Loyalty, treachery, and the <i>polis</i> : the rhetoric of justice in the <i>Phoenissae</i> of Euripides

ABSTRACT This article discusses Euripides’ exploitation and development of the concept of justice in his late play Phoenissae when viewed against its main intertext, the Seven against Thebes of Aeschylus. It argues that the innovative inclusion of Polyneices and Jocasta allows for a far deeper exploration of the tensions inherent in justice in its various permutations than is found in any other extant treatment of the Oedipus myth. It looks at the differing rhetorical styles involved in dealing with justice as a concept and the implications of this for late fifth-century representations of conventional wisdom.