgive you and to show that I forgive you we will I will host for you a banquet and a feast okay and so the younger brother is very happy about this but during the feast before the feast what a treat a treaties does is he kills all the sons of his younger brother and he cooks them and during the feast he feeds it to his younger brother and when his younger brother finds out about this okay he he dies after this but before he dies he curses a treaties and says curse upon you and your house because a feast is a contract between you and the gods okay when you hold a feast you promise of gods this Feast will be peaceful and so people trust you and come and eat your food so when you poison your food like this you are in some of the Gods so I curse you and your entire house okay and then he dies but before he dies um um his son agus okay agus escapes okay so his only remaining son is agus and agus is responsible now for adventuring the death of his family okay all right so a treaties becomes king he has two sons who inherit his throne okay the first is Egan who becomes king of Argos and he is the king of kings he is the one who start the children war and launch an invasion of Troy okay and his brother is menw who becomes king of Sparta and they both marry sisters okay they marry s two sisters AG man on marri's clestra and menas marries Helen okay this is important because remember helin runs away to Troy and Menos tells his brother EG Menan gets upset and they agree to organize this massive Greek army to invade destroy Troy and get Helen Back okay but when they're about to set sail for Troy there's no win and egam Manon knows the gods are not happy with them okay so EG Manan consults a fortune teller who tells him how to win the favor of the Gods he tells EG Manon you have to sacrifice your daughter ifia and at this point Egan man should be like um I'm not going to do that I'm not going to sacrifice my daughter Eugenia so that I could go to Troy and why do I want to go to Troy in the first place right hell is not my wife it's men's wife not my problem right I should just give this up because obviously the gods don't want me to go that's what he should do but instead he's like fine I'll I my daughter okay so he kills his daughter in Virginia the wind uh is released from the skies and they set sail to Troy okay and we know what happens they're there for 10 years and end up destroying Troy who's really pissed now who's really angry now who's who's really angry about all this clan mestra right the wife of a Manar because their daughter has been killed for like no reason okay so clra while Egon is away for 10 years she plots her revenge what she does is she finds Aus and they become lovers okay and they plot how to avenge the death of Eugenia so 10 years later when Egon comes back from Troy Victorious kestra kills him okay and she makes agius now king of Argos the problem is that egam Manon has a son named aristes and aristes uh during this time was exiled from Argos okay and now aristes upon hearing the death of um his father he is now HonorBound to kill his mother now obviously he doesn't want to do that okay so he's struggling emotionally about what to do so he consults um Apollo who is basically the God of Justice and Apollo tells him you are right and just to want to advance your father okay so R's goes back to Argos and he kills his mother clestra and Augustus and now he's king of Argos the problem now is because he's killed his mother there are these demons called the furies who come up from the underworld and they begin to haunt him okay they're torturing him and aristes um becomes so tortured he runs away from Argos and he's trying to run away from Furies but the furies refuse to let him go and Ori says to them I killed my mother in order to avenge my father that was the right and just thing to do and the the say to him um we are old gods we are responsible for maintaining order and structure in the universe one thing that you cannot do is kill your parents especially your mother by doing so you are breaking the order of the universe therefore we will haunt you for the rest of Eternity we will not let you go okay aristes goes talks to Apollo and Apollo tries to intercede on the on behalf of aristes and the F say to him you are a young God you are a new God we are the old gods we are much older than you are we are much wiser than you are you have no authority over us we don't care about Justice we don't care about the laws of men we care about the laws of the universe and arises has broken the law of the universe okay so now orisses is in a lot of trouble and so in an act of desperation the last thing he does is he runs to Athens where Athena is and Athena is the goddess of wisdom so aristes tells Athena the godess his story and he begs for her help okay and Athena takes pity on aristes and she says basically I'm going to convene a jury okay of 500 Athenian citizens and you will tell you will make your case before them the furies will make their case before them and they will decide whether or not you are guilty okay so both aristes and the fairies make their case and morally speaking both cases are compelling okay right because even though clestra killed man on the fact of the matter is eg Manon was an right EG Manan killed their daughter for no particular reason and then he went off to Troy and killed a lot of people for like no reason as well okay so both cases uh were very strong and so at the end of the day 250 Athenians decided aesus was guilty 250 decided he was uh innocent okay so so it's what we call hung jury okay it was divided evenly so what then happens now is Athena comes in and says that because you are deadlocked I will be the deciding vote I vote in favor of aristes okay so now aristes is free to go home and live his life in peace now the FY say to her no no no no no no we don't accept your laws Athena okay and then Athena says to them fine you guys I'll make you a deal okay right now you're demons and every fears and hates you but I will now make you stand for justice truth and righteousness so that we thethan people will worship you and admire you okay and the fies say okay that's a pretty good deal okay so the fies accept this deal and arus is allowed to go home and the story ends okay does that make sense so that's a story why so what's the relevance of the story well for Athens it tells them where democracy comes from okay right Athenians Athena the goddess herself gave democracy to Athens right but it also tells them how what a tremendous gift this is because by giving the Athenian people democracy it basically gave them the power of gods right because when you have these 500 jurors how each of them has the same power and authority of the god Athena herself Athena can only cast one vote right okay and so what this is telling the Athenian people is the gods gave you democracy honor them by taking it very seriously okay when you vote do so very seriously L because when you vote in a good way meaning you've fought very clear clearly um over your decision then you bring Justice truth you bring Justice and truth and righteousness into the world okay does that make sense and that's why I say iselis is a profit of democracy because through this play He Is Telling the Athenian people where democracy come from why it's important and what they can do to ensure democ stays in Athens okay any questions so far about this all right okay let's move on to sop sopes okay so sop wrote many plays his most famous is the edus trilogy okay edus Trilogy now um you may have heard of the edus trilogy but I will summarize the story for you okay so what happened is in the city of Thieves a king and his wife they have a young son and as is a custom at that time they go see a fortune teller and the fortune teller tells them your son is going to kill you the father and marry the mother and the King freaks out and he's like I don't want that so he tells he orders his Soldier to go out and kill the baby okay and the soldier takes the baby and again it's it's just a baby like like you know maybe a few days a few weeks old he goes out in the woods he goes out in the woods and he's supposed to kill the baby but he's a soldier and he feels it is it' be dishonorable to kill a baby so what he does is he just leaves the baby in the woods and runs away thinking maybe the Wolves will come and eat the baby okay instead a Shepherd from another city comes and finds the baby and he takes care of the baby okay he goes home in the city the king and queen have no child they have no son they have no hair okay so the shepherd presents the baby to the king and the King names him edus and edus grows up to be a very strong very Noble very handsome young man when he is of age he goes and talks to a fortune teller the fortune teller tells him I am sorry but you are cursed you are cursed to kill your father and marry your mother so edus freaks out and says I don't want to do that I don't want to kill my parents who love me so he runs away from his City okay and he's going to thieves and on the way to thieves he gets in an argument with an old man and his friends and he kills all of them okay this old man happens to be his real father the King of Thieves he goes into thieves and everyone's crying and edus asks what the problem is and the citizens there tell him well our king is dead and also there's a Spinx an evil demon who is haunting us okay so edus volunteers to challenge the spin to a duel and the spins um ask edus a riddle if edus can get it right right the spin will go away but if edus gets it wrong then the spin will eat edus okay and the riddle is what walks in the morning with four legs what walks in the a in the afternoon with two legs then what walks in the evening with three legs and the answer is yeah man okay so it's a very famous riddle it gets it right and the Spinx loses and he flies away okay the people thieves are so thankful they make him King of Thieves if you're King of Thieves you marry the queen of Thieves okay so he's done this he's married his uh mother and he killed his father okay 20 years later there's a plague in thieves and edus now the king knows that somehow he's angered the gods so he talks to a fortune teller the fortune teller tells him well the gods are angry at you because you've killed your father and you've married your mother and you've had children of your mother okay so all your children are products of incest so they gods are angry at you so what edus does is he blinds himself and he Exiles himself okay to die somewhere else okay now the problem now is who inherits the throne so his eldest son is supposed to inherit the throne but he has another son named pois polyes who Rebels and he fights for the thr the two brothers kill themselves in battle okay they kill themselves fighting each other and now cron who is um uh the the brother to the dead queen that the queen has killed herself okay he now inherits a throne okay and the first thing he does is announced that the dead King will be given a state funeral okay we will honor him but polyus who rebelled against the king and who caused all this suffering and misery in the world he will not be given a funeral he will not be buried and the reason why is Greeks believe that only by burying the dead can they find peace in the after World okay so it's a very serious thing not to bury the dead anany who is the daughter of um edus and the BR and the sister of P poesis she finds out about this and she thinks this is unjust poesis has done a lot of bad things but no one deserves this okay so she secretly buries polyes cron finds out and demands integnity to be arrested and cron says to her how dare you defy my laws how dare you disrespect my orders and the integ says to uh him your laws are unjust and Kanon says the laws are the laws without laws there will be complete chaos and then Tey responds by saying human laws must conform to Justice there are these laws in the universe ver that are Divine Unwritten and immutable and we must respect these laws human laws cannot override these laws of Justice okay and this makes cron very angry and so he sentenced her to death for disobeying him okay the problem is antagony is the fiance of hymon who is Cron's son so hmon the prince comes and begs his father to relent and hymon says can you please forgive integy and cron thinks his son has betrayed him right your love for integy has blinded you from seeing the truth from doing what is right and hymon responds and says father I'm not doing this for integon I'm doing this for you and the reason why is the people thieves fully support integon they think she is a hero they think she is just and right to be to want to bury her brother they think you are a tyrant father and Kanon says should I obey the mob should I the king listen to the Mob and then hmon says no you should listen to what is right and just okay cron gets very angry and kicks himon out okay but then Creon has a change of heart and he doesn't know if he's done the right thing so he talks to a fortune teller okay and the fortune teller tells him um integon is right in this in this in this situation you have to save her if you don't save her if she dies the gods will be very angry at you okay and that scares cron so cron and his guards they look for antagony but when they find integy she's in a cave and she's dead she's killed herself because she doesn't want to be executed okay and we weeping over the body of integy is hmon he's crying he's so depressed and sad and cron sees his son crying and he tries to put his hand on him and console him the moment that hymon sees his father he becomes so angry he lunge at him with his sword okay but he misses and when he find out he has failed to kill his father in his anger and in his grief he kills himself so both anany and hmon are now dead and when hyon's mother finds out about this she kills himself she kills herself too and now Kon is a is alone in the world okay does that make sense okay uh so does this story make sense to you all right now what does the story mean well remember Athens is a democracy and so this is a message that's very much anti- King right like let's not have a king because Kings do stupid things and why do kings do do stupid things because of huus the problem with Kings with monarchy with power is people develop huis arrogance right violent excessive arrogance and that makes them do stupid things like listen like um refuse to listen to what is right and good and just that's why kingship is a bad thing that's why we Athenians have democracy and not a king okay so that's the first message the second message is basically the world works when the old give way to the young okay the old must always listen to the young so remember that in the Ora the play ends with a furious the old gods giving way to the new Gods who bring Justice into the world okay the the idus uh Trilogy ends in tragedy because the Old King refuses to give way to young people okay so the other message is society works there is truth and Justice in the world when the old give way to the young okay so those are the two main messages of this play any questions so far before I move on TR oh that's a great question why do people trust the fortune tellers because remember everyone's religious so the fortune tellers speak on behalf of the Gods okay they they're called um seers or prophets or uh divor okay so their job what makes them special is they're able to interpret the will of the Gods and that's why the Kings listen to them okay and remember this is for most of human history um humans were extremely religious people including the Greeks the Greeks were especially incredibly religious okay does that make sense all right okay any more questions before I move on all right let's talk about um yides okay and yides was he's the youngest of these three and he's the least he was the least prized or the least respected in Athens when he was a liive okay and the reason why is as you can see the Ora in the edus Rex um Trilogy they celebrate Athenian democracy but ubid he criticized Athenian democracy right so the example is in 4115 BCE and this is the height of the palpan war okay he put on a play called children woman and this play is about the aftermath of the children War so at the end of the children War all the children men are killed right and the custom is to enslave the children uh woman okay so uh one character is hecuba and hecuba is the queen of Troy and pram um her husband he he's been killed okay hecuba is a tragic figure because um she's seen all her sons die and then one of her daughters has been sacrificed killed uh for Achilles Achilles died in in the war and achilles is dead so they sacrificed a young girl who's a princess of Troy he hecubus daughter in order to accompany him in the afterworld so either uh so all her daughters have either been killed by the Greeks or they've been enslaved okay and been forced to be the mistress or concubine of the Greek uh hero hero like Odus okay then you have a Maki and J Maki um is the wife of Hector the prince of Troy who died at the hands of Achilles okay so she saw the death of her husband and she has a young baby okay and this young baby is only a few months old but he's a boy and the law at that time is all boys must be killed because the Greeks fear if he goes up and he's and he's the son of Hector right he might want revenge okay so draki must witness the Greeks killing um her son who's only again only a few months old and then and then heot is dragged away to be a slave to be basically a mistress a lover of a Greek General aysus and so hecuba must personally bury the dead child okay and so it is a play that made everyone in Athens weep what makes this play powerful is that the year before 416 BCE and this is again during the height of the palan War Athens was attacking everyone okay including melow an island called melow and when they attacked Melos they killed all the man and enslaved all the woman so in many ways children the children woman is a direct response to what happened in Melos okay Europe is telling the people do you see how terrible we are we are a terrible people do you see all the hurt and suffering we' brought onto the world because of our Empire okay now obviously thean people didn't like this play and so he lost in the competition to this obscure nobody okay and Yus got really angry about all this he was very bitter about all this so he exiled himself to Macedonia okay where he died okay he died away from Athens in his last play he wrote his last play called a backai in Macedonia and after he died his friends brought this play back to Athens this play backy is considered his Masterpiece his best play okay so again what I will do now is I'll explain to you the plot of the Bai and then I will explain what the interpretation is okay all right so um there's a God there's a god named diis another name for diis is bakas okay so the baky are people who worship dianis um the god of theater of music of uh festivals of wine of sex okay now um dianis The Legend is he was born in thieves to a fean princess and um his father was Zeus the king of the Gods okay Zeus likes to go around and rape woman okay and he has many many children including diis but when the princess of Thieves announced that she's been impregnated by Zeus No One believed her everyone laughed at her okay and uh the people of Thieves refus to worship dianis now diis is worshiped around the world including in India as far as as India so dianis has always been bitter about all this okay he's bitter about the fact that his wife his mother was insulted by the F people he's also bitter about the fact that Fe F people don't pay homage to him okay so he plots his revenge what he does is he disgu disgu himself as a Wanderer okay a stranger and he makes the woman of Thieves insane okay he makes he makes them worship him and what they do is they run off to the mountains where they have sex ories okay they're having like sex they're doing all these crazy things in the worship of dianis the King of Thieves his name is pentus panthus he he hears about this he hears about all this chaos and he decides you know what I'm going to get my Army go in the mountains and kill everyone okay because the baky are too disruptive they are uh aoral okay and he's about to do this but then diis the wanderer tells him hey I'll make you a deal don't kill the backy I want to take you into the mountains and together we can watch them have sex together okay we can watch their sex parties and pentas says okay that's interesting okay so together the two um go into the mountains and they hide behind a rock as a backai are about to worship dianus panus is hiding behind the rock you can't really see that clearly okay but he's really excited he really wants to see the backy in action so dianis says why don't you climb that tree and that tree will give you a better view of all the action okay so pantheus climbs the tree and he hangs by the branch okay and he he has a very clear view of the backy who are in a circle then what D does is he lowers the branch so like panthus is now in the circle of the woman and D commands the woman to kill pantheus to rip his body apart okay and one of the woman in that circle is actually pantheus mother right okay so pantheus dies in the um mountains the people of Thieves are now very anxious the king um has disappeared the woman of Thieves are in the mountains then P's mother comes back and and she's running she's really excited okay and she's holding the head of panus and she's shuning to people of Thieves look how wonderful I am look how Brave and courageous and strong I am because I'm holding a lion's head by my bare hands with my bare hands I killed a lion and ripped the head off his body here it is okay and it takes a very long time for the people thieves to convince her that's not a lion's head man that's your son's head okay so this is an extremely weird play okay very weird and there are different interpretations of what this means and I and I'll tell you my interpretation right so a think about this image okay a mother holds the son's head in her hand and she's celebrating How brave she is right now I think this is a metaphor for war and Empire the reason why is war and Empire happens when old people send their children to die to fight and die for their Glory does that make sense okay so this image of a mother holding the son holding her son's head and shutting to the whole world look how Brave I am look how great I am okay it's really a metaphor or an image for war and Empire okay because remember the pan war is really about building Empire right Athens wants to build its Empire and it's sacrificing its young people in order to accomplish this so the bakai is a direct criticism of the Athenian Empire and his direct criticism of the pelan war okay does that make sense all right um so some further Evidence support this interpretation is in 431 [Music] BC the pan war between Spartan and Athens started and about a year afterwards a lot of Athenian men are dead and it is the custom at that time to honor the war dead by holding a huge State funeral okay so the state Athens will pay for the burial of all its War dead during this huge funeral all things come out to uh watch an oration and so uh Pericles who again remember we'll talk more about Pericles later on but Pericles he's the basically the first citizen of Athens which basically means he's the king of Athens okay and he gives his funeral oration during this time and the fation is considered by many to be the greatest speech ever made okay is beautiful it is um extremely eloquent it's very powerful in the speech he says this Athens is the greatest place ever and that's because we celebrate Excellence Athens is a place where anyone can come and through hard work through Talent can achieve greatness we are an open tolerant Cosmopolitan people we have a we have a democracy where everyone can participate in the Civic life the political life of Athens that's what make Athens glorious therefore we must protect our democracy through War it is good that the young go out and fight for our Empire our democracy because that's what gives meaning to their lives the these men who are dead before us they died well because they died protecting Athens and defending our democracy and we should have all young men go and fight for us okay that's a speech that's literally what he says so Ides was probably in the audience right because everyone was in the audience when when the speech was given okay and he reimagines his fation as the mother holding the son's head and saying to the world look how Brave I am okay what Pericles is really saying is we're an Empire an Empire is so good because it brings glory to the old people and so the young must protect the glory of the old people by dying in a war does that make sense okay but if you think about it okay even though Ides is criticizing Athenian democracy what he's really doing is also trying to defend Athenian democracy because a democracy only happens when citizens are engaged in a process of argumentation debate and self-reflection and so what ues is really trying to do is put a error before thean people and he's saying toan people look how awful we are we can do better and that's what a democracy really is it's an open and honest discussion about how we can be better okay and again these three um issist sopes and Ides are considered the three greatest playwrights in uh Athenian history and and there these plays are actually still performed today okay so there Thea uh edus Rex and the bakai are still perform in theaters around the world today that's how amazing uh they were so any questions oh okay great question okay so the baky how do other Scholars interpret the Bai right okay so there are different interpretations but the most common interpretation is it is a play that explores um the idea of religious yield uh religious devotion or religious fanaticism okay okay does that make sense that's that's most common interpretation this play is really about the power of religion and faith and how it drives us into madness Okay that's the most common interpretation another interpretation is well dianis is the villain okay he's not really the villain but he's the main focus of um this play and D does a lot of bad things right well guess what for most of his life Ides was participating in the fesal of dines hoping to win first place right to to be the protagonist uh to win first place but most of the times he lost because he he kept on offending thean people right so another interpretation is this play backa it's a satire on the power of dionis and of theater in general okay it's direct criticism of the Festival of dianis and what he what what and what uh UB is really saying is the Festival of dianis it's not about art and reflection and democracy it's really just a while sex party that's trying to please everyone okay so so you can also interpret this as a theism of democracy itself democracy is just a wild sex party right so these are the two major interpretations that it is that the it's about the power and dangers of religious devotion fanaticism okay um and also the play Bey it's a direct attack on the idea of theater itself and democracy okay but I don't see it that way I think the most likely explanation for me is it is a direct criticism of Empire okay and you can believe whatever you want that's a power of Athenian theater there are different ways to interpreted okay so even today modern audiences are still amazed and inspired by these plays any any more questions great good question okay so Revenge okay you're right in that all these plays have the idea of Revenge okay and the reason why is if you think think about human motivation what really drives us right what really drives us to violence what's revenge okay so revenge is the main plot device we use to drive action it's what motivates us to do violent things and that and that's why um throughout all these plays revenge is a common theme okay but a very very common but another very common theme is the idea of hubris right hubris arrogance and this is what the Greek um Tri uh this this is what the Greek playwrights focus a lot on what they discovered is things go around in society when the leaders when the elite when the Kings they develop hubris okay because it leads to bad judgment but what they also discovered is hubris is just a part of human nature okay if you put someone in a position of power he or she will always felt hubris so hubis is basically the most common theme throughout all these plays and and you're right and that revenge is also um a very common theme as well so yeah there are these common themes but and the reason why is uh these play rights these poets they're trying to explore what it means to be human they're trying to decipher the essence of Being Human okay they're trying to look into the human heart and trying to figure out what makes us uh uh human basically and all humans are alike okay okay and and any more questions uh yeah the Athenians okay so the thing the thing about Ides um was that we today Scholars will all agree all these three Ides was the most talented meaning his use of poetry his use of metaphors imagery it was the most imaginative okay we also agree that he is um the most um shocking okay his ideas uh the way he presents things it is the most Visual and imaginative okay so in terms of pure talent he's he's the most talented um but when he was alive okay he was an extremely arrogant person who belied theater should be about Awakening people should be challenging people's sense of reality okay it should be it should be about education and edification and these people tend to be hated by contemporaries okay but after they dead later generations respect them more so even though uh children woman did not win first place the Bai did win first place and that's because well yides was dead okay and they were able to see the genius and Imagination of the bakai much more uh closely okay does does that make sense okay so you you ubid basically had um um his his IM His Image his reputation um was rejuvenated after his death but during his lifetime he was he was despised by a lot of people okay people respected his genius but they didn't like the fact that he was so arrogant and candid okay and that's true for most of human history where where you know if you are a controversial writer you are not respected by contemporaries but after you're dead people appreciate your Genius okay and this is true for Mo most really famous writers any more questions these are great questions by the way okay great so uh next class we will do Socrates and Playdoh okay