Ancient Greek · Tragedy · c. 441 BCE

Antigone

Sophocles

Antigone buries her brother against Creon’s edict and forces a collision between family rite and civic law. Neither claim leaves the stage intact.

Theban play

Characters

Sister who chooses the unwritten law of the dead over the city’s decree.

New king who confuses the state’s stability with his own voice.

Two goods, each incomplete, destroy the people who hold only one.

Some obligations claim an authority older than the city.

The body’s rest becomes the measure of a just community.

Antigone’s living grave is the city’s inverted justice.

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