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	Born about 480 B.C., somewhere in the vicinity of Athens, Euripides, the son of Mnesarchides, was destined from the beginning to be a misunderstood poet. He presented his first set of tragedies at the Great Dionysia in 455 B.C., but did not win his first victory until 441. In fact, he won only five awards--and the fifth of these was not awarded until after his death. This lack of recognition might seem a bit odd when one considers that Euripides wrote about 92 plays and was compared, even during his lifetime, to the likes of Aeschylus and Sophocles. But Euripides was ignored by the judges of the Greek festival because he did not cater to the the fancies of the Athenian crowd. He did not approve of their superstitions and refused to condone their moral hypocrisy. He was a pacifist, a free thinker, and a humanitarian in an age when such qualities were increasingly overshadowed by intolerance and violence. Perhaps that is why he chose to live much of his life alone with his books in a cave on the island of Salamis.
			'''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.

	Euripides was exposed early to the religion he would so stubbornly question as an adult. As a child, he served as cup-bearer to the guild of dancers who performed at the altar of Apollo. The son of an influential family, he was also exposed to the great thinkers of the day--including Anaxagoras, the Ionian philosopher who maintained that the sun was not a golden chariot steered across the sky by some elusive god, but rather a fiery mass of earth or stone. The radical philosopher had a profound effect on the young poet, and left with him a passionate love of truth and a curious, questioning spirit.

			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.
	Always a lover of truth, Euripides forced his characters to confront personal issues, not just questions of State. In many ways, he is the forerunner of the modern psychological dramatist. In Hippolytus and The Bacchae, he explores the psyche of men attempting to deny a natural life-force such as sexuality or emotional release. In another timeless classic, Medea, he takes a penetrating look at the frenzied jealousy of a woman who has lost the interest of her middle-aged husband. Perhaps his finest contribution to world drama, however, was the introduction of the common man to the stage. Even his traditional nobles such as Agamemnon and Menelaus were anti-heroic, almost as if he wanted to show the Athenian people what their beloved military heroes were really like.

			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.
	Although many of Euripides' plays dealt with personal issues, he did not shy away from the social issues of the time. His Trojan Women was written in response to an Athenian expedition in 416 B.C. which destroyed the city of Melos and slaughtered its men. As the play begins, Troy has fallen, its men have been murdered, its shrines desecrated, and its women bound and enslaved. Ten years earlier, he had written another stinging indictment of war in Hecuba which documents the cruelty of Greek warriors who enslave the Trojan queen and sacrifice her daughter at the tomb of Achilles.

			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.
	However, while Euripides was busy exposing the evils of his society, others were having a good laugh at his expense. The strange, secluded little man was an easy target, and thus was the continual butt of the comic poets, especially Aristophanes. Meanwhile, the playwright's life was beginning to fall apart around him. It was public knowledge that his wife had cuckolded him. One by one, his closest friends were banished and murdered by the State for their liberal views. The only thing that saved Euripides from the same fate was the fact that it was his characters who spoke heresy, not he. In the end, however, he was finally tried for impiety and left Athens in a cloud of controversy. Although he found a temporary respite at the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia, he could not escape the Fates. In less than eighteen months, the tragic playwright was torn to pieces by the King's hounds in a tragic accident.

			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' outlook was not a cheerful one. He insisted on emphasizing the uncertanties of life and the fact that "many things we thought could never be, yet the gods contrive." His final play, Iphigenia at Aulis, an attack on superstition and cowardice, tells the story of Agamemnon's unfortunate daughter Iphigenia who was lured to the Greek camp under the pretext of marrying the hero Achilles only to find that, instead, she was to be sacrificed by her father and his fleet in order to appease the gods.

			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.
	Not all of Euripides plays, however, are so heavy. The Cyclops, the only complete satyr play in existence, was written early in Euripides' career and exudes the hopeful spirit of a young poet. It is a grotesquely funny account of Odysseus' encounter with the one-eyed cannibal Polyphemus. And although this spirit of hopefulness is difficult to perceive in many of Euripides' later plays, it never entirely disappears. A few of his dramas, such as Helena, come surprisingly close to being comedies of character. Even in The Bacchae, he mixes comedy with the tragic form as Dionysus coaxes Pentheus into women's garments. Thus, by dissolving the rigid structure of tragedy, Euripides opened the door for new forms of drama, as well as hybrids of existing forms.

			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 12:00, 6 June 2005

Euripides (c. 480 BC–406 BC) was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles; he was the youngest of the three and was born c. 480 BC. 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 Aristophanes, 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 Syracuse, Sicily 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 Macedonia after 408 BC.

Euripides first competed in the famous Athenian dramatic festival (the Dionysia) in 455, one year after the death of Aeschylus. He came in third. It was not until 441 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 Greek religion, and was aware of intellectual movements of his time, such as the Sophists. 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 The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazousae, and most memorably in The Frogs, where Dionysus travels to Hades to bring Euripides back from the dead. After a competition of poetry, Dionysus opts to bring Aeschylus instead.

Euripides' final competition in Athens was in 408. 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 406, 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 New Comedy and Roman drama, and were later idolized by the French classicists; his influence on drama reaches modern times.

Euripides' greatest works are considered to be Alcestis, Medea, Electra and The Bacchae.

In April 2005, classicists at Oxford University, employing infrared technology previously used for satellite imaging, unearthed previously unknown material by Euripides.

Works

Tragedies of Euripides

Alcestis (438 BC, second prize)
Medea (431 BC, third prize)
Children of Heracles (c. 430 BC)
Hippolytus (428 BC, first prize)
Andromache (c. 425 BC)
Hecuba (c. 424 BC)
Suppliant Women (c. 423 BC)
Electra (c. 420 BC)
Heracles (c. 416 BC)
Trojan Women (415 BC, second prize)
Iphigeneia in Tauris (c. 414 BC)
Ion (c. 413 BC)
Helen (412 BC)
Phoenician Women (c. 410 BC, second prize)
Orestes (408 BC)
Bacchae and Iphigeneia at Aulis (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.

External links

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