Current Events

What was happening when Antigone was created -

Peloponnesian War -  (431–404 bc) (c. 460 to 446 bc)

Antigone was written in 441 b.c. during the first of the wars. The wars were fought between the two leading city's in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta. The wars ended when Sparta, with financial help from Persia, won the conflict by destroying the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 bc. The war had a large negative impact on Athens, there were plagues, a large decrease in the population and the financial difficulties. Sopocles was deeply invovled in this war. He was elected as one of the ten strategoi, these were high executive officials who commanded the armed forces and in 413 BCE, he was elected one of the commissioners responding to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.

Was its creation influenced by any specific historical events? 

Antigone probably influenced by the Peloponnesian War, as Antigone is about the after math of war and the negative effect it can have on families, relationships and the government. Sopocles own invovment in war would have given him the knowledge to write about the destruction it could cause as he would have seen this with this own eyes. Since he was one of the coffissioners responding to the damage the war caused in Athens he also would have known about the 'behind the scnenes actions' of the government. These events may have spured his on to write a play voicing his concerns.