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The aim of this paper is to analyze the most paradigmatic punishments of the Athenian legal system and its relationship with the social memory. Punishments like atimia, lapidation and petrification go into the tragic scene through the myth, the ritual and the historic memory. In our paper we consider Niobe's myth in its relationship with Antigone's death, the ritual of the Khoes and Orestes' atimia, and, at the end, Licides' death by lapidation. Our sources are Herodotus and Lycurgus and their re-elaboration in Aeschylus and Euripides. The passages that we analyze allow for Athenians to update the collective memory and to legitimate the legal and social imaginary. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The connections between the sophistic movement and the theatrical universe of classic Athens have been generally understood in a unidirectional way. Scholars have stressed the projection of some of the sophists' interests onto tragedy. On the contrary, in this paper, we will try to highlight interrelationships between sophistry and theater and its consequences in political thought. In order to do that, we will examine fragment B23 allotted to Gorgias, paying special attention to the use of the concepts δíκαιος and ἀπἀτη and to their connection with fragment B23a. On the other hand, the concept of ἀπἀτη will lead us to Aristophanes' comedy (especially to Acharnians and Ecclesiazusae) allowing us to see the scope of gorgianic reasoning and also to close the circle of interrelationships between the sophistic movement and theatre. Finally, we will ask ourselves how much Gorgias' arguments and Aristophanes' approach bring us closer to a key political question of their time: the performative dimension of the Athenian democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]