Heracles, Hyllus, and the Moral Dilemma of Voluntary Assisted Dying in Sophocles's Trachiniae

Abstract: In classical Greece, philosophers and dramatists alike taught the requisites of ethics. This orientation makes it valuable to consider how a text like Sophocles's Trachiniae engages events that concern the hero Heracles, and specifically the manner of his death. The circumstances involve what today we call euthanasia, in this case voluntary active euthanasia as a result of Heracles's autonomous decision, but also assisted death insofar as Heracles's son Hyllus receives an imperative from his father. The discernible principles of morality in this play, perceived even through the normative ambiguity of the genre, speak strongly to contemporary bioethics discourse: That is, the tragic ethos of the Greek dramatists should not be dismissed from our deliberations.