The concepts of god and fate in ancient Greek tragedies

This study aims to examine the concepts of "God" and "Fate" with the concept of necessity to which these two concepts are related in Ancient Greek tragedies which are the corner stones of Ancient Greek cultural inheritance, and to draw attention to the relationship between these concepts and the understandings of pre-Socratic philosophers of primary matter or the first cause of existence which they accept as an arche. From this perspective, tragedies which owe their origins to Homer and Hesiod's tradition of poem are going to be examined in the context of their relationship to the philosophy in this study. In the first chapter of the thesis, by making researches on the whatness, the origin and the etymology of tragedies, a historical and linguistic infrastructure will be constructed and some claims will be put forward to make it clearer why the song of goat (tragedy) is tragic. In the second chapter, God, religion and belief systems whose effect can be seen almost in every part of the world of thought of Ancient Greek, and which are also one of the main sources of tragedies will be focused on. The thesis that the understanding of Ancient Greek religion and god are methodically founding elements of tragedy as much as they are of philosophy will be defended. In the last chapter, the concept of fate in Ancient Greek tragedies will be focused on in detail. In this respect, there will emerge that there is a relation between arche such as; water, fire, air, earth, apeiron etc. which pre-Socratics put forward as the first cause and the belief of fate in Ancient Greek. The main hypothesis of this thesis is the assertion that the understanding of fate existing in the tradition of Ancient Greek mythology and in the tragedies is one of the reasons that has led pre-Socratics to the idea of the first cause. Key Words: Homer, Hesiod, Mythology, Tragedy, Aiskhylos, Sophocles, Euripides, God, Religion, Fate, Necessity, Pre-Socratic Philosophy.