Pharmakos and Sacrificial Womanhood: The Politics of Social Order in Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis and Idegu’s the Legendary Inikpi

Abstract

Abstract

Communal survival, gender, tragedy and sacrifice are recurring subject matter in Greek and Igala cultural and literary traditions. This study compares Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis and Idegu's The Legendary Inikpi to examine how sacrificial womanhood is constructed and used to sustain social order within two distinct cultural logics. Although studies abound on sacrifice, tragedy, gendered violence and communal survival in both Greek and Igala dramatic traditions, few studies have examined comparatively how the sacrificial deaths of Iphigenia and Inikpi are ideologically constructed within their respective cultural logic and the system which authorises and legitimises female sacrifice. However, the extent to which these mechanisms converge or diverge have largely remained underexplored. Drawing from scapegoat theory, particularly the Pharmakos concept and adopting a qualitative, interpretative approach, the study examines female sacrifice as both an act of violence and a mechanism of social regulation. The paper therefore argues that both women are Pharmakos figures whose deaths are ritually sanctioned to resolve collective crisis and that their ideological processes differ. The paper finds that in Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia’s sacrifice emerges at the intersection of patriarchal authority, divine will, military necessity and the Greek ideal of communal honour, making her life the price of the Greek expedition to Troy. In contrast, it maintains that Inikpi’s sacrifice is embedded in Igala religious cosmology, kingship and ancestral obligation, and is positioned as essential to the kingdom’s political and existential survival. The study concludes that both narratives legitimise the destruction of women’s lives using culturally specific mechanisms for restoring collective order, securing political legitimacy and ideological continuity