Hippolytus and Theseus and the indisputable decision

Abstract

This paper discusses the relations of power established by the characters Hippolytus and Theseus in Euripides’s Hippolytus. Based on Max Weber and Émile Benveniste in what concerns the use of the term power, I shall demonstrate the way in which Hippolytus death sanction must carried out by Theseus as he is the only character – in the political context of the play –  that legally retains the power over all those under his authority. Hence, if on the one hand, Aphrodite, in the prologue, presents the spectators the whole development of the tragedy, showing her direct intervention in the ruin of Hippolytus’ family, on the other hand Euripides uses in a likely way the legitimacy of Theseus’s royal power to enforce the will of the Cyprian goddess through a human and political verdict.