The Greek theatre tradition of the time was rooted in the spirituality of its people, developed with the help and instruction from the politicians of the day and analysed by the philosophical contingent of the age. To discover how the theatre tradition of the fifth century was influenced by the spiritual, philosophical and political mindset of its time, one must first look at how the theatre of this age was first developed.

The Greek theatre tradition was born at a theatre built beneath the Acropolis in Athens, at an annual religious festival at which a large chorus of men would dance, play instruments and sing odes to the God of the festival, Dionysus. These choral odes to Dionysus were called dithyrambs, performed by fifty men dressed as satyrs, the half-man, half-goat servants of Dionysus. The hymn-like dithyramb was essentially a song of praise for Dionysus and to attend...