Sophocles' tragedy in which Antigone defies King Creon's decree forbidding the burial of her brother Polynices -- a traitor to Thebes -- asserting that divine law (the unwritten laws of the gods) takes precedence over human positive law. Both Antigone and Creon are destroyed. The play is the foundational dramatic text for debates about conscience, civil disobedience, and the limits of political authority.
Provided the archetypal dramatic expression of the conflict between divine/natural law and positive/human law -- a conflict structuring Western political and legal philosophy ever since. Generated Hegel's most celebrated dialectical reading (the clash of equally valid ethical powers: family vs. state). Established Antigone as the paradigmatic figure of conscientious resistance to unjust law.
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