Euripides' Hecuba and the Athenian Empire

Much of the criticism on Euripides's Hecuba is focused on the character of Hecuba as victimized mother who rightfully avenges her son's death, versus those who argue for Hecuba's moral deterioration over the course of the play's two main movements, sacrifice and revenge. This talk departed in a new direction by analyzing how the historical and political background informs the key themes of the protection due prisoners of war and the treatment of the vanquished. Viewed against the Athenian empire's policies in the 420s BCE, Hecuba focuses on the obligations of the strong toward the weak and of masters toward slaves, lending the lead character's voice to the perspective of the vanquished, the subaltern, the colonized subject. The use and abuse of charis (favor) anchors the political interpretation of the play within the contemporary public discourse on empire. Supplication and xenia (ritualized friendship) that are based on reciprocity and the exchange of favors offer the framework for extending politics to an understanding of the motives and psychology of Hecuba's gruesome revenge. Angeliki Tzanetou is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She received her B.A. in Classics from the University of Athens and her M.A. in Classics and Ph.D. in Classical Philology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She is the author of City of Suppliants: Tragedy and the Athenian Empire (University of Texas Press, 2012) and co-editor with Maryline Parca of Finding Persephone: Women's Rituals in the Ancient Mediterranean (Indiana University Press, 2007). She has published articles on ritual and gender in drama and on tragedy and politics, and is currently at work on a new book on motherhood and subaltern voices in Athenian tragedy.