Theban War's Influence On Sophocles Antigone

Antigone is a work by Sophocles that is the third part of the three Theban plays. Since Antigone was such a well written work, many wonder if he was influenced by any major events around the time of his writing Antigone. There were a couple of wars during the time of the writing but none of them were directly impacting Greece at the time. The Theban war and the battle of Samos had an impact on and influenced Sophocles while writing the play Antigone.

How did the Theban war impacted Sophocles and the writing of Antigone? Antigone was written about a year after the Theban war. The Theban war was a war between, “two brothers Eteocles and Polynices, who died fighting each other for the throne of Thebes after Eteocles had refused to give up the crown to his brother as their father Oedipus had prescribed. Creon, the new ruler of Thebes”(Antigone) In this we see how selfish and power hungry each brother is to rule the city of Thebes, and

The second war is the war of Samos. “In 440 BC Samos was at war with Miletus about Priene, an ancient city of Ionia on the foot-hills of Mycale, which lay between them.” (Battle of Samos) The war of Samos was a very heavy militarized war. It has been considered a very important event in Greek military history and took place before the Peloponnesian wars, which spanned almost 60 years in Greek and Spartan history. During the war of Athens, Samos was building his army up especially his naval fleet so they could defend against the power of the Athenian army. Samos, his army was built really big, but still couldn 't handle the Athenian army and their naval fleet. Pericles “took 50 grown men and 50 boys hostages and settled them in Lemnos and imposed a fine of 80 talents” (Battle of Samos), which was a lot of money at the time. A group of a Samians left before the naval force of Athens arrived there and were able to release those that were being held hostage in