Euripides turned to playwriting at a young age, achieving his first victory in the Athens' City Dionysia dramatic competitions in 441 BC. He would be awarded this honor three more times in his life, and once more posthumously. His plays are often ironic, pessimistic, and display radical rejection of classical decorum and rules. In 408 BC, Euripides left war-torn Athens for Macedonia, upon the invitation of King Archelaus, and there he spent his last...

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him; of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances....

"The Electra of Euripides has the distinction of being, perhaps, the best abused, and, one might add, not the best understood, of ancient tragedies. "A singular monument of poetical, or rather unpoetical perversity;" "the very worst of all his pieces;" are, for instance, the phrases applied to it by Schlegel. Considering that he judged it by the standards of conventional classicism, he could scarcely have arrived at any different conclusion. For it...

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him; of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances....

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him; of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived complete. Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances....

"Ion" interprets the legend of the orphan Ion, who was conceived from the rape of Creusa by the god Apollo. Creusa is determined to keep the rape secret, and leaves the baby for dead. The baby is rescued by Hermes, and raised by a Pythian Priestess in Delphi. Many years later, when Creusa and her husband Xuthus visit the oracles at Delphi, the mother and son are reunited under false pretenses. The ensuing story of betrayal, revenge and reconciliation...

Clinging to the altar of the sea-goddess Thetis for sanctuary, Andromache delivers the play's prologue, in which she mourns her misfortune (the destruction of Troy, the deaths of her husband Hector and their child Astyanax, and her enslavement to Neoptolemos) and her persecution at the hands of Neoptolemos' new wife Hermione and her father Menelaus, King of Sparta. She reveals that Neoptolemos has left for the oracle at Delphi and that she has hidden...

When Odysseus arrives he meets Silenus and offers to trade wine for food. Being a servant of Dionysus, Silenus cannot resist obtaining the wine despite the fact that the food is not his to trade. The Cyclops soon arrives and Silenus is quick to accuse Odysseus of stealing the food, swearing to many gods and the Satyrs' lives (who are standing right beside him) that he is telling the truth. His son, a younger and more modern Satyr, tries to tell the...

Played out against the ruined walls of Troy, The Trojan Women - one of the most powerful indictments of war ever written - grimly recounts the murder of the innocent, the desecration of shrines, and the enslavement of Trojan women. Hippolytus, the second drama, depicts the struggles to master human passion, struggles symbolized by gods who behave like irresponsible humans. These two classics of human self-examination are essential reading for anyone...

"The Suppliants" is one of Euripides' anti-war plays, and deals with a common Greek theme of leaving an enemy's dead body unburied. This story, about Adrastus and the Argive mothers against Creon of Thebes, explores the inhumanity of war, grief, and the merits and demerits of responsible government. It also points out some positive results of peace such as economic prosperity, improved education and the arts.