Page "Women of Trachis" Paragraph 7

The date of the first performance of Women of Trachis is unknown, and scholars have speculated a wide range of dates for its initial performance.

Scholars such as T. F.

Hoey believe the play was written relatively early in Sophocles ' career, around 450 BC.

Among the evidence for an early date are a belief that the dramatic form of Women of Trachis is not a well developed as other extant Sophocles ' plays.

Another piece of evidence is the fact that the plot of the play is similar to a story related by Bacchylides in Bacchylides XVI, but different in significant respects from earlier known versions of this story.

Hoey and others believe that Sophocles ' version was more likely to have influenced Bacchylides ' version than vice versa.

Another piece of evidence used to support an early date is the relationship between the character of Deianeira and that of Clytemnestra in Aeschylus ' Oresteia, first produced in 458.

In earlier known versions of this story, Deianeira is a rather masculine character, similar to that of Clytemnestra in Oresteia who purposely killed her husband Agamemnon, but in Women of Trachis Deianeira's character is much softer and more feminine and she is only inadvertently responsible for the death of her husband.

According to some scholars, Deianeira's character in Women of Trachis is intended as a commentary on Aeschylus ' treatment of Clytemnestra, and if this is the case this play was most likely produced reasonably soon after Oresteia, although it is also possible that such commentary was triggered by a later revival of Aeschylus ' trilogy.

Hoey also sees echoes of Aeschylus ' Prometheus Bound, particularly in the relevance of Women of Trachis to debates that were occurring during the 450s on the " relationship between knowledge and responsibility.