Source language: English
Athenian tragedies like Antigone often present the epic hero (that is, a character like those at the center of the
Iliad) acting and living within a society more like that of Greece in the fifth century BCE, a very different
environment from the legendary battlefields of Troy! This new context results in a kind of tragic irony:
actions which are acceptable for a Homeric hero can lead to disaster when they happen in a "modern" city.