Sophocles and Alcibiades: Athenian in Ancient Greek Literature

The personal may have been the political a lot longer than we thought. Vickers (archaeology, U. of Oxford, etc.) argues that generations of literary historians who assumed Sophocles wrote in a vacuum inhabited by archetypes of the heroic past were wrong. He explains that Sophocles was a creature of contemporary politics, and routinely included thinly veiled references to local current events either consciously or subconsciously in his plays. It may have been that the dramatist was hoping to engage his audience and therefore make his dramas more marketable, but his references to Athenian politics, particularly those of the controversial politician Alcibiades, indicate he was an insider involved up to his neck. Vickers also finds contemporary political references in Thucydides, Plato and Euripides to support his contentions, making his an eminently reasonable idea worthy of serious consideration. Annotation c2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)