![]() This divination is the practice that Tiresias participates in throughout the Oedipus corpus. According to Adkins, portents were a common aspect of ancient Greek society to divine the will of the gods. In direct contrast to this political system, the religion of Athens was highly deterministic, relying on prophetic mechanisms such as oracles and divination to determine external circumstances. Sophocles's friend Pericles, the famous orator, said of Athens, "each single one of our citizens, in all the manifold aspects of his life, is able to show himself the rightful lord and owner of his own person." In the context of Athenian political life, free-will was necessary to maintain the entire concept of their democracy, to believe that each choice the demos, or the populace of Athens, makes matters. Unique at the time, Athenian democracy granted individuals power in an otherwise deterministic world. ![]() Athenian society, which these plays are referencing and interpreting, heavily centered around the conception of democracy. ![]() Are freedom and fate mutually exclusive concepts? Can we accept our own insignificance without devolving into personal existentialism? What is the value in making a choice if we are condemned to a predetermined destiny? These are the questions Sophocles attempts to answer through his works Oedipus Rex and Antigone. ![]()
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