The ''Aithiopes'' is a

tragedy A tragedy is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a tragic hero, main character or cast of characters. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy is to invoke an accompanying catharsi ...

by the 5th century BCE

Athenian Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

playwright

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

that survives only in fragments.

Content

Jebb et al. believe that the ''Aithiopes'' by Sophocles ought to be identified with his play the ''Memnon''. Lloyd-Jones says that the plot, though almost entirely unknown, is probably based on the story of the Ethiopian prince

Memnon In Greek mythology, Memnon (; Ancient Greek: Μέμνων, ) was a king of Aethiopia and son of Tithonus and Eos. During the Trojan War, he brought an army to Troy's defense and killed Antilochus, Nestor (mythology), Nestor's son, during a fi ...

who was killed by

Achilles In Greek mythology, Achilles ( ) or Achilleus () was a hero of the Trojan War who was known as being the greatest of all the Greek warriors. The central character in Homer's ''Iliad'', he was the son of the Nereids, Nereid Thetis and Peleus, ...

, after having himself killed Nestor's son

Antilochus In Greek mythology, Antilochus (; Ancient Greek: Ἀντίλοχος ''Antílokhos'') was a prince of Pylos and one of the Achaeans in the Trojan War. He was the youngest prince to command troops. Family Antilochus was the son of King Nestor ...

in the

Trojan War The Trojan War was a legendary conflict in Greek mythology that took place around the twelfth or thirteenth century BC. The war was waged by the Achaeans (Homer), Achaeans (Ancient Greece, Greeks) against the city of Troy after Paris (mytho ...

, which was described in the “lost post-Homeric epic ''Aethiopis''” Lloyd-Jones 1996 p. 23

Date

Unfortunately, no date more precise than the 5th century BC can as yet be reliably ascribed to the writing or production of the play.

Extant Sources

There are a number of sources for the play listed by Jebb and Lloyd-Jones; these include, among others

Athenaeus Athenaeus of Naucratis (, or Nαυκράτιος, ''Athēnaios Naukratitēs'' or ''Naukratios''; ) was an ancient Greek rhetorician and Grammarian (Greco-Roman), grammarian, flourishing about the end of the 2nd and beginning of the 3rd century ...

, '' Deiphosophists'' 3, 122B, Photius Galeanus ''Lex.'' p. 22, and

Photius Photius I of Constantinople (, ''Phōtios''; 815 – 6 February 893), also spelled ''Photius''Fr. Justin Taylor, essay "Canon Law in the Age of the Fathers" (published in Jordan Hite, T.O.R., and Daniel J. Ward, O.S.B., "Readings, Cases, Mate ...

808 Theodoridis

References

*Jebb, Richard C. et al. (2010) ''The Fragments of Sophocles, Vol. 1'' Cambridge University Press *Lloyd-Jones, Hugh (1996) ''Sophocles Fragments, Vol. 3'' Loeb Classical library {{ISBN, 978-0-674-99532-1 Plays by Sophocles Plays based on classical mythology