In 1936, T. B. L. Webster argued that Sophocles' Trachiniae has strong allusions to Aeschylus' Agamemnon, particularly in the characters of Deianeira and Clytemnestra.Footnote ¹ Once identified, it is easy see: each kills her husband as he returns from battle, and in each case the death contains an element of entrapment. Heracles' poisoned robe indeed seems deliberately to reflect the famous net used to entrap Agamemnon: Heracles' description of it (οἷον τόδ᾽ ἡ δολῶπις Οἰνέως κόρη / καθῆψεν ὤμοις τοῖς ἐμοῖς Ἐρινύων / ὑϕαντὸν ἀμϕίβληστρον, ‘…this woven garment of the Erinyes which the treacherous daughter of Oineus fastened on my shoulders’; Trachiniae 1050–2) is similar to Aegisthus' words near the end of Agamemnon (ἰδὼν ὑϕαντοῖς ἐν πέπλοις Ἐρινύων / τὸν ἄνδρα τόνδε κείμενον ϕίλως ἐμοί, ‘…seeing this man lying in robes of the Erinyes, to my joy’; 1580–1). Even if the direct verbal allusion fails to resonate with an audience, it seems unlikely, given the high level of audience competence, that audience members would not make the thematic connection.Footnote ² It is almost impossible to deny, therefore, that in Deianeira Sophocles was writing a deliberate response to Clytemnestra and contrasting the accidental murder caused by a loving wife with the carefully planned murder by a bitter wife.Footnote ³

In this article, I argue that the point at which Deianeira meets Iole, Heracles' intended concubine, is a crucial departure from the precedent set in Agamemnon when Clytemnestra meets Cassandra, and marks a profound difference between the two plays. When Iole and the other prisoners are brought in in Trachiniae, Deianeira engages with them and their situation, expressing pity for their lot. It is a drawn-out scene (lines 225–632), which ends with Deianeira finally learning that Iole has been brought to be Heracles' concubine, which in turn leads to the plot that kills Heracles. Cassandra, on the other hand, arrives with Agamemnon and he is the focus: the return of the triumphant and victorious leader. The other characters do not mention her, and when Clytemnestra does address her (1035 ff.), it is a brief moment characterized by Clytemnestra's frustration with the still mute princess (1064–8). Cassandra's presence does nothing to alter Clytemnestra's plot. Sophocles re-focuses the scene where wife meets concubine so that it becomes entirely centred not on questions of power and control but on questions of marriage, family, and love.

Eros is a powerful force in Trachiniae, and with Deianeira and Iole we see the juxtaposition of marital love and erotic love. Heracles, it would seem, wants both, as he introduces a young concubine into his wife's house. The problem that Sophocles presents is that Deianeira, too, wants both, but from one person: her husband. We do not often see the combination of conventional marital love and erotic love in tragedy,Footnote ⁴ and any woman's attempt to pursue erotic love is transgressive of moral boundaries and ends in disaster.Footnote ⁵ In Trachiniae, things should be different because Deianeira is pursuing the affection of her husband. But it, too, ends in disaster because Deianeira's expectations of marriage and the kind of affection she will receive from her husband are flawed.Footnote ⁶ In showing her work through her misunderstanding of marriage,Footnote ⁷ Sophocles inverts the typical gender roles, making Deianeira assume Heracles' aggressive approach to winning love and presenting Heracles in emasculating pain.Footnote ⁸ This inversion shows how Deianeira has learned to behave aggressively and selfishly, chasing her own desires, like Heracles; the disastrous outcome shows that Heracles' model has been entirely flawed. In what follows, I will discuss the Iole scene, the driving force of eros in Trachiniae, and the devastating model that Heracles provides for his wife. I conclude by suggesting a reading of the play that sees Heracles, the master and governing force in the family, sharing in the responsibility of his own death, while arguing that Sophocles presents the struggle for love in such a way as to raise questions about gender roles and marriage, creating a subtle and troubling challenge to the way in which gender and marriage are presented in tragedy.Footnote ⁹

Deianeira's character is well established in the prologue, in which she herself provides us with her own background. We hear very little of her life before her marriage to Heracles. In very quick succession, her life story progresses from her scared anticipation of marriage (7–8) to Achelous' courtship (9–17) to Heracles' arrival (19–21) and victorious fight for her (21–6).Footnote ¹⁰ Once she is married, fear of marriage itself is transformed into fear and anxiety for her growing family (27–35). Worry is so embedded in her that she cannot see beyond it and even tries to infect the chorus of unmarried girls with it. At lines 142–52 she tells the girls that they only do not fear because they are too young, and that she does not wish her (relatively average) experience on them. Deianeira is clearly characterized by all-encompassing anxiety,Footnote ¹¹ but her words to the chorus shows how her anxiety has eclipsed reason. The chorus members have not yet experienced marriage but they are not too young for worry or fear, for Deianeira herself was fearful at that stage. This highlights the splendid dichotomy of her character: that she is both sympathetic and concerned for the well-being of others, and overly preoccupied with her own life, experience, and desires. While her intentions are good, she does not recognize the experience of others. No-one can suffer like her; no-one can understand her fear-filled life.Footnote ¹²

The scene where everything changes for Deianeira is part of a lengthy episode that appears to herald the end of her most recent bout of anxiety regarding Heracles but ends with bitter disappointment and the realization that her husband is not what she has thought him to be.Footnote ¹³ A messenger arrives at line 180 with news that Heracles will soon be home, just after Deianeira has recounted to the chorus her sufferings (once again) and more details about the prophecy concerning Heracles (141 ff.).Footnote ¹⁴ As Lichas, Heracles' personal messenger, speaks his first words (229–31), the mood is one of jubilation and he reports happy news of Heracles' victory and homecoming. Deianeira rejoices at the imminent return of her husband. The line of slave women is introduced at line 241 and Lichas explains that Heracles has taken them from the sacked city (244–5), but he does not dwell on them. Instead he diverts attention back to Heracles and his recent history, outlining his enslavement to Omphale (248–53, 274–80) and his quarrel with Eurytus, including the murder of Iphitus and the sack of Oechalia (260–73, 281–5).

It is Deianeira who draws attention back to the slaves when she expresses pity for them (298 ff.). This is an important moment, as it is in keeping with her characterization as a gentle and sympathetic woman.Footnote ¹⁵ Her initial reaction is one of kindness rather than suspicion. As she surveys the women and discusses their pitiable lot, she singles out Iole and declares her to be most worthy of pity because she alone ‘is self-aware’ (ϕρονεῖν οἶδεν; 313). As Iole and the others are about to be led inside, Deianeira wishes her to be at peace in the house and not to ‘take fresh pain from me in addition to her current woes; she has enough already’ (μηδὲ πρὸς κακοῖς / τοῖς οἷσιν ἄλλην πρός γ᾽ ἐμοῦ λύπην λάβῃ; 330–2). She expresses the same sympathy and concern for Iole individually as she does for the captive women as a whole, exhibiting no suspicion or jealousy of the younger woman.

When Deianeira is told the truth about Iole's identity by the messenger (351 ff.), which is finally confirmed by Lichas (472 ff.), her attitude changes almost immediately. After seven lines of reassurance to Lichas (490–6) and a brief choral ode (497–530), she comes back from within with a plan and a changed perspective of her husband. The frustration is nearly palpable as she wonders incredulously: ‘This is what Heracles, whom we call good and faithful, has sent me after I have kept his house for so long’ (τοιάδ᾽ Ἡρακλῆς, / ὁ πιστὸς ἡμῖν κἀγαθὸς καλούμενος, / οἰκούρι᾽ ἀντέπεμψε τοῦ μακροῦ χρόνου; 540–2). From her perspective she has been a good wife, keeping things going at home while Heracles has been away, and now she deserves, if not recompense, then at least respectful treatment from her husband. It is as if Sophocles introduces Iole as a concubine to show the threat not only to Deianeira's position in the household but to her sense of value and self-worth.

Deianeira is not only angry but also still afraid: now she is afraid of being overlooked for a younger and more beautiful woman, with whom she has no desire to share her husband (545–51). Upon expressing this, she reveals her plan to send a robe anointed with the blood of Nessus the centaur, who promised her as he was dying (having been shot with one of Heracles' hydra-poisoned arrows) that the blood was a love charm.Footnote ¹⁶ The revelation of the plan is the first time in this play and, according to the details she provides, the first time in her life that Deianeira has shown any initiative.

The moment of realization of who Iole is and why she is there changes Deianeira fundamentally from passive to active. Her feelings towards Iole do not change, but for the first time she is angry, which inspires the first of only two moments of action in her whole life.Footnote ¹⁷ Indeed, as she herself declares in the prologue, her life has not been a happy one because of what appears to be debilitating fear. She could not watch the fight between Achelous and Heracles (21–5); since her ‘salvation’ by Heracles, she has not been enjoying life because of the constant cycle of fear or worry (27–30). Action of any kind is entirely out of the ordinary for her. And of everything she has had to endure from Heracles, not least of which is her current living situation – in exile because of the murder of Iphitus – it is the introduction of another woman into her household that finally prompts her to take action. Deianeira's meeting with her unwilling rival provokes a desire to fight for her marriage.Footnote ¹⁸

The Iole episode is important because the moment at which a woman is confronted with the concubine is the moment at which her husband's transgressive behaviour is at its peak. Deianeira is confronted not only with another woman but also with the ultimate betrayal from her husband: the woman who will, if not fully replace her, then at least replace a certain amount of her husband's attention, all while being a constant presence in her house, her domain. Sophocles highlights the tremendous insecurity that Iole creates in Deianeira by having Deianeira focus on the age difference between the two women, and the perceived impact that age has on a woman's beauty (545 ff.). She is well aware of the fact that men prefer to ‘pluck’ (ἀϕαρπάζειν; 548) the flower that is a young woman, while her own ‘faded’ youth (ϕθίνουσαν; 548) will cause men, and Heracles in particular, to turn away from her (ὑπεκτρέπει πόδα; 549).

There are examples throughout Greek literature that point to the social faux pas of a man establishing his concubine in his marital home. While extra-marital affairs were widespread, they were kept distinct from the oikos (‘household’) out of respect for the man's wife. In tragedy, we have the example of Andromache's Hermione, who is driven nearly mad by the presence of Andromache and her son within the house. In Against Neaira, keeping a wife and concubine in the same home is considered shameful.Footnote ¹⁹ Andocides, too, points to the disgrace of a man installing a concubine (4.14, 1.124–5), and Athenaeus outlines mythological examples of eastern queens tolerating concubines (556b ff.). These examples help to confirm the moral umbrage taken not just by individuals but by the community as a whole when a man breaks the custom of keeping wife and mistress separate.Footnote ²⁰

We have seen that Deianeira is selfishly focused on her own experiences to the exclusion of others', so it should be no surprise that her motivation for reigniting the passion between herself and Heracles is entirely her own feelings on the state of their relationship. This is unlike the unselfish (though perhaps exaggeratedly so) Andromache in Euripides' Andromache, who boasts about nursing Hector's bastards and not intervening in his extra-marital love life.Footnote ²¹ Deianeira continues to focus on her own self-interests, but the move towards uncharacteristic action demonstrates how Deianeira has learned the lesson provided by Heracles – the only example she has of someone fighting for and winning a desired object. In her reaction to Iole, we see that Deianeira has internalized Heracles' approach to pursuing love as she mimics his aggressive fight for herself years ago and for Iole now.Footnote ²² Her nearly always absent husband has not modelled appropriate behaviour when it comes to love but has instead provided Deianeira with a frightful and destructive model.

Although we only see Heracles when he is incapacitated by the poisoned robe, what we are told of him throughout indicates that he has a tendency towards violence in order to overcome the obstacle between him and the woman he desires.Footnote ²³ Deianeira tells us little about how Heracles came upon her and decided on her as an object of affection. We learn only that he appeared as an unexpected saviour from the grim Achelous and that he engaged Achelous in a violent and extensive fight. We also learn little of the particulars surrounding Heracles' attraction to Iole. The messenger says that he was struck by Eros (354–5) and was so angered when Eurytus denied him his daughter as a secret concubine that he destroyed the city (359–65). When Lichas finally confirms the truth, he provides no additional information (472–89). From these two accounts, we can extrapolate that Heracles requires no more than being denied the woman of his choice before launching a destructive assault with no concern for the lives lost in the process.Footnote ²⁴

Heracles is said to be highly influenced by the powers of eros, to such an extent that he destroys lives to attain the object of his affection. The messenger specifically states that Eros led him to destroy Oechalia (354–5). Deianeira acknowledges it as a sickness with which he is afflicted as an excuse for his frequent affairs (445). In the chorus' description of the fight between Heracles and Achelous, Aphrodite sits as judge, suggesting the strong power and danger behind eroticism (497 ff.).Footnote ²⁵ Heracles conquers for love, but with a display of hyper-masculine force that emphasizes the thrill of the conquest rather than true desire for the object. But when he experiences his wife's destructive eros, he becomes feminized.Footnote ²⁶ He is now the object, the one without control, the impetus for destruction.Footnote ²⁷ And so, as Deianeira applies what she has learned from her husband, and through a remarkable reversal in gender roles, Heracles becomes the pursued beloved while Deianeira assumes the role of the aggressive lover.Footnote ²⁸

Just as we have seen Heracles do, Deianeira fights for Heracles once a human impediment is placed before her, while keeping to her traditionally defined feminine role and not engaging in active violence.Footnote ²⁹ So much has come between her and her happiness with Heracles, but everything so far has been at a distance and intangible. There has been no concrete object against which she could fight. For the first time, with Iole, there is a face to the disruption of her domestic bliss and one that comes, significantly, at a time when she believes her waiting and suffering will be over. And it is at this moment that we see Heracles' influence at its strongest, as Deianeira reflects her husband's approach to love. Iole can stand in for Deianeira from Heracles' perspective because she is the latest object of his affection that has been won by violence, but she also helps the audience to realize that Deianeira herself is of little value to Heracles other than as a prize to be guarded. At the end of the play, when Heracles is certain of his impending death, he instructs his son to marry Iole. It is a bizarre request that Hyllus balks at before eventually acquiescing, but it shows that Heracles does not actually love Iole. Rather, for him she is an object, albeit prized, that must remain in the family.Footnote ³⁰ Once this attitude is revealed, his distant relationship with Deianeira can be seen in an illuminating way. It is not in being with her that he finds his joy, but in knowing that she is there and that she is his.

So, in Heracles' eyes, Iole is a young or new version of Deianeira.Footnote ³¹ But from Deianeira's perspective Iole is at first her younger self, living through the same terrifying experience as she did years ago, and then becomes her unwitting rival, lighting the spark that leads to the destruction of the household. In Deianeira's speech after she has learned the truth, she expresses frustration and perhaps even anger at her current situation, to the extent that we can wonder whether she actually wants Heracles himself or just to win. She clearly approaches the situation with the expressed intent to win the love of her husband, but she also expressly declares that she does not want to share him and that she fears being overlooked in favour of a younger woman in her own home.Footnote ³² These two things do not speak to Heracles in particular but to her desire for a loving, present husband. Heracles is the object representing her desire, just as Deianeira and Iole are the objects representing his. After hearing how Heracles has attained his latest desired object, she has learned how to proceed: with subterfuge, and taking into account only her own thoughts and feelings.

Thus far, I have argued that Deianeira learns from Heracles and that he has modelled the behaviour that has led to his own death. Sophocles is not presenting an unusual situation: even if the example from Xenophon's Oeconomicus is an exaggeration, it nevertheless points to the idealized notion of a husband's role in his wife's approach to her domestic world.Footnote ³³ ‘Socrates’ describes the problem succinctly as follows:

At lines 7.5 ff., Ischomachus discusses the training of his wife, but emphasizes the partnership that they had, with him vowing to train her in the best way and her vowing to submit to the lessons (7.7–8). Ischomachus' wife has had some teaching from her mother before marriage (7.14), but Xenophon makes it clear that her comportment and work within the household are dependent on the lessons she learns from her husband. If husbands are responsible for educating their wives, improper teaching would indeed lead to frightening women but, as Sophocles demonstrates in Trachiniae, we should look more critically at the husband's role.

Because Deianeira so neatly reflects Heracles, we can then use Trachiniae as a test case for re-evaluating the representation of marriage in tragedy and suggest that it is not only the woman who creates problems. It is widely agreed that Clytemnestra and other female characters who prove maliciously destructive to their husbands, homes, and communities justify the need for marriage.Footnote ³⁴ Women need to be controlled lest their frightful natures be allowed free rein. By extension, Deianeira would create a deeper, more troubling question.Footnote ³⁵ If the institution of marriage does not work with a woman such as she, who is by nature docile and committed to her husband, then there is a more fundamental problem with it. But I suggest that we can veer away from this female-focused analysis of marriage in tragedy and include consideration of the men. In Kirk Ormand's discussion of Heracles and Deianeira's marriage, he argues that the problem lies in the fact that Deianeira sees herself as the subject of the marriage, whereas for Heracles Deianeira is and always has been a means of communicating with other men.Footnote ³⁶ The homosocial aspect of marriage may be exaggerated in Trachiniae, but of course Greek marriage was always about men.

Men arranged marriages for a mutual benefit, and the women were objects of the transaction – a currency. This is well argued by many scholars.Footnote ³⁷ But in light of this, it stands to reason that even in the actions of women we can glean some insight into the men. In a system based on the presupposition that women have no autonomy and must be safely moved from one kurios (‘master’) to the next, there must be room to consider the consequences of a man's mismanaging of his wife. Certainly, Medea is one obvious example of a woman acting autonomously with devastating result. But the converse of that is Deianeira, who has never acted autonomously until the moment of sending the anointed robe to Heracles. She has, up until that point, fulfilled her uxorial duties without flaw. Nessus provided the means and the deadly lie for her action, but Heracles provided the example of using extreme measures in pursuit of eros. Deianeira undoubtedly kills her husband, but Sophocles does not allow us to be comfortable with declaring her fully culpable.

The end of the play confirms the homosocial aspect of marriage, as one of the key requests that Heracles makes of his son is that he marry Iole. Deianeira is all but forgotten by Heracles and he thinks instead of cementing the (male) family ownership of Iole. That Hyllus balks at the request (1230–1, 1233–7) indicates its unusual nature; Heracles is extraordinarily concerned with asserting control over his erotic possession, not to ensure the stability of the household or the community but simply because it is his.Footnote ³⁸ Deianeira's act of murder was merely an attempt to do the same.

I do not mean to suggest that there would have been no judgement of Deianeira and her actions, or that her actions, though unintentional, would have been met with any kind of sympathy. Nor do I think it is enough to say that men have a responsibility to behave and not bring a concubine home. There is that, but there is also more. What I have been arguing here is that the way in which a wife responds to the presence of another woman is telling as to the way in which her husband has treated her and the kind of marital relationship that he has established. Not only is the husband supposed to teach his wife explicitly, as Xenophon tells us, but he also teaches her through his everyday actions. With Deianeira seeing Heracles as infrequently as she laments (31 ff.), his actions in her presence are all the more significant.

The reading of Trachiniae for which I have been arguing invites the audience to question their assumptions about marriage and the responsibilities of both parties. Sophocles destabilizes the perception of marriage by presenting the behaviour of the husband as questionable. There is little justification for what Heracles does.Footnote ³⁹ If we compare the behaviour of Jason, for example, we can say that, whatever we may think of his actions, there is a reason for him abandoning Medea. With her, he lives in a foreign city in an illegitimate relationship. With the daughter of Creon, he will live in a legitimate marriage that brings position and security for himself and his children. Similarly, other concubines are established in households with wives under slightly more acceptable circumstances. Both Cassandra and Andromache, for example, are brought home as prizes from a legitimate and recognized war. They have significance to their new masters: Cassandra is the virgin princess selected by the king of kings, and Andromache is allotted to the son of the man who killed her husband. Iole, on the other hand, is simply desired, and her presence in the house represents nothing other than Heracles' aggression and insatiable need for conquests. The crisis in his marriage and household is created by nothing other than his extraordinary appetite and his irresponsible handling of his wife, which Sophocles presents as an invitation to his audience to reconsider the over-simplified notion of the dangerously transgressive wife.

Scholars have noted that Heracles is justly punished for his transgressive act against the institution of marriage.Footnote ⁴⁰ My argument here has been that he is punished not only because he has brought home a concubine to reside with his wife, contrary to culturally accepted norms, but because of his failure to fulfil his role as master and guide of his wife. He places her in the position of having to act according to the only model she has seen from him – aggression based on one's own desires at the expense of others – but she does not have the strength of Heracles or the understanding to fulfil her acts without unintended destruction.Footnote ⁴¹ Because of a husband's inability to properly govern that for which he is responsible, therefore, neither can enjoy the object of their desire and they both suffer the consequences.