Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #9 - Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides as Prophets of Democracy

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

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

Okay, so we will do a quick 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? How do you create an identity? In modern society, there are three institutions that create a collective identity for society. 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 world view, okay? What's another institution that does this in society? The media, right? So mass media. So when you turn on the TV, when you read a Chinese newspaper, it's presenting a particular world view.

And when you absorb this worldview, you become more Chinese. And what's the last institution that helped us form a collective identity in China? Entertainment, right? Mass culture. This includes TV shows, this includes movies. This includes movies, okay?

This includes books. Does that make sense? So through these three institutions, societies can create a national identity. And depending on your society, you create a different worldview, right? So in America, Americans would want to create an individualistic identity, whereas in China,

we want to create a collectivist identity. Okay? So what I will show you today is, Greek society, an Indian society was doing the same thing, okay? But it was doing it through theater. And the main function of theater was to create an identity 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 does. in Athens. So let me give you some background about theater. Theater was the, form the basic structure of Athenian society. So there were two months of the year when everyone went to the theater. Okay? So once in winter and once in the summertime. And they were called the festival of Dionysius. Dianeseus was the god, the Greek god of the theater, of art, of music, of sex, of wine.

And so the festival of Dianeses, there were religious elements to it, but it was mainly about watching theater. And through the process of watching theater, Athenians created a national identity that they all believed in. So this happened twice a year. for one month and it was free for everyone so it's the rich who paid for all the place to be performed and that's how the rich their aristocratic families won favor from 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 highest honor in Athens to participate in the festival as a playwright. And every festival, there'd be two competitors, okay? And they were called the protagonist, okay?

And antagonist. So today, we know that protagonist means the hero of a novel. Intaginus means the villain of a novel. But back then, all this meant was you were the first competitor, and then antagonist was the second competitor. And the entire point of theater was to promote democracy in Athens. And they did that through many mechanisms. First of all, whoever won the festival was decided by popular vote.

Okay? The entire process of theater was democratic. So there are no professional actors in Athens. People were selected from the community to act out the the play and everyone participated in watching the play. In fact, the largest amphitheater, these are all outdoor theaters in Athens, could hold 10,000 people, okay? 10 to 15,000 people. The maximum population of Athens was 50,000 people. Okay, so this is a huge community event that brought everyone together and they love the theater. The three most famous playwrights in Athens at that time were Isulis, Sophokis, and Europeis,

and these were really playwrights, poets, but they were first and foremost profits of democracy. They were teachers of democracy who told the Athenian people, why do we have democracy? Why is democracy good? And how should we protect and promote our democracy? So in their plays, 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 in Athens.

So to win first place at the festival of Dionysius, it's like winning the Nobel Prize. in physics today. Okay? So what I will do now is go over the most famous plays so we can understand how they promoted democracy through their artwork. But are there any questions so far before I continue? Yes, it's an amphitheater. Okay, so that's a great question about acoustics. We call this acoustics. So how the theater was designed was like this, okay? You have the stage and then the theater was designed like this. It can oval okay so in other words 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 so everyone 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 a place and they but they wanted to participate in the community aspect of the play. Does that make sense? So the two things is the theater was designed in a way so that sounds traveled very freely in the theater so everyone can hear, but also everyone memorized the lines anyway. Does that make sense?

Okay, great question. All right, any more questions before I continue? All right, so let's talk about Issela's, okay? Because he was really the first of the major playwrights. And he wrote a play called Oristea. And I will explain to you the plot of the Orstea before I explain to you the meaning and an interpretation of the play.

So all these plays comes from Greek mythology. Because everyone knows mythology. And so what the playwrights did was they took material from Greek mythology and packaged it in a contemporary context to you. you explore modern themes okay all right so there is Stia the place set in a place called Argos and during the Mycenine period okay so this is before the Bronze Age collapsed mycenine in Greece Argos was the most powerful city and mycenine in

Greece and when the king died he left the throne to his eldest son named at treaties okay but often what happens in these cases is the younger brother refuses to accept the authority of the eldest and he rebelled okay so war was fought over the argoes throne a treatise won and then his brother comes and begs for forgiveness and a treatise being the king says you're my brother i want to show 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 in a feast okay and so the younger brother is very happy about this but during the feast before the feast what a treatise does is he kills all the sons all 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 treatise 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 with 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're in some of the gods so i curse you and your entire house okay and then he dies but before he dies um His son, Agitas, okay, Agitas, escapes. So his only remaining son is Agitas.

And Agitas is responsible now for avenging the death of his family, okay? All right, so a treaty becomes king, he has two sons who inherit his throne. The first is Agamon, who becomes king of Argos, and he is the king of kings. He is the one who will start the Trojan War and large an invasion of Troy, okay? and his brother is Menelos who becomes king of Sparta and they both marry sisters okay they marry two sisters Agamon marries Platamestra and Menalas marries Helen okay this is important because remember Helen runs away to Troy and Menelos tells his brother Agamon 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 Egimanon knows the gods are not happy with them, okay? So Agamon consult a fortune teller who tells him how to win the favor of the gods. He tells Eggemonon, you have to sacrifice your daughter, Iphigenia. At this point, Eggmanon should be like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to sacrifice my daughter, I Virginia, so that I could go to Troy. And why don't I want to go to Troy in the first place?

Right? Hell is that my wife? It's Menelos'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 sacrifice my daughter. So he kills his daughter in Virginia. The wind is released from the skies and he said sail to Troy.

And we know what happens. They were there for 10 years and it ended up destroying Troy. Who's really pissed now? Who's really angry now? Who's really angry about all this? Klanemaestra, right? The wife of Agaminar because their daughter has been killed for like no reason, okay? So Cladamestra, while Egimanon is away for 10 years, she plots her revenge.

What she does is she finds Agittus and they become lovers. And they plot how to avenge the death of Iphigenia. So 10 years later, when Egimanon comes back from Troy victorious, Cladamestra kills him. And she makes Agittes now king of Argos. The problem is that Agamemnon has a son named Aristides. And Aristides during this time was exiled from Argos. And now Aristides, upon hearing the death of his father, he is now honor bound to kill his mother. Now obviously he doesn't want to do that.

So he's struggling emotionally about what to do. So he consults Apollo, who is basically the God of Justice. And Apollo tells him, you are right and just to want to advance your father. So Aristides goes back to Argos, and he kills his mother, Klamestra, 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 who come up from the underworld and they begin to haunt him okay they're torturing him and Aristides become so tortured he runs away from Argos and he's

trying to run away from furies but the furries refused to let him go and or he says to them I killed my mother in order to avenge my father that was the right and just thing to do and the very say to him, 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. Aristides goes talks to Apollo, and Apollo tries to intercede on behalf of Aristides. And the Pharisees 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 Aristides has broken the laws of the universe, okay? Okay, so now Aristides is in a lot of trouble and so an act of desperation the last thing he does is is he runs to Athens where Athena is and Athena is the goddess of wisdom So Aristides tells Athena the goddess his story and he begs for her help

Okay, and Athena takes pity on Aristides and she says basically I'm going to convene a jury okay of five 500 Athenian citizens. And you will tell, you will make your case before them, the Fearies will make their case before them, and they will decide whether or not you are guilty. So both Erestees and the theories make their case, and morally speaking, both cases are compelling, okay? Because even though Cladimestra killed Egemona on, the fact of the matter is that

was an asshole right again manon killed the 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 were very strong and so at the end of the day 2050 Athenians decided a racist was guilty 2050 decided he was innocent okay so so it's what we call a hung jury okay 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 Aristides Okay, so now Aristides is free to go home and live his life in peace Now the fairies say to her no 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 everyone fears and hates you, but I will now make you stand for justice, truth, and righteousness, so that we the Indian people will worship you and admire you, okay? And the theories say, okay, that's a pretty good deal, okay? So the theories accept this deal, and the receipts is allowed to go home, and the story ends. Okay? Does that make sense?

So that's a story. So what's the relevance of this story? Well, for Athens, it tells them where democracy comes from. Okay, right? Athena, the goddess herself, gave democracy to Athens. Right? But it also tells them 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, 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. very seriously because when you vote in a good way, meaning you fought very clearly over your decision, then you bring justice, truth, you bring justice and truth and righteousness into the world. Okay, doesn't make sense.

And that's why I say issue is, it's a profit of democracy. Because through this play, he is telling Athenian people where democracy come from, what's important, and what they can do to ensure democracy stays in Athens. any questions so far about this all right okay let's move on the sophalyphe's okay sofokles okay so sophalicles wrote many plays his most famous is the edipus trilogy okay edipus trilogy now um you may have heard of the edipus trilogy but i will summarize a story for you okay

So what happened is in the city of thieves, a king and his wife, they have a young son. And that's it's 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 just a baby, 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'll 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 Oedipus. And Oedipus grows up to be very strong, very noble, very handsome. young men 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 Ida puts freaks out and says I don't 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 it was asked what the problem is and the citizens there tell him well our king is dead and also there's a sphinx an evil demon who is haunting us okay so So Oedipus volunteers to challenge the sphinx to a duel. And the sphinx asks Oedipus a riddle. If Oedipus can get it right, the spings will go away. But if Oedipus gets it wrong, then the sphinx will eat Oedipus, okay? And the riddle is what walks in the morning with four legs, what walks in the afternoon with two legs,

and then what walks in the evening with three legs. And the answer is, yeah, ma'am, okay? So it's a very famous riddle. Edipus gets it right, and the sphinx loses and he flies away, okay? The people of thieves are so thankful, they make him king of thieves. If you're a king of thieves, you marry the queen of thieves, okay? So he's done this. He's married his mother and he killed his father, okay?

years later there's a plague in thieves and Oedipus 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 the gods are angry at you So what Edipus 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 Polyneses.

Polyneses who rebels and he fights for the throne. The two brothers kill themselves in battle. Okay? They kill themselves, fighting each other, and now Creon, who is the brother to the dead queen, the queen has to killed herself, okay? He now inheres the throne. And the first thing he does is announce that the dead king will be given a state funeral. We will honor him. But Polyneses, who rebelled against the king and who caused all this substance.

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. So it's a very serious thing not to bury the dead. Integony, who is the daughter of Oedipus and the sister of Polyneses, she finds out about this, she thinks this is unjust. Polynesis has done a lot of bad things, but no one deserves this, okay? So she secretly buries Polyneses. Creon finds out and demands Integnini to be arrested.

And Creon says to her, how dare you defy my laws? How dare you disrespect my orders? And the Teghani says to him, your laws are unjust. And Crian says, the laws are the laws. About laws, there will be complete chaos. And then Tegany responds by saying, human laws must conform to justice. There are these laws in the universe that are divine, unwritten, and immutable. And we must respect these laws. laws cannot override these laws of justice.

This makes Creon very angry. And so he sentenced her to death for disobeying him. The problem is, Antigone is the fiancé of Haman, who is Creon's son. So Haman, the prince, comes and begs his father to relent. And Haman says, Can you please forgive Integony? And Creon thinks his son has betrayed him, right? Your love for integrity has blighted you from seeing the truth, from doing what is right.

And Haman responds and says, Father, I'm not doing this for integrity. I'm doing this for you. And the reason why is the people of thieves fully support Integrity. They think she's a hero. They think she is just and right to want to bury her brother. They think you are a tyrant, father. And Creon says, Should I obey the mob?

Should I, the king, listen to the mob? And then Heimon says, no, you should listen to what is right and just. Creon gets very angry and kicks Heimon out. 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. And the fortune teller tells him, antagony is right in this situation. You have to save her. If you don't save her, if she dies, the God will be very angry at you.

And that scares Creon. So Creon and his guards, they look for antagony. But when they find intagony, she's in a cave, and she's dead. She's killed herself because she doesn't want to be executed, okay? And weeping over the body of integrity is Haman. He's crying. He's so depressed and sad. And Krihan sees his son crying, and he tries to put his hand on him and console him.

The moment that Haman sees his father, he becomes so angry, he lunged at him with his sword. But he misses. And when he found out he has failed to kill his father, in his anger and in his grief, he kills himself. So both Antegony and Haman are now dead. And when Haman's mother finds out about this, she kills himself, she kills herself too. And now Kreon is alone in the world, okay? Doesn't make sense. 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 stupid things? Because of hubris. A problem with kings, with monarchy, with power is people develop hubris, arrogance, right? Violent, excessive arrogance. And that makes them do stupid things. Like, listen, like, like, 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. So that's the first message. The second message is basically, the world works when the old give way to the young. The old must always listen to the young.

So remember that in the Orsteia, the play ends with the theories, the old gods, giving way to the new gods, who bring justice into the world, okay? The Oedipus trilogy ends in tragedy because the old king refuses to give way to young people. So the other message is society works. There is truth and justice in the world when the owed give way to the young. So those are the two main messages of this play. Any questions so far? Before I move on? 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. They're called seers or prophets or divanate need to work. 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, 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 Uyribides, okay?

And Uyriads was, he's the youngest of these three, and he was the least prized or the least respected in Athens when he was alive, okay? And the reason why is, as you can see, there are Sia and the Oedipus Rex trilogy. They celebrate Athenian democracy. But Uribeides, he criticized Athenian democracy. if they need democracy.

All right? So the example is in 415 BCE, and this is the height of the Pelopetian War, okay? He put on a play called Chodun Woman. And this play is about the aftermath of the Chorjan War. So at the end of the Chowdhury War, all the children men are killed, right? And the custom is to enslave the Chowjunct woman.

So one character is Hekuba. And Heguba is the queen of Troy. And Priam, her husband, he's been killed, okay? Hecuba is a tragic figure because she's seen all her sons die. And then one of her daughters has been sacrificed, killed for Achilles. Achilles died in the war and Achilles is dead. So they sacrificed a young girl who's a princess of Troy, Hecuba's daughter. in order to accompany him in the afterworld.

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 a concubine of the Greek heroes, like Odysseus. Then you have a Jarmaqui, and Joe Maqui 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 Greek fear, if he goes up, and he's a son of Hector, right? He might want revenge, okay? So, Germany must witness the Greeks killing

her son, who is only, again, only a few months old. And then Hecuba is dragged away to be a slave, to be basically a mistress, a lover of a Greek general, Odysseus. And so Hecuba must portionally 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 Pelican War Athens was attacking everyone including mellows an island called mellows and when they

attacked mellows they killed all the man and enslaved all the woman so in many ways children woman the children women is a direct response to what happened in mellows okay you're just telling their thing 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 the people didn't like this play and so he lost in the competition to this obscure nobody, okay? And UPEDIS got really angry about all this. He was very bitter about all this.

So he exiled himself to Macedonia, where he died. He died. He died. He died. He died. died away from Athens. In his last play, he wrote his last play called a Bacai in Macedonia. And after he died, his friends brought this play back to Athens. This play Bacai is considered his masterpiece, his best play. So again, what I will do now is I will explain to you the plot of the Bacai, and then I would explain

what the interpretation is, okay? All right, so there's a god, there's a god named Dionysus. Another name for Dionysus is Bacchus, okay? So the Bacchai are people who worship Dianeses, the god of theater, of music, of festivals, of wine, of sex, okay? Now, Dionysus, the legend is he was born in Thebes to a Theban princess. And his father was Zeus, the king of the gods. Zeus likes to go around and rape woman, okay?

And he has many, many children, including Dionyses. But when the princess of Thebes announced that she's been impregented by Zeus, no one believed her, everyone laughed at her, okay? And the people of Thebes refused to worship Dionyses. Now, Dionyses is worshipped all around the world, including in India, as far away as India. So Dionyses has always been bitter about all this, okay?

He's better about the fact that his wife, his mother was insulted by the people. He's also bitter about the fact that people, people don't pay homage to him, okay? So he plots his revenge. What he does is he discuss himself as a wanderer, okay? A stranger, and he makes the woman of thieves insane. Okay? He makes them worship him. And what they do is they run off to the mountains where they have sex orgies.

Okay. They're having like sex. They're doing all these crazy things in the worship of Dionyses. The king of thieves, his name is Pentius. Pentius. 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 Bacai are turned. disruptive they are amoral okay and he's about to do this but then Dionyses the wanderer tells him hey I'll make you a deal don't kill the Bacai I want to take you into the mountains and together we can watch them have sex together okay we can watch your sex parties and Pentia says okay that's interesting okay

so together the two go into the mountains and they hide behind a rock as the Bacai are about to worship Dianeseus. Penteus is hiding behind the rock and he can't really see that clearly, okay? But he's really excited. He really wants to see the Bacai in action. So Dionysius says, why don't you climb that tree and that tree will give you a better view of all the action, okay? So Penteus climbs the tree and he hangs by the branch, okay? And he has a very clear view of the Bacai who are in a strong. circle. Then what Dionys does is he lowers the branch so like Pentias is now in a circle of the

woman and Dionys commands the woman to kill Pentheus to rip his body apart okay and when the woman in that circle is actually Pentheus mother all right okay so Pentheus dies in the mountains. The people of Thebes are now very anxious. The The king has disappeared. The woman of thieves are in the mountains. Then Pentis' mother comes back and she's running, she's really excited, okay? And she's holding the head of Pentias. And she's shining to the people of thebes.

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 rip the head off its body. Here it is. Okay? And it takes a very long time for the people of 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'll tell you my interpretation, right? So, a...

Think about this image. 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? So this image of a mother 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. Because remember, the punishment of 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 Baccai is a direct criticism of the Athenian Empire and its direct criticism of the Pelican War.

Does that make sense? All right. So some further evidence to support this interpretation is in 431 BCE, the Peloproman war between Spartan and Athens started. And about a year afterwards, a lot of Athenian men are dead. And it is the custom at the time. 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, Athens come out to watch an oration. And so Pericles, who again remember, we'll talk more about Pericles later on, but Pericles, he's 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 funeral oration is considered by many to be the greatest speech ever made. Okay, it is beautiful, it is 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 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 democracy where everyone can participate in the civic life, the political life of Athens. That's why 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. 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, Eurobides was probably in the audience, right? Because everyone was in the audience when the speech was given, okay? And he re-imagines his funeralation 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,

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, even though Europe is criticizing Athenian democracy, what he's really doing is also trying to defend Athenian democracy. Because a democracy only is,

happens when citizens are engaged in a process of argumentation, debate, and self-reflection. And so what your really is really trying to do is put a mirror before the people. And he's saying to the 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. And again, these three Isulis, Sophopi's, and Eurpedes, and Eurpedes are considered the three greatest playwrights in Athenian history. And these plays are actually still performed today.

So the Orstea, Idapeze Rex, and the Bacai are still performed in theaters around the world today. That's how amazing they were. So, any questions? Oh, okay, great question, okay? So the Bacai, how do other scholars interpret the Bacai, right? Okay, so there are different interpretations, but the most common interpretation is, it is a play that explores the idea of religious yield, religious devotion, or religious fanaticism, okay?

Does that make sense? That's the most common interpretation. This play is really about the power of religion and faith and how it drives us into madness. That's the most common interpretation. Another interpretation is, well, Dionyses is the villain. He's not really a villain, but he's the main focus of this play. And Dionyses does a lot of bad things. Well, guess what?

For most of his life, Euripides was participating in the festival of Dynese hoping to win first place, right? To be the protagonist, to win first place. But most of the times he lost because he kept on offending the Indian people, right? So another interpretation is this play back-up it's a satire on the power of Dionysius and of theater in general okay it's our criticism of the festival of Dionysius and what you what and what your British is really saying is the festival of Dionysus it's not about art and

reflection and democracy it's really just a wild sex party that's trying to please everyone okay so so you can also interpret this as a direct criticism of democracy itself. Democracy is just a wild sex party. So these are the two major interpretations that is, that the Baccai, it's about the power and dangers of religious devotion, fanaticism, okay? And also the play Bacai, 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. And you can believe whatever you want. And that's a power of Athenian theater. There are different ways to interpret it. So even today, modern audiences are still amazed and inspired by these plays. Any more questions? Great, good question. So, revenge. Okay, you're right in that all these plays have the idea of revenge, okay? And the reason

The reason why is, if you think about human motivation, what really drives us, right? What really drives us to violence? Well, it's revenge. So revenge is the main plot device we use to drive action. It's what motivates us to do violent things. And that's why throughout all these plays, revenge is a common theme, okay? But another very common theme is the idea of hubris. Right?

Hubris. Arrogance. And this is what the Greek, this is what the Greek playwrights focus a lot on. What they discovered is things go awry 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 hubris is basically the most common theme throughout all these plays, and you're right, and that revenge is also a very common theme as well. So, yeah, there are these common themes. And the reason why is these playwrights, 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 human, basically. And all humans are alike, okay?

Any more questions? Yeah, the Athenians, okay, so the thing about Euripides was that we, today, scholars will all agree all these three Eurbedees 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 the most shocking, okay? His ideas, the way he presents things,

it is the most visual and imaginative. So in terms of peer talent, he's the most talented. But when he was alive, okay, he was an extremely arrogant person, who believe theater should be about awakening people, should be a challenging people's sense of reality. Okay? It should be about education and edification. And these people can be hated by contemporaries, okay? But after the dead, later generations respect them more.

So even though children women did not win first place, the Bacai did win first place. And that's because, well, Urbides was dead. And they were able to see the genius and imagination of the Bacai much more closely. Does that make sense? So UBD basically had his image, his reputation was rejuvenated after his death. during his lifetime he was despised by a lot of people. People respected his genius, but they didn't like the fact that he was so arrogant and candid.

And that's true for most of human history, where, you know, if you are a controversial writer, you are not respected by contemporaries, but after you're dead, people appreciate your genius, and this is true for most really famous writers. Any more questions? These are great questions, by the way. Great, so next class we will do Socrates and Plato, okay?