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Is Creon a Fascist?
In the modern day, the epithet of Fascist is usually abused by people who feel that a leader is overly powerful or controlling. It may have been fitted to King Creon of Thebes(Of “Antigone” fame.) by his opponents, had it existed, and it may not entirely have been an abuse of the term, for Creon exhibits many similarities of real fascist ideology, though he predates the concept.

Creon's ascent to the throne followed a war which ravaged Thebes. The previous heirs to the throne, his nephews, had recently killed each-other. One brother, Eteocles, had taken power and broken a set agreement about rotation of power, and the other, Polyneices, sought allies to attack and dethrone him. When the fog of war cleared and both were dead, Creon had the former brother buried with full military honors, and left the latter to rot in the fields. He mandated that no burial would be allowed. The punishment for defiance was death.

For his surviving sisters, this was insult upon injury, and Antigone, the hot headed loyal daughter of Oedipus would not allow it, for she believed that life was short, but death was forever. The Greeks believed, you see, that the dead would not find their way into the underworld without last rites. She feared no death, and imprisoned in her own burial vault, she took her own life. This spelled the undoing of Creon, as his last son Haemon, Antigone's fiance committed suicide immediately after. Following this Eurydice, Creon's wife, could not bear the death of her last son took her own life too, leaving Creon completely alone.

To Creon, who was highly conservative, yet placed the state before tradition, the law is supreme, and he is the law. His position enables him to speak for the state, and he acts on behalf of the state. In this sense, he is highly nationalistic, and believes in highly centralized power, both of which are attributes of a fascist. This totalitarian behavior makes him unpopular in the later part of his reign, when Antigone violates his mandate and gives last rites to her brother.

To Creon, the law of the state represents the will of the gods. While he acts in ways which others would see as offensive to the gods, he believes he acts in their will, and that he himself is elect by fate, for his ability to understand the gods. When confronted over whether dishonoring the dead would bring the wrath of the gods, he is quite certain the gods could never care about an enemy of the state. “Never the same for the patriot as the traitor.”

Creon believes himself to be nigh infallible, perhaps because he thinks his rule is sponsored by the will of the gods, but by the end of the story, we see his life destroyed by his own unwavering will. His son and wife both become alienated from him, and both eventually kill themselves.

Fascist regimes are known for their repression of freedom of speech, and while no such constructs existed in Ancient Greece, none of Creon's subjects but Antigone had the will to speak out against him, due to his temper and excessive use of martial force. As Antigone put it,“[The people of Thebes] see it that way, but defer to you and keep their tongues in leash.”

Ancient Greece itself was highly nationalistic, and their views on foreign peoples were very similar to those in fascist parties. They were a very xenophobic people, to begin with, as demonstrated in other works from the time like Medea, and given the right conditions, had a culture in which fascism would have bloomed. The political theory had not really developed yet, though, and never gained a strong following in Greece by the time it was popularized.

Of course, the atmosphere of the city itself is the kind in which fascism often arises: post war devastation, people feeling resentment towards foreigners, et al. You could however claim, that Thebes needed a strong martial ruler to hold them together under these strains. Perhaps Creon is not so much a monster, as he is what he had to be. Looking at it this way makes his tragedy more pitiful. His mannerisms, however, don't really lend themselves to a feeling of pity.

Creon may well have been a fascist if he existed in modern day. Many ancient monarchs could probably fit the bill, though. The whole movement was a nostalgic reaction to the age of the individual: a step backwards to a time in which the people believed in a ruler's right to rule, and Creon certainly believed that the throne was his personal right.

So, the question: “Was King Creon of Thebes a fascist?” The answer would have to be no, the political ideology simply did not exist yet. Politically that distinction matters, because the term was coined during a very different era, with a concept of people powered political parties. He did, however greatly resemble a fascist through his beliefs and his his mannerisms. If he was dropped into the 1930s, he may well have aligned himself with the axis powers.

June seems like a wonderful month to purchase a Nintendo 3DS.