Suppliants Theme in Greek Plays

A constant and prevalent theme in many of the surviving Greek plays from Classical Times is Supplication, in which the drama is partly about someone, possibly a woman or women seeking asylum/sanctuary as a suppliant(s) at a temple, or an altar in a holy and sacred grove or even at the tomb of a dead hero.

Supplication is not an arbitrary convention of Greek literature. It is an observance of sacred nomos whose continuing significance in the fifth century BC is attested by the ancient historians. As such, it carries with it, even onto the stage, customary rules and associations. The suppliant seeks refuge in a sacred precinct out of some desperate need. He is sacrosanct under the protection of Zeus hikesios [Zeus the Protector] as long as he remains within that precinct, for he becomes, in effect, a physical part of the temenos to which he/she has flown and is therefore hieros.

In tragedy, protection from a violent enemy is regularly the suppliant's need. 

References

Nomos (mythology) - Wikipedia

νόμος - Wiktionary

Temenos - Wikipedia

Hieros (ἱερός) is Greek for "holy" or "sacred".

Zeus hikesios (of supplication ) - protector of suppliants.

Dithyramb - Worshipping Zeus - part I

Dithyramb - Worshipping Zeus - part II

Suppliant, guest, and the power of Zeus in Homeric epic - University of Texas

Baring the Aegis: Zeus Hikesios

PBP: Miasma, katharmos and preparing for the Gods - Baring the Aegis

PBP: Places of worship: groves - Baring the Aegis

Fred Naiden (20 July 2006). Ancient Supplication. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-804046-0.

Peter Burian (1971). Suppliant Drama: Studies in the Form and Interpretation of Five Greek Tragedies. Princeton University.

Angeliki Tzanetou (2012). City of Suppliants: Tragedy and the Athenian Empire. University of Texas Press. ISBN 978-0-292-74457-8.

Robin Hagg; Nanno Marinatos (1 November 2002). Greek Sanctuaries: New Approaches. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-80167-1.

Pyanopsia - Wikipedia

Jane Ellen Harrison (25 June 1991). Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion. eiresiône: Princeton University Press. pp. 79–. ISBN 0-691-01514-7.

Towards Greek tragedy : drama, myth, society : Vickers, Brian - Internet Archive

The Staging of Suppliant Plays - Greek, Roman, ...  by Rush Rehm

SAMPSON, C. MICHAEL. “SUPPLIANT TRAGEDIES.” The Classical Review, vol. 63, no. 2, 2013, pp. 344–346. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43301421.

Gould, John. “HIKETEIA.” The Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol. 93, 1973, pp. 74–103. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/631455

Thanos Zartaloudis (2019) Hieros anthropos – an inquiry into the practices of archaic Greek supplication, Law and Humanities, 13:1, 52-75, DOI: 10.1080/17521483.2019.1605962

Naiden, F. S. “So-Called ‘Asylum’ for Suppliants.” Zeitschrift Für Papyrologie Und Epigraphik, vol. 188, 2014, pp. 136–138. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23850801

Poe, Joe Park. “The Altar in the Fifth-Century Theater.” Classical Antiquity, vol. 8, no. 1, 1989, pp. 116–139. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25010898.

Golden, Leon. “Zeus the Protector and Zeus the Destroyer.” Classical Philology, vol. 57, no. 1, 1962, pp. 20–26. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/266821.

EIRÆSIÓHNI - EIRESIONE - ΕΙΡΕΣΙΩΝΗ (Suppliant Branches) - www.HellenicGods.org