Ancient Drama and Homeric Epics: A Return to Sources

The article attempts to define the subject and motives of the Athenian tragedy as a living organism that evolved from the source of Homer’s epics through the lenses of the three tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, according to the development of the Athenian democracy. This evolution is defined by the change of nature that the hero goes through within the Greek cultural consciousness and his relationship with the divine. Also, an important accent is put on the shifting of societal attention from the individual to the collective, specific for democracy. The methodological framework of the present study is grounded in close philological readings of selected Greek tragedies that creatively engage with Homeric epic material. The analysis focuses on the transformation and adaptation of epic motifs within the theatrical context, tracing how the tragedians reconfigure foundational narrative patterns inherited from Homer. Through three-core point of view – Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy, Aristotle’s Poetics, Vernant and Vidal-Naquet’s Myth and Tragedy – the article tries to show the sources of ancient Greek drama in Homeric texts by supporting the theory that states that Homer’s texts are the means and drama an end.