Abstract/Summary

The chapter focuses on the continuities between fifth- and fourth-century tragedy. It examines political, intellectual and ethical concerns that appear to have remained unaffected by the sociopolitical changes. It examines the well known view that tragedy in the fourth century was more “rhetorical” than “political”, suggesting that there is little evidence to support it; and that fourth-century tragedy, far from evolving away from the concerns of the polis, continues to engage with the values and the discourses of the democratic polis. Its use of rhetoric, far from being an end to itself, is a vehicle for the negotiation of actual political issues, in a manner not dissimilar to that of Sophocles and Euripides.