Editing Philomela (section)

===Elements borrowed from other myths and stories===
The story of Philomela, Procne, and Tereus is largely influenced by Sophocles' lost tragedy ''Tereus''. Scholar Jenny Marsh claims Sophocles borrowed certain plot elements from [[Euripides]]' drama ''[[Medea (play)|Medea]]''—notably a wife killing her child in an act of revenge against her husband—and incorporated them in his tragedy ''Tereus''. She implies that the infanticide of Itys did not appear in the Tereus myth until Sophocles' play and that it was introduced because of what was borrowed from Euripides.<ref name="MarshVases">Marsh, Jenny. "Vases and Tragic Drama" in Rutter, N.K. and Sparkes, B.A. (editors) ''Word and Image in Ancient Greece'' (Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2000) 121–123, 133–134.</ref>

It is possible that social and political themes have woven their way into the story as a contrast between Athenians who believed themselves to be the hegemonic power in Greece and the more civilized of the Greek peoples, and the Thracians who were considered to be a "barbaric race".<ref name="LloydFragments" /><ref name="FitzpatrickTereus" /><ref>Burnett, A. P. ''Revenge in Attic and later tragedy'' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998) 180–189.</ref> It is possible that these elements were woven into Sophocles' play ''Tereus'' and other works of the period.