Scholars would accept that the Greeks knew a thing or two about mankind’s foibles, failings and fallibilities. Undoubtedly determined to ensure that the theatrical fashion for exploring human vice and perversion would never die-out, their dramatists oft returned to (and rehashed) yarns of gore, exploring incest, infanticide, lust, regicide and an assortment of other unpalatable proclivities, to excess.
Cast of Phaedra at the National Theatre. Photo by Johan Persson