The question of what Greek tragedy was for — why it was performed, who watched it, what purposes it served — has been answered differently by different generations of scholars. The older answer (tragedy as moral instruction, preparing citizens for civic life) has been complicated but not replaced by newer interpretations.

The Athenian dramatic festivals (the City Dionysia and the Lenaia) were religious events in honor of Dionysus. The plays were competitive: three tragedians and five comedians entered, and judges voted for a winner. The prizes mattered; the playwrights competed intensely. This competitive context shaped the artistic ambition of the work in ways that differ from later theatrical traditions.

The audience was large — the theater of Dionysus seated perhaps 17,000. Whether women attended is debated; ancient evidence is ambiguous, and the answer may have varied by festival and period. Foreign visitors, slaves, and non-citizens may have attended alongside citizens. The tragic performances were therefore experienced by a broader cross-section of Athenian society than most other civic events.

Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy argued that tragedy expressed the tension between Apollonian order and Dionysiac chaos, with Socratic rationalism being responsible for tragedy's decline. This is philosophically creative but historically tendentious. The actual decline of the great tragic tradition is better explained by changing theatrical tastes and the political conditions of the late 5th century.