The classical scholar Patricia Easterling, who has died aged 92, insisted that it be understood that Greek tragedy did not die at the end of the century in which Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides worked – the fifth BC – but flourished as an art form throughout antiquity. By doing so, she effected a paradigm shift in ancient theatre studies.
Pat transferred the focus of scholarship from traditional, technical study aimed at producing accurate texts from multiple manuscripts, to an aesthetic and sociohistorical appreciation of plays as records of thrilling live performances. They were enacted by skilled actors, wearing costumes and masks, in the specific contexts of the classical Athenian democracy where the plays that have survived to us were premiered, and the hundreds of performance venues across the Greco-Roman worlds in which they were revived and adapted for centuries.
