It turns out that classical Athens wasn’t entirely or solely the city of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Sophocles, and Euripides. There were (as there are today) plenty of low-lifes and ordinary mortals in the city, as well.
An interesting find — suggesting that human grudges and rivalries weren’t, alas, so very different back then from those that we encounter today:
http://www.livescience.com/54285-curse-tablets-uncovered-in-greece.html
My wife and I, between us, belong to several reading groups. One of them meets on the first Sunday of every month, so we met this past Sunday night.
Our readings for this month were the Oedipus Rex and Antigone of Sophocles and the horribly dark Medea of Euripides. Both playwrights died in or near 406 BC.
Pride, anger, ambition, the conflict between public authority and private conscience, the desire for vengeance, the often-unearned blows of Fate — such human issues are as old as humanity.
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