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Full Idea
Sophocles has Ajax (in 'Ajax') and Hercules (in 'Trachiniae') die terrible deaths because of the opposition they represent to the values which are the new values of Periclean Athens.
Gist of Idea
Sophoclean heroes die terrible deaths when they oppose the new Athenian values
Source
report of Sophocles (Women of Trachis [c.430 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2
Book Ref
Grayling,A.C.: 'What is Good? The Best Way to Live' [Phoenix 2003], p.20
A Reaction
Presumably they are tragic heroes, who hence invite our sympathy, like Othello and Hamlet, who also die following an older moral code. It is only tragic if the code they follow has something 'higher' about it.
| 7811 | Sophoclean heroes die terrible deaths when they oppose the new Athenian values [Sophocles, by Grayling] |
| 8235 | Should a coward who ran fifty paces from a battle laugh at another who ran a hundred? [Mengzi (Mencius)] |
| 24 | Honour depends too much on the person who awards it [Aristotle] |
| 4119 | If you aim at honour, you make yourself dependent on the people to whom you wish to be superior [Aristotle, by Williams,B] |
| 5233 | Honour is clearly the greatest external good [Aristotle] |
| 23912 | Honour depends on what it is for, and whether it is bestowed by worthy people [Aristotle] |
| 20844 | Honour is just, courageous, orderly or knowledgeable. It is praiseworthy, or functions well [Stoic school, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 23673 | Every worthy man has a principle of honour, and knows what is honourable [Reid] |
| 4557 | The supposed great lovers of honour (Alexander etc) were actually great despisers of honour [Nietzsche] |
| 4021 | Willingness to risk life was the constitutive quality of the man of honour [Taylor,C] |
| 7809 | In an honour code shame is the supreme punishment, and revenge is a duty [Grayling] |