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	'''Euripides''' (c. ]–]) was one of the three great ] of classical ], along with ] and ]; he was the youngest of the three and was born c. ]. His mother's name was Cleito, and his father's either Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides. Evidence suggests that Euripides' family was comfortable financially. He had a wife named Melito, and together they had three sons. It is rumored that he also had a daughter, but she was killed after a rabid dog attacked her. Some call this rumor a joke that ], a comic writer who often poked fun at Euripides, wrote about him. However, many historians fail to see the humor in this and believe it is indeed true.


	According to ancient sources, he wrote over 90 plays, 18 of which are extant (since it is now widely agreed that the play ''Rhesus'' was actually written by someone else). Fragments of most of the other plays survive, some of them substantial. The number of Euripides' plays that have survived is more than that of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly due to the chance preservation of a manuscript that was likely part of a complete collection of his works.

	The record of Euripides' public life, other than his involvement in dramatic competitions, is almost non-existent. There is no reason or historical evidence to believe that he travelled to ], ] or engaged himself in any other public or political activities during his lifetime, or left Athens at the invitation of Archelaus II and stayed with him in ]ia after 408 BC.

	Euripides first competed in the famous Athenian dramatic festival (the ]) in ], one year after the death of Aeschylus. He came in third. It was not until ] that he won first place, and over the course of his lifetime, Euripides claimed a mere four victories.

	From his plays it is apparent that he was very skeptical of ], and was aware of intellectual movements of his time, such as the ]. He reshaped the formal structure of traditional Attic tragedy by showing strong women characters and smart slaves, and by satirizing many heroes of Greek myths.

	Euripides was a frequent target of Aristophanes' humor. He appears as a character in '']'', '']'', and most memorably in '']'', where ] travels to ] to bring Euripides back from the dead. After a competition of poetry, Dionysus opts to bring ] instead.

	Euripides' final competition in Athens was in ]. Although there is a story that he left Athens embittered because of his defeats, there is no real evidence to support it. He died in ], probably in Athens or nearby, and not in Macedon, as some biographers repeatedly state.

	When compared with Aeschylus, who won thirteen times, and Sophocles, with eighteen victories, Euripides was the least honored, though not necessarily the least popular, of the three — at least in his lifetime. Later, in the 4th century BC, the dramas of Euripides became more popular than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles. His works influenced ] and Roman drama, and were later idolized by the ]; his influence on drama reaches modern times.

	Euripides' greatest works are considered to be '']'', '']'', '']'' and '']''.

	In ], classicists at ], employing ] technology previously used for ] imaging, unearthed previously unknown material by Euripides.

	==Works==
	===Tragedies of Euripides===

	# '']'' (438 BC, second prize)
	# '']'' (431 BC, third prize)
	# ''Children of Heracles'' (c. 430 BC)
	# '']'' (428 BC, first prize)
	# ''Andromache'' (c. 425 BC)
	# ''Hecuba'' (c. 424 BC)
	# ''Suppliant Women'' (c. 423 BC)
	# '']'' (c. 420 BC)
	# ''Heracles'' (c. 416 BC)
	# '']'' (415 BC, second prize)
	# '']'' (c. 414 BC)
	# ''Ion'' (c. 413 BC)
	# '']'' (412 BC)
	# ''Phoenician Women'' (c. 410 BC, second prize)
	# ''Orestes'' (408 BC)
	# '']'' and '']'' (405 BC, posthumous, first prize)

	===Satyr play===

	# ''Cyclops'' (unknown)

	===Spurious play===
	# ''Rhesus'' (mid of 4th Century BC, probably not by Euripides, as sustained today by most scholars)

	== References ==
	*Croally, N.T. ''Euripidean Polemic: The Trojan Women and the Function of Tragedy''. Cambridge University Press, 1994.
	*Ippolito, P. ''La vita di Euripide''. Nápoles: Dipartimento di Filologia Classica dell'Universit'a degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 1999.
	*Kovacs, D. ''Euripidea''. Leiden: Brill, 1994.
	*Lefkowitz, M.R. ''The Lives of the Greek Poets''. London: Duckworth, 1981.
	*Scullion, S. ''Euripides and Macedon, or the silence of the Frogs''. The Classical Quarterly, Oxford, v. 53, n. 2, p. 389-400, 2003.
	*Webster, T.B.L., ''The Tragedies of Euripides'', Methuen, 1967.

	==See Also==
	*]

	== External links ==
	{{wikiquote}}

	*http://perseus.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/text?lookup=encyclopedia+Euripides
	*http://www.theatrehistory.com/ancient/euripides001.html
	*http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/eb11-euripides.html
	*http://www.ac-strasbourg.fr/pedago/lettres/Victor%20Hugo/Notes/Euripide.htm
	*http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/~amahoney/tragedy_dates.html
	* from ]

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Revision as of 11:38, 6 June 2005

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