Antigone,Autonomy,and Higher Lawlessness

1. Varieties of “Law” in Antigone

The abundant “terminological variance” ⁹ in ancient Greek texts complicates any inquiry into legal or normative claims at issue in the play. Sophocles uses several different words for law in Antigone, but two principal words are relevant to Antigone’s dispute with Creon: κήρυγμα (kerugma) and νόμος (nomos). ¹⁰ Kerugma is a proclamation or decree, or “that which is cried by a herald.” ¹¹ In the opening scene, Antigone refers to the “edict” [kerugma] which Creon has just decreed or proclaimed to the city (7–8). ¹² Creon explicitly refers to his decree as kerugma (as well as nomos), while Antigone repeatedly denies that Creon’s edict is a nomos (like the unwritten nomoi of the gods on which she depends).

And nomos is the most widespread and important term. Literally meaning “norm,” it is typically translated “law,” though it may also mean usage, custom, ordinance, or that which is established, habitual, or conventional. ¹³ Its wide range of meanings also include institution, universal norm, or law of state, and “[m]ost of its meanings have to do with the values which make civilization possible . . ..” ¹⁴ Hence, Hesiod describes nomos as being peculiar to humankind and their peaceful cooperation. ¹⁵ Some scholars have defined nomos as a concept that pertains only to human life, arising from everyday experience and an awareness of the order that prevails in community life. ¹⁶

In fact, in the fifth century BC, Athenians used two words for what we call positive law: nomos and psephisma. There was “no demonstrable difference” between them—both referred to Athenian enactments of the ecclesia, the general legislative assembly. ¹⁷ At most, they differed in that “[n]omos is used when the emphasis is on the contents of a rule whereas the enactment of the rule is stressed by the word psephisma.” ¹⁸ And “[a]ll legal statutes carried in principle equal authority” because nomos and psephisma were “formally equivalent and interchangeable terms.” ¹⁹ Not until the end of the fifth century were the terms understood to have different meanings. Before this time, there was no recognition of a hierarchy of legal norms or statutes. ²⁰ Now, “for the first time nomoi were granted a superior status” over psephismata. ²¹ Thereafter, a nomos was a rule of general and permanent validity, while a psephisma was used for an individual or temporary rule or regulation. ²²

Nevertheless, nomos is frequently used for human law and for divine law, as well as in expressions of the relationship between the two. ²³ Heraclitus explains that the gods are responsible for human laws, saying “all laws of men are nourished by one law, the divine law” (using nomos in each case). ²⁴ Demosthenes reiterates the idea that a human nomos draws its legitimacy from a number of sources, including the will of the gods, and that all men ought to obey it “because every law is an invention and gift of the gods.” ²⁵ Written about twenty-two years after Sophocles’ Antigone, Euripides’ Suppliants refers to “the ancient law (nomos) of the gods” (562–3). ²⁶ And in Antigone, the Chorus alternates between law as a human artefact and law as divinely instituted (369). For Creon, nomos is “secular and civic,” but for Antigone it emanates from the gods. ²⁷ Steiner explains that its connections to “the divine or absolute order are not self-evidently intrinsic or figurative” but can and must be argued. ²⁸ Whether Antigone ever successfully makes that argument is a question this Article attempts to answer.

2. Creon’s Decree

The nature of Creon’s decree, in itself, is not an entirely necessary point to understanding Antigone’s reliance on Higher Law and autonomous law. But her initial argument is framed as a rebuttal to his decree—a counter-claim based on contrary, superior authority. Therefore, a brief examination of Creon’s decree provides crucial context for Antigone’s normative claims.

Antigone is the first to refer to Creon’s decree. She asks Ismene about “this new edict (kerugma)” that Creon “has just decreed to all the city” (7–8). According to Creon’s two-fold decree, Eteocles will receive a burial with “due observance of right and custom” (24–5), that is, resorting to justice and law (nomos). ²⁹ But as for Polyneices, the “edict” that has been published commands that no one should bury him (26–8). And Creon himself is coming to “proclaim” the edict to those who may not already know it (31–4). Throughout this exchange, Antigone repeatedly refers to Creon’s edict or decree, but never refers to it as law (nomos).

Ismene, for her part, treats the decree as law. She twice refers to the burial of Polyneices as being “forbidden” (44, 47) and reminds Antigone that they will be destroyed if they defy “the law (nomos)” (59). And, significantly, she associates Creon’s decree with the will of the polis: “to act in violation of the citizens’ will—of that I am by nature incapable” (79). ³⁰

When Creon first enters, he defends his claim to the throne and suggests that his character and judgment, his capability as a leader, must be measured by “the test of rule and law-giving” (175–7)—he must be “judicious in making law (nomoisin).” ³¹ He uses this same term moments later when he describes “the rules (nomoisi)” by which he strengthens the city (191). ³² Thus, Creon “identifies himself (and his own decrees) with the nomoi of the polis.” ³³ In response, the Chorus acknowledges that Creon seemingly has the power “to make use of every law (nomos) whatsoever” (211–4).

Following shortly on this exchange, a guard rushes in to tell Creon that the body of Polyneices has been buried. Creon responds angrily to the Chorus’ suggestion that the burial may have been the work of the gods; he characterizes himself as “the protector of the nomoi of the polis against anyone who threatens to dissolve them” ³⁴ and sends the guard away to find “the perpetrators of these crimes” (324–5). Not knowing who committed the deed, the Chorus characterizes the one who breached “the nomos of non-burial” ³⁵ as a-polis—cityless, one who is without a polis, “banned from his city” (370). ³⁶

Now the guard returns with Antigone. The Chorus marvels that this “unhappy child” has been brought in “for disobeying the King’s laws (nomoi)” (379–82). Creon questions whether she knew of the edict forbidding the burial, and Antigone answers that she did. Again Creon refers, at 449, to the nomos: “you dared overstep that law?” ³⁷ In what follows (the most famous passage of the play), Antigone justifies her action and offers her interpretation of Creon’s decree, persisting in calling it an “edict” or proclamation (450, 461) and contrasting it with the laws (nomoi) of the polis and the laws (nomima) of the gods (451–5).

3. Antigone’s Unwritten Law of the Gods

The confrontation between Antigone and Creon produces the clash of norms for which the tragedy is most famous. Antigone defies Creon’s proclamation by pronouncing a law of her own, a superior law that supersedes his command: “Nor did I think that your decrees (kerugmath) were of such force, that a mortal could override the unwritten and unfailing statutes given us by the gods” (453–5). Antigone derides Creon’s decree as deficient, unsanctioned by the gods and therefore without authority. ³⁸ More importantly, she holds up the unwritten and unshakeable laws of the gods over and against Creon’s decree.

This is the oldest extant reference to unwritten law. The term “unwritten law” (ἄγραπτος νόμιμα—agrapta nomima) began to appear in the late fifth century. ³⁹ This suggests “development in the nature of Greek law,” building on a belief that unwritten law carried an “inherent danger” of intentional misapplication, omission, and bias. ⁴⁰ Implementing written laws was debated “as a move toward greater justice” by preventing one person from “owning the law himself, for himself.” ⁴¹ Hence, the key to this development is the distinction “between laws authored by a single named person and laws written by the community” or founded on its consent. ⁴² And while a majority of commentators emphasize the obvious distinction between unwritten and written laws, some scholars highlight a more troublesome tendency to treat law as the possession of one author. “Either written or unwritten law was unproblematic as long as it did not have a specific author.” ⁴³ Thus, the validity of either type of law was based on its acceptance by those living under its rule; its “lawfulness arises from collective, not individual, opinion.” ⁴⁴

While a body of binding unwritten norms certainly must have pre-existed the written laws, unwritten law was arguably “dependent on social memory and on the officials or elders who have the responsibility of settling disputes.” ⁴⁵ The difficulty of divining such unwritten rules may be compounded where they are “regarded as maintained and protected by the gods . . . .” ⁴⁶ Counteracting these obstacles was the notion that the unwritten laws of the gods and the human civil laws supported each other. Numerous ancient texts, including Greek tragedies, explain that “the gods are responsible for the laws men enact and follow.” ⁴⁷ Consequently, the unwritten laws form the basis of (and thus validate) the written laws. The two types of laws “work together to serve one end, which is to bring about justice.” ⁴⁸

But Antigone’s normative claim has less to do with the laws being unwritten than it does with the source of the laws. The normative contest she ignites is really about the superiority of her nomos, the nomoi of the gods, over the decree of Creon. Antigone understands nomos as originating from the gods, and therefore as timeless and unfailing. For her, these nomoi are “personal [and] familial” but also hierarchically superior to Creon’s invalid decree. ⁴⁹ And as she draws nearer to her death, the personal and familial find new expression in her autonomia. Creon, on the other hand, sees nomos as civic and civilizing, and therefore secular; he does not deny the existence of the gods, but identifies the nomoi with his decrees. ⁵⁰ Intriguingly, Zartaloudis suggests the distinction may be between breachable and unbreachable nomos—as ancestral and sacred customs connected to a cosmic order, the unwritten laws of the gods are superior and must be obeyed. ⁵¹

In light of Antigone’s confident yet perfunctory dismissal of Creon’s decree, scholars and readers have long debated its legitimacy. Harris claims that Antigone “justifies her disobedience on the grounds that Creon’s order violates the law,” ⁵² but this is an overstatement. At a general level, if it were the case that Creon’s decree “violates” the law, the level of scholarly attention paid to her disobedience seems misplaced. Why would anyone question her disobedience if Creon’s decree is so obviously illegitimate and unlawful? More specifically, Antigone first asserts that Creon’s order wasn’t made by Zeus or chthonian Justice. She then asserts that she does not think his decree could override or trample down the gods’ unfailing laws. That is, she claims the decree is a purely human order that (she believes) does not have the force to override the Higher Laws. But nowhere does she claim the decree “violates” the law (whether the positive law of Thebes or the unwritten law of the gods), and she never again addresses his decree. On the contrary, she justifies her disobedience by arguing that Creon’s decree—whether valid or not—could not override the hierarchically superior unwritten law of the gods. ⁵³ She underlines this by insisting that fear of Creon’s opinion (“proud spirit”) would not cause her to break or “neglect these laws” (458–9). Rather than justifying her disobedience of Creon’s decree on the ground that it violates the law (or even that it is no law at all), she dismisses his decree as inferior to a higher law. ⁵⁴

Recognizing this distinction is crucial to comprehending Antigone’s normative arc. Proving the illegitimacy (i.e., legal invalidity) of Creon’s decree presumably would be a clear-cut task. But her position rests on the superiority of her law to the law proclaimed by Creon. She puts his decree in a “hierarchy of oppositions in which it, and all such laws, appear undeniably subordinate” ⁵⁵ to the “unbreachable” unwritten laws. Yet it becomes clear as the action proceeds that Antigone may be “overstepping her limitations by claiming to know what the gods want” ⁵⁶ —and it may be that her claim is not ultimately grounded in those laws at all.

1. Higher Law

As we have seen, Antigone’s initial position takes the form of a Higher Law critique of the exercise of Creon’s absolute sovereignty. Her claim is that she is bound by the gods’ laws and her conscience to disobey the positive proclamation of the King. Antigone is “determined to break the law.” ⁵⁷ She “takes it upon herself to defy the law” and “sets herself above Creon’s law and claims to know better what is right.” ⁵⁸ Of course, there is no express indication here that Antigone is governed only by her own will, rather than bound by conscience to breach the law. But the basis of her determination to disobey is not so self-evident as most presume. Indeed, it appears that Antigone’s appeal to Higher Law may actually be based instead on self-determination. As the action proceeds, the ground of Antigone’s argument shifts from Higher Law to self-law.

Although Antigone confidently asserts the authority of the unwritten divine laws, she never defends these laws. ⁵⁹ She does not attempt to justify any specific law and its application to her circumstances beyond simply citing the laws’ existence and asserting their superiority over Creon’s decree. She links her defiance of the decree with “a reverence for an eternal, unwritten law” which “provides her with a standard of evaluation of her action independent of the approval or disapproval of any living human being.” ⁶⁰ That she “sets herself above” the decree and “takes it upon herself” to defy it implies that there may have been another, proper way to raise her claim. Perhaps she needed more clearly to explain the substance of that standard, its provenance and its unbreachable bindingness, and the decree’s failure to meet that standard. But one could as easily infer that Antigone’s claim is adjudged by her with neither object nor obligation of justifying the eternal standard, and that it is grounded in herself alone.

There is, as McNeill recognizes, a “tension” between any claim that Antigone acts from autonomy and her appeal to act on the unwritten divine laws. ⁶¹ While the latter standard is presumably external (in the sense of being knowable and fit for application) she behaves as if it were internal. The standard of judgment seems to be her own, based on her own awareness of the laws of the gods. ⁶² McNeill infers that Antigone is simply unconcerned with the opinions of others. But while she (initially) presumes the Chorus approves of her act (504–509), her argument (especially as the action proceeds) and the responses of those around her more clearly indicate that the standard is within her alone. ⁶³

Moreover, no one defends these laws on Antigone’s behalf. ⁶⁴ No one disputes that unwritten laws exist; but no one acknowledges these unwritten laws of burial. McNeill concedes: “if Antigone sees her deed as lawful—as authorized not by her own choices or preferences but by unwritten and eternal nomima binding on all—she must necessarily be troubled by the degree to which her intentions go unrecognized by those in her world.” ⁶⁵ Yet we must consider the possibility that these are the same: that these particular unwritten laws are, in reality, the result of “her own choices or preferences”—that they exist only to her, to be used by her—and that unrecognition by others is the consequence.

Thus, it is misleading to argue that Antigone claims to have followed “laws established among human beings by Zeus and Justice who dwells with the gods below (450–53).” ⁶⁶ Are these laws regarding burial of familial dead “established” among anyone? True, the hint is there. But Antigone really says that Zeus and Justice didn’t make Creon’s law. Arguably aware of the illegitimacy of her action, Antigone relies on Higher Law to excuse her disobedience to Creon’s allegedly inferior law. While the distinctly legal nature of her claim is readily apparent to most readers, ⁶⁷ Zartaloudis downplays this “juridical dualism” or “juridical antinomy” and suggests instead that her “nomotropism”—her “act of reverence to the gods”—drives the conflict of the play. ⁶⁸ But the source of that act of reverence is far from apparent. And whether her deed is rooted in juridical obligation or religious devotion, it is rather unclear whether the laws she claims to have followed are “established” among anyone other than herself. ⁶⁹

The ambiguity may stem from the fact that Antigone treats the law (at least, this Higher Law) as a private possession. Might it be that these unwritten laws are known only to her, because enacted by her? Perhaps this external law of the gods was only ever the internal law of Antigone? That she believes herself to be the primary target of Creon’s decree seems obvious. ⁷⁰ And her comparison of herself and her fate to the myth of Niobe ⁷¹ likewise suggests the self-reflexive character of her claims. Neither point confirms that her Higher Law exists only in her own imagination. Nevertheless, we may reasonably infer this possibility, especially in consideration of her treatment of this law as personal to herself alone.

Several characters in Greek tragedy are depicted as treating law as a private possession, and consequently, most are seen as tyrants. For instance, Zeus is accused of ruling arbitrarily due to excessive anger and because he has “used private laws or a private justice to justify and explain” his action. ⁷² Similarly, Antigone’s Higher Law is unsubstantiated and unsupported by any other, and is an apparently arbitrary private law used to justify her conduct. This contrasts with community laws which are publicly possessed. Danielle Allen, expounding on the concept, explains that “[t]he laws of Greece,” “the laws of the gods,” “the laws of the mortals,” and “the laws of the community” share the feature of being acceptable and good forms of law because they are a communal, shared possession, contrary to a law personally or privately possessed. ⁷³ To her credit, Antigone does not claim to be the author of the Higher Laws. But the point is that “Athenian tragedy . . . valorizes the idea that lawfulness arises from collective, not individual, opinion.” ⁷⁴ Antigone’s reliance on Higher Law produces no signs of the community’s consent to these norms as law. On the contrary, Antigone’s law is hers alone—her normative claim based not on publicly possessed divine law but on privately enacted and self-possessed law.

This problem becomes clearer if we understand Antigone’s failure to justify her Higher Law beyond merely asserting its existence. Dressing it up in legal language, she claims command over the meaning and application of these divine norms and the unilateral authority to supersede Creon’s express decree. ⁷⁵ But as Julen Etxabe asks, “how does she know—what assurances can she provide regarding—what the unfailing ordinances of the gods are and require in the present case?” ⁷⁶ Her claim goes no further than ipse dixit. Antigone makes no demonstration of the laws’ existence; demands no assent from the King; and implores no support from her fellow citizens. And none of those fellow citizens acknowledges it, much less defends it.

The failure of argument is a key problem of Antigone’s reliance on Higher Law. Whether or not that law is truly divine in origin or is entirely self-made, the legitimacy of her nomos and its connection to “the divine or absolute order” are not self-evident. ⁷⁷ They must be argued, and Antigone initially refuses to do so. Presuming that the citizens in the Chorus are on her side, she “thinks she can afford to be disdainful with Creon”—blinding herself to “legitimate concerns they may have about the scope and application of her legal claim.” ⁷⁸ The upshot is a “dialogue of non-communication” ⁷⁹ between claimant and judge. She calls Creon a fool (470) and a tyrant (506). Indeed, “[h]er contempt for Creon is so great that she does not take time to answer some of his most damaging points.” ⁸⁰ Beyond the issue of her brother’s committed and intended crimes are more pressing questions. Is her Higher Law absolute, always superseding the civil law, and admitting of no exceptions? Is it a general law applicable to all citizens who claim the right to bury family members, or does it provide an ad hoc exemption available in this particular case alone? Antigone does not substantiate her reliance on the Higher Law, which remains “hopelessly vague.” ⁸¹

And what of that Chorus of fellow citizens? Antigone clearly expects them to agree with her position (504–505) and assent to her interpretation of the Higher Law. She “speaks as if any sensible person in her culture would necessarily agree with her.” ⁸² But when in her final speech she addresses the “Citizens of [her] fatherland” (806), they fail to voice their approval of her claim. Indeed, she now grasps that the Chorus’s silence in response to her earlier arguments was intended to convey their disapproval. They oppose her, and arguably always did, “on the merits of her case.” ⁸³ Why is it that the Chorus doesn’t recognize her Higher Law? ⁸⁴ She admits that she acted “in violation of the citizens’ will” (907), and thereby acknowledges the community as legal sovereign. But she never attempts to re-argue her case based on the Higher Law. She concedes that Creon’s decree has won approval by the citizens, and thus that her act was illegal. Some readers attempt to shield Antigone from the force of this admission by emphasizing her belief that she acted rightly and that “the wise understand” this (904). ⁸⁵ But this is self-justification. She alone thinks wisely, and she is not ashamed to think alone (510). And Antigone’s “appraisal of the rightness of her action” ⁸⁶ is crucial to understanding her normative shift and her slide into autonomia.

2. Self-Made Law: Autonomos

After her trial by Creon (441–582), Antigone is taken away under guard. She is later brought from the palace for what we might call her final appeal (801–943) before her condemnation. In conversation with the Chorus, she no longer defends her actions by relying on the Higher Law. Instead, she seemingly capitulates and composes a panegyric (ironically yet appropriately) for herself: “Citizens of my fatherland, see me setting out on my last journey, looking at my last sunlight, and never again . . .” (806–816). If not entirely dubious of her dirge, the Chorus “quite disapprovingly” ⁸⁷ characterizes her prior actions: “No, guided by your own laws [autonomos] and still alive, unlike any mortal before, you will descend to Hades” (821–2). Antigone does not object, nor attempt to refute the claim that she has acted of her own free will, according to her own nomos. Comparing herself to Niobe (whose downfall was hubris), she continues to lament her abuse by the elders of Thebes. Again the Chorus counter-claims: “You have rushed headlong to the far limits of daring, and against the high throne of Justice you have fallen . . .” (853–5). Now cursing the fate ordained for her cursed family (858–71), Antigone provokes the Chorus to rejoin once more: “Your self-willed disposition is what has destroyed you” (875). Creon enters and orders that Antigone be taken away (883–90). Antigone then delivers her final speech—not to Creon and the Chorus, but to the father, mother, and brother awaiting her in Hades, and ultimately to herself (891–928).

Accepting the standard date of the play (441 or 442 BC), this passage contains the first extant use of the word autonomos, affixing autos, meaning “self” or “the same,” to nomos. ⁸⁸ It might be given a literal translation of “one’s own law” or “a law of the self” ⁸⁹ but is typically defined as “living under one’s own laws.” ⁹⁰ McNeill specifies its meaning in Antigone as “answering only to the law of yourself” or “a law to yourself.” ⁹¹ Jebb defines it as “of your own free will” and endorses its use for Antigone because “she has set her laws (the ‘θεῶν νόμιμα’ [laws of the gods]) above Creon’s.” ⁹² Davide Susanetti concurs that this is the most common meaning, but explains that “it can be more effectively translated as ‘making the law of oneself’, ‘according to one’s own law’, which means that Antigone constitutes herself by herself . . . as a city, as a political community.” ⁹³ Indeed, this use of autonomos by Sophocles must be described as noteworthy, and “to call the action or decision of a single individual ‘autonomous’ seems both strange and significant.” ⁹⁴ This is because autonomia is a concept used in the context of interstate relations. ⁹⁵

The political significance of the term, and Sophocles’s appropriation of it for Antigone, cannot be understated. Martin Ostwald evinces good evidence that autonomia was a familiar political concept in 446, at least four years before Sophocles used it. ⁹⁶ In fact, its use in Antigone is one of the only instances in five centuries where it refers “to the actions or decisions of individuals rather than political communities.” ⁹⁷ It is “always used of a weaker state which tries to assert its independence in the face of a major power” and developed as a way to inhibit and sanction the arbitrary use of force. ⁹⁸ These sanctions were sought in “the nebulous realm of traditions, religion, a common heritage, a common humanity, or similar terms whose vagueness made the ultimate arbiter the sensibilities or perceptions of one or both of the affected parties . . ..” ⁹⁹ Because such “pious platitudes” were largely weak and ineffective to resolve disputes, states appealed instead to ancestral traditions considered “binding by and on all or a substantial section of the Greeks.” ¹⁰⁰ The territorial integrity of each city was “associated with its recognition as an αὐτόνομος [autonomos] unit and is guaranteed by . . . the traditional ancestral ways.” ¹⁰¹ As such, autonomy is about political integrity and independence, a guarantee of a people’s freedom “to make their political decisions without external interference.” ¹⁰² Crucially, the -nomos suffix refers not to statutes or to the legal or judicial system, but to “the source which issues and guarantees norms” and specifically to “the potential of establishing one’s own norms.” ¹⁰³ Hence, an autonomous state is self-governing, “free to determine the norms by which it wants to live.” ¹⁰⁴

As this makes clear, the use of autonomos by the Chorus to describe Antigone is extraordinary because it refers not to interstate relations but to a personal attribute. ¹⁰⁵ The Chorus tells Antigone: autonomos you go into Hades, that is, guided by your own laws and of your own free will you go (817–22). While the common political use of the term is merely descriptive of the legal relationship between two states, here the Chorus’s use is pejorative and condemnatory. ¹⁰⁶ It “describes a quality as having been arrogated by an individual in defiance of the superior power of the state.” ¹⁰⁷ Sophocles uses autonomos metaphorically to suggest that Antigone behaves as a weaker state in contention with a major power. Yet Creon has not conceded or granted autonomy to her. And though Antigone has not justified her defiance of Creon’s decree by describing herself as autonomos, she never denies the charge ¹⁰⁸ , and behaves as a kind of self-governing state, arrogating to herself lawmaking power and using it to make her own law for herself.

Thus the basis of Antigone’s normative claim in her final scene is clearly distinct from the Higher Law on which she previously justified her actions. ¹⁰⁹ When the Chorus first hears Antigone explain her defiance of Creon’s decree by reliance on the Higher Law, the Chorus calls her “wild” or “savage,” and remarks on her inability to “bend” or “yield” or “give way” to her impulses and passions in the face of hardship (471–2). ¹¹⁰ The Chorus notices her behavior, her temperament, but does not rebuke her or rebut her claim—specifically, her citation of the unwritten divine laws. Yet now in her final moments, the Chorus “shows no sympathy” ¹¹¹ and accuses her of being guided by autonomos—her own free will, her own laws, her own rules—and of being destroyed by autognotos—her self-willed disposition or temper, her self-righteous anger. ¹¹²

When the Chorus indicts Antigone as being “guided by your own laws” (821), does this mean the Higher Law on which she initially depends was actually her own law all along? (I return to this question below.) Or does the Chorus mean that Antigone has shifted her claim from dependence on Higher Law to dependence on her own laws? At the least, we may note how the Chorus has abandoned its relative neutrality toward Antigone’s Higher Law claim and now reproves her “stubborn, self-willed, insistence” with “severe censure.” ¹¹³ Either way, the distinction between her explicit reliance on Higher Law and her reliance on self-law is clear. And it is likewise clear that Antigone now goes to her death of her own free will, on the basis of her own laws. ¹¹⁴

The apogee of Antigone’s abandonment of Higher Law and embrace of self-made law follows shortly upon her indictment by the Chorus, in her final speech (891–928). When the Chorus accuses her of acting according to her own rules, it is (to be fair) merely an accusation. Antigone does not affirm or deny it, though her behavior thus far is good evidence supporting the charge. But in her final speech, she reveals the truth of the Chorus’s allegation. Antigone arguably has acted as if making her own law for herself; now she explicitly makes herself into a law:

Never, if I had been a mother of children, or if a husband had been rotting after death, would I have taken that burden upon myself in violation of the citizens’ will. For the sake of what law, you ask, do I say that? A husband lost, another might have been found, and if bereft of a child, there could be a second from some other man. But when father and mother are hidden in Hades, no brother could ever bloom for me again. Such was the law whereby I held you first in honor, but for that Creon judged me guilty of wrongdoing . . .. What law of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods anymore? (905–914; 920–1)

This nomos can only be enacted by Antigone and can only apply to her. While she might replace a husband or a child, her brother was irreplaceable. She is the one whose dead father and mother can never give her another brother. And so she enacts a nomos to authorize his burial and excuse her transgression of the civil law.

When she says this, Antigone is no longer addressing Creon or the Chorus. Rather, she is here speaking to her dead brother Polyneices and, ultimately, to herself. ¹¹⁵ She essentially speaks in monologue form, resembling “a soliloquy, a private meditation” with “no public case to make . . ..” ¹¹⁶ While there was no doubt about the public nature of Antigone’s prior dependence on Higher Law, she has now seemingly given up on the gods’ laws, and with them her public claim to undeniable righteousness. She does not simply reargue her claim that Creon’s decree was superseded by “her own divinely sanctioned standards” but instead invents a new nomos intended to justify her disobedience of the decree. ¹¹⁷ Her argument is now “inward-looking” and crafted to convince only herself. ¹¹⁸ It is, as Cropp recognizes, “first and foremost a self-justification.” ¹¹⁹

Even her staunchest defenders acknowledge the change in Antigone’s normative position, despite their earnest efforts to make her claims cohere. Martin Cropp believes that “the essence” of her claim in 905–914 “resembles her earlier appeal to the Unwritten Laws.” ¹²⁰ In a similar vein, Julen Etxabe argues that Antigone’s final speech is not a denial of “the validity of the unwritten laws” but is instead “the enunciation of its true complexity.” ¹²¹ And yet both basically admit that the nomos Antigone devises in 905–914 is new. It is a human nomos, Antigone’s nomos, created by her “to have the force of law” ¹²² in order to defy another nomos. She is not asking for an exemption from Creon’s decree, which would leave the original decree in force. Rather, in her “attempt to redefine the normative realm,” ¹²³ she unilaterally demands recognition of the legitimacy (and supremacy) of her new law. Etxabe implicitly grants the point by conceding that Antigone herself now “establishes the conditions” on which her decision to disobey Creon’s decree may be excused. ¹²⁴ Her nomos does not simply supplement the existing laws but supersedes them where she believes it proper.

One especially intriguing question is whether Antigone is guided by autonomia all along. A case might be made that Antigone is already a law unto herself and following her own laws when she first implores Ismene to help with the burial of Polyneices (41–4) and then, after Ismene refuses to help, disavows her: “leave me and the foolish plan I have authored . . .” (95). Such clues may provide evidence of her general autonomia, but these exchanges have mostly to do with her attitude. More specifically, is Antigone’s normative claim always based in autonomia? Are the Higher Laws on which she initially depends simply laws created by and for Antigone alone?

An early indication occurs when a guard hauls Antigone before Creon to accuse her of burying Polyneices. Even before he can announce that this is “the one who did the deed” (384)—thereby charging her with defying Creon’s decree—the Chorus is “bewildered” at the sight of Antigone under arrest: “Surely they are not bringing you captive for disobeying the King’s laws . . .?” (381–2). The Chorus seemingly understands Antigone’s inclination to disobey the laws before even hearing the reason for her arrest. Indeed, the verb form used by the Chorus here implies that Antigone is “inclined to be disobedient to the law generally and not just in response to Creon’s decree.” ¹²⁵ And this judgment is supported moments later. As the guard describes Antigone’s capture, he explains how the guards trapped and interrogated her, and “then charged her with her past and present doings, but she made no denial of anything” (434–5). Her present deed—defiance of the law—is here equated with past deeds, again implying a previous inclination to follow her own law. Antigone does not deny but simply accepts the allegation.

The intimation of Antigone’s preexisting disposition is echoed soon after this when Creon, hearing the dispute between Antigone and Ismene, remarks that Antigone has been foolish “from the moment of her birth” (561–2). Although Ismene understands this comment to mean that those in distress lose their reason or good sense (563–4), the implication here (as with the Chorus’ earlier remark) is that Antigone has run into conflict with the law before, and perhaps even previously with Creon. Thus, when Creon questions Antigone, her famous reliance on the Higher Laws is followed by her suggestion that she is free to disobey Creon’s laws, which she believes are rooted in pride (457–8). ¹²⁶ In the argument that follows, Antigone repeatedly disregards Creon’s lawmaking authority. When Creon asserts that her act was a crime (514), she replies that the dead Polyneices “would never say it was” (515). ¹²⁷ Creon responds that Polyneices died trying to destroy Thebes, but Antigone counters that “Death yearns for equal law for all the dead” (519). ¹²⁸ When Creon reacts by saying that the good and the bad do not “draw equal shares” (520), ¹²⁹ Antigone dismisses his authority over her “holy” act: “Who knows if those rules hold sway in the world below?” ¹³⁰

Throughout all of this, Antigone behaves as if she is entitled to make herself an exception to the law. She renders unilateral judgments about Creon’s decree and her own actions. She believes she alone can derogate from the law.

And yet no one else in the community sees things this way. Creon flatly declares this to be the case: “You alone out of all these Thebans see it that way” (508). He presses further: “Are you not ashamed that your beliefs differ from theirs?” (510). That is, “Are you not ashamed to think alone?” ¹³¹ Even from this early stage in Antigone’s trial, she is in “a minority of one.” ¹³² Understood in this light, we can see that Antigone is guided by her own law from the first lines of the play.

And autonomia is at the heart of her final speech (905–914) and the law she enacts for herself. Her early arguments are based on the hierarchical superiority of her Higher Law; she appears to understand that she and Creon are subject to an external rule or standard. ¹³³ But in light of her entire normative arc, her Higher Law claim can be understood as an instrumental choice, a calculated dissimulation rooted in autonomia rather than divine command. Even if we concede that her Higher Law claim is merely an attempt to “translate her devotion to the dead into the language of the living” ¹³⁴ in order to defend herself, she soon recognizes its failure to persuade Creon or her fellow citizens and she abandons the Higher Law. ¹³⁵ Her true claim is evident in her last speech. She expressly refers to man-made law (908), nomos, as the normative basis for her action. By this law, she was bound to honor her brother (913) because he is irreplaceable; no other brother for her could ever be born. It is specifically her tragic circumstance that empowers her to enact this law for herself.

Antigone’s final departure from Higher Law and full embrace of autonomia (or at least its consequence) come moments before she is led away to die. At the end of her final speech, she offers a final despairing defense: “What law of the gods have I transgressed? Why should I look to the gods anymore?” (921–2) Having discarded the unwritten laws of the gods, she now discards the gods as well. It is surely possible that Antigone believes herself to be “god-abandoned” ¹³⁶ and therefore accepting her fate, chooses to do without them. We might ask (with Jebb): “If the gods allow her to suffer for obeying them, is it not vain for her to invoke them?” ¹³⁷ Yet she disregards the ancestral nomos of the gods much earlier, after her first trial by Creon at 441–582. And in her final argument with the Chorus, she compares herself to a goddess, but never calls upon the gods for help. Finally, she directly addresses Polyneices in a language that is remarkably private and uncertain about the gods’ approval—precisely the opposite of her earlier reliance on the Higher Law. The authors of those unbreachable unwritten laws she neither entreats nor expects to meet in Hades. Thus, while we might speculate about the gods abandoning her, it is unmistakable that she has chosen to do without them.

And consequently, she has chosen to do without law. While she insists that her actions deserve approbation and her law recognition, she acts on the basis of norms she has enacted for herself. In doing so, she has overridden and violated “norms of justice generated by the consensual community of citizens and has claimed, in her own name, a right to push into new moral territory.” ¹³⁸ She rejects the Higher Law, rejects the gods, and reveres only her own devotion to her family. “The eternal, unwritten and divine law . . . appears, in the end, indistinguishable from her insight into the way this law is binding for her.” ¹³⁹ So her normative shift in the final scenes is not a revision in understanding—as if she now realizes the Higher Law does not supersede Creon’s decree—so much as a change of tactic—she gives up the ruse and concedes what the Chorus initially hinted at (that she is “inclined” to disobey”) and later explicitly charges: she is autonomos.

It is imperative to understand that her instrumental reliance on Higher Law and her autonomia (being the same thing) lead her to act without law—a rejection of civil law, community, living family, and ultimately life itself. Antigone’s self-willed disposition has controlled her actions and, significantly, dominated her normative claims. She has taken the law and law-making into her own hands in order to defy the will and law of the polis. Not unlike the sophistic paradox of her final speech, her autonomia actually leads to “anarchic lawfulness.” ¹⁴⁰ For it is a short step from making a law for and of oneself to acting against or contrary to law, and Antigone “does not flinch from the antinomian inference.” ¹⁴¹ Making a law of herself, Antigone refuses society to become a society of one, and invents her own private legal language. This is, by its nature, lawlessness.