The Great Dionysia was held at the end of March - in the month known to the residents of Attica as Elaphebolion. Originally it lasted five days; later, six. Three (and later, four) of these were devoted to staging plays. Three playwrights would compete before the public, each one offering three tragedies plus a satyr play.

Dramatic poetry had its origins in the rites of Dionysus. At these, a song called the 'dithyramb' was performed: its singers were accompanied by pipe music and by dance or mimic movements. Drama continued to have the religious character of the dithyramb, inasmuch as it was always performed during the festival in honour of Dionysus. In the satyr play, furthermore, the dancers played satyrs, the god's companion's. There was nevertheless a strong political element not only in the content of the plays, but in the carrying out of the dramatic contest. The subjects of Tragedy ceased very early on to rely on the Dionysiac myths from which they had originally been drawn. When Tragedy was at its height, their sources were myths about gods who were not Dionysus and still more often about heroes.

Drama was a product that originated and developed above all in classical Athens. Its subjects were drawn from myth. But the poet could rework the myth so as to voice the problems and anxieties of Athenian society, which were the result of the way civic and social life was organized. Thus the city's inhabitants were enabled, through the distancing effect of the theatre with its various production techniques, to objectivize their problems.