Plays

Ancient Greek plays are the tragedies, comedies and satyr plays written for the theatre of Athens in the fifth century BC. They draw on the myths told elsewhere on this site, and they give us some of the most complete versions of stories such as Oedipus, Medea and Orestes.

Theatre at Athens

The plays were performed at festivals of Dionysus, above all the City Dionysia in Athens, held in the month of Elaphebolion, around the end of March. Three tragic poets competed, each presenting three tragedies and a satyr play, a short burlesque with a chorus of satyrs. Aristotle’s Poetics (chapters 4–6) gives the earliest account of how tragedy grew out of choral song and of what it aims to do. The oldest play to survive complete is The Persians by Aeschylus, performed in 472 BC.

The Three Tragedians

• Aeschylus: seven plays survive, including the Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides) and Prometheus Bound.
• Sophocles: seven plays survive, among them Oedipus Rex, Antigone and Oedipus at Colonus.
• Euripides: eighteen tragedies survive (nineteen if the disputed Rhesus is counted), including Medea, Hippolytus, The Bacchae and Trojan Women, as well as the only complete satyr play, Cyclops.

Comedy

Aristophanes is the only comic poet of the period whose plays survive in full; eleven of his comedies remain, among them The Clouds, The Birds, Lysistrata and The Frogs. They mix myth with the politics and gossip of Athens. The pages below take each author and each play in turn.

See Also: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Dionysus, Oresteia, Oedipus Rex