Characters
- Chorus of Trachinian women — witnesses and counselors to Deianeira
- Deianeira — wife at Trachis; pities the captives; learns Iole’s name and role; turns to Nessus’s charm
- Eurytus — father of Iole; his city destroyed (reported)
- Heracles — absent at Cenaeum preparing sacrifice; conqueror of Oechalia for Iole’s sake
- Iole — silent captive; daughter of Eurytus; intended concubine of Heracles
- Lichas — herald; lies, then confesses under pressure
- Messenger — Trachinian who overheard Lichas and exposes the truth
- Nessus — absent donor of the philtre Deianeira will now use (background)
Places
- Aulis / Chalcis — where Heracles prepares sacrifice to Zeus
- Evenus — site of Nessus’s gift (recalled)
- Oechalia — sacked city (reported, not staged)
- Trachis — Deianeira’s household; arrival of the captive train
Themes
Narrative
In Sophocles’ play, Heracles has taken Oechalia and sends a train of captive women to Trachis under the herald Lichas, while he himself pauses at Cenaeum in Euboea to sacrifice. Deianeira receives the captives with pity. Among them is a silent girl of striking beauty. Lichas first claims the women are merely dedicatory spoil chosen for the gods. A messenger who overheard Lichas elsewhere forces the truth: the girl is Iole, daughter of Eurytus, and Heracles sacked the city for love of her; she is to share his bed.
Lichas, confronted, confesses. Deianeira does not rage openly. She accepts Iole into the house as a second woman under one roof—then privately turns to the charm Nessus gave her years before at the Evenus. The tragic strand thus makes Iole’s arrival an unveiling and a recognition scene: the wife learns not only that a captive has come, but that the captive is the deliberate object of her husband’s desire. From that knowledge the poisoned robe follows (037).