Enriching Education - Learning from Greek Drama

Since You’re Mortal: Life Lessons from the Lost Greek Plays by James Romm, PhD is a collection of short passages from ancient Greek plays that no longer exist.

I had a chance to learn more about what ancient Greek wisdom has to offer today in this interview.

How did Greek drama serve a role as moral education?

Greek drama was one of the primary ways citizens explored ethical questions in the ancient world. Tragedies and comedies presented characters facing difficult choices involving justice, power, loyalty, ambition, family, and mortality. Audiences were invited to reflect on the consequences of those choices and consider what it means to live wisely and honorably. In that sense, the theater served as a public classroom for civic and moral reflection.

What can modern students learn from ancient Greek plays?

Modern students can learn that many of the challenges we face today are not new. The Greeks grappled with political polarization, abuses of power, social conflict, grief, love, friendship, and the search for meaning. These plays encourage critical thinking, empathy, and self-examination while showing that human nature has remained remarkably consistent across centuries.

Why is it important to recognize lesser-known tragedies and comedies, even if we only have excerpts?

The surviving masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes represent only a small fraction of ancient Greek drama. The fragments of lost plays preserve voices, ideas, and perspectives that would otherwise have disappeared entirely. They broaden our understanding of Greek culture and remind us that history is often shaped as much by what survives as by what was originally created. Even a single surviving passage can contain insights that continue to speak to readers today.

James Romm, PhD.  is the James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. He specializes in ancient Greek and Roman culture and civilization and is the author of numerous acclaimed books, including Plato and the Tyrant, Ghost on the Throne, and Dying Every Day. In addition to writing narrative history, he has edited and translated major works of classical literature for modern readers, helping bring the ancient world into contemporary conversation.

Romm’s reviews and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, The London Review of Books, The Daily Beast, and other publications. His honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Birkelund Fellowship at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Writers and Scholars at the New York Public Library, and a Biography Fellowship at the Leon Levy Center for  Biography at the City University of New York.