Euripides
Euripides was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, the same day that Athens defeated Persia at the Battle of Salamis. His father Mnesarchus worked as a retailer in the deme of Phlya, and his mother Cleito sold vegetables to support the family. An oracle once told Mnesarchus that his son would win crowns of victory, so the father insisted the boy train for athletics instead of the stage. The young Euripides served briefly as both dancer and torch-bearer at rites honoring Apollo Zosterius before pursuing painting and philosophy under Prodicus and Anaxagoras. He married twice, first to Melite and later to Choerine, who bore him three sons. Both marriages ended in disaster when his wives proved unfaithful. He eventually became a recluse, building a home inside a cave on Salamis where he maintained an impressive library and communed daily with the sea and sky. This Cave of Euripides later became the site of a cult dedicated to the playwright after his death.
The details surrounding his final years remain uncertain. Tradition holds that he retired to the rustic court of King Archelaus in Macedonia, where he died in 406 BC. Some modern scholars argue he may never have visited Macedonia at all, or that King Archelaus drew him there using incentives offered to other artists. Plutarch recorded that Macedonian hounds attacked Euripides upon his arrival, though another theory suggests the harsh winter climate caused his demise. His cenotaph near Piraeus was reportedly struck by lightning, interpreted by some ancient observers as signs of unique powers. During the catastrophic Sicilian expedition, Athenian captives were released simply for reciting fragments of Euripides's lyrics to their enemies in exchange for food and drink.
Euripides first competed in the City Dionysia festival in 455 BC, one year after Aeschylus died, but did not win first prize until 441 BC. He won only four victories during his lifetime, yet his plays survived more intact than those of his rivals because his popularity grew as theirs declined. The theatrical landscape included a circular orchestra floor for chorus dancing, a skene backdrop, and special effects like the ekkyklema to bring indoor scenes outside. Euripides introduced innovations on a smaller scale that cumulatively led to radical changes in direction. He used major characters rather than minor supporting figures to create comic effects within tragedy. His plays often began in banal manners that undermined theatrical illusion, using monologues where divinity or human characters told the audience everything needed to understand what followed.
Psychological reversals became common in his work, sometimes happening so suddenly that inconsistency in characterization troubled critics like Aristotle. In Hippolytus, a love-sick queen rationalizes her position regarding adultery, arriving at comments on intrinsic merit that contrast sharply with traditional heroic values. Euripides's characters resembled contemporary Athenians rather than mythic heroes, speaking with rhetorical flair that sometimes seemed flawed. In Hecuba, the heroine presents herself as a sophisticated intellectual describing a rationalized cosmos, yet the speech is ill-suited to her unsophisticated listener Menelaus. The tension between reason and passion symbolized by his characters' relationship with gods appeared when Dionysus savaged his own converts in Bacchae. When deities did appear in eight of the extant plays, they looked lifeless and mechanical, possibly intended to provoke skepticism about religious dimensions.
Euripides gained four victories during his lifetime compared to Aeschylus's thirteen and Sophocles's twenty, yet merely competing marked distinction. Being singled out by Aristophanes for extensive comic attention proved popular interest in his work. Less than a hundred years later, Aristotle developed what he called a biological theory of tragedy's development: the art form grew under Aeschylus, matured in Sophocles's hands, then began precipitous decline with Euripides. His plays continued to be applauded even after those of Aeschylus and Sophocles seemed remote and irrelevant. They became school classics in the Hellenistic period alongside Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.
In the seventeenth century, Racine expressed admiration for Sophocles but was more influenced by Euripides, using Iphigenia in Aulis and Hippolytus as models for Phèdre and Iphigénie. The playwright's reputation suffered in the early 19th century when Friedrich Schlegel identified him with moral and artistic degeneration of Athens. August Wilhelm Schlegel's Vienna lectures went through four editions between 1809 and 1846, claiming Euripides destroyed external order of tragedy. This view influenced Nietzsche, though he may not have known the plays well. Classicists like Arthur Verrall and Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff reacted against these views, constructing arguments sympathetic to Euripides. In the English-speaking world, pacifist Gilbert Murray played an important role popularizing his work. Today audiences maintain natural affinity with Euripidean outlook because traditional assumptions remain constantly under challenge.
The textual transmission of Euripides's plays from the fifth century BC until printing press era remained largely haphazard. Literary conventions we take for granted today had not been invented: no spacing between words, no consistency in punctuation, no marks for breathings or accents. Verse appeared straight across pages like prose, possibly allowing buyers to supply their own interpretative markings. Papyri discoveries indicated that speaker changes were loosely denoted with signs equivalent to modern dashes, colons, and full-stops. Errors multiplied when Athens replaced its old Attic alphabet with Ionian alphabet in 403, 402 BC. Actors interpolated words and sentences producing so many corruptions that Lycurgus proposed a law in 330 BC requiring public office preservation of texts.
Around 200 AD, ten plays began circulating in select editions possibly for schools, with commentaries recorded in margins. Similar editions existed for Aeschylus and Sophocles, but nine additional plays survived compiled alphabetically without scholia attached. These alphabetical plays combined with select edition by unknown Byzantine scholar, bringing together nineteen surviving plays. Two manuscripts preserve the alphabetical collection, designated L and P after Laurentian Library at Florence and Bibliotheca Palatina in Vatican. Trojan Woman and latter part of Bacchae are missing from manuscript L. In June 2005, classicists at University of Oxford worked with Brigham Young University using multi-spectral imaging technology to retrieve previously illegible writing from Oxyrhynchus papyri.
Original production dates for some Euripides plays known from ancient records like lists of prize-winners at Dionysia. Approximations obtained through various means including stylometry and references to contemporary events. The gap between Telephus produced in 438 BC and its parody in Thesmophoriazusae in 411 BC spanned twenty-seven years. Greek tragedy comprised lyric and dialogue mostly in iambic trimeter. Euripides sometimes resolved two syllables into three, a tendency increasing steadily over time so number of resolved feet indicated approximate date. Associated vocabulary expansion allowed language to assume more natural rhythm while becoming capable of psychological subtlety.
Trochaic tetrameter catalectic identified by Aristotle as original meter of tragic dialogue appeared here and there in later plays but not early ones. The Trojan Women marked earliest appearance of this meter in extant play, symptomatic of archaizing tendency in his final works. Later plays featured extensive stichomythia series of one-liners, longest scene comprising one hundred five lines in Ion. Aeschylus never exceeded twenty lines of such exchange while Sophocles's longest reached fifty lines interrupted several times. Euripides's use of lyrics showed influence of Timotheus of Miletus in later plays where individual singer gained prominence replacing some chorus functions with monodies.
Common questions
When and where was Euripides born?
Euripides was born on Salamis Island around 480 BC, the same day that Athens defeated Persia at the Battle of Salamis. His father Mnesarchus worked as a retailer in the deme of Phlya, and his mother Cleito sold vegetables to support the family.
How many times did Euripides win first prize at the City Dionysia festival?
Euripides won only four victories during his lifetime, yet his plays survived more intact than those of his rivals because his popularity grew as theirs declined. He first competed in the City Dionysia festival in 455 BC but did not win first prize until 441 BC.
Where did Euripides die and when did he pass away?
Tradition holds that Euripides died in 406 BC after retiring to the rustic court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. Some modern scholars argue he may never have visited Macedonia at all, or that King Archelaus drew him there using incentives offered to other artists.
Which manuscripts preserve the nineteen surviving plays of Euripides today?
Two manuscripts preserve the alphabetical collection, designated L and P after Laurentian Library at Florence and Bibliotheca Palatina in Vatican. Trojan Woman and latter part of Bacchae are missing from manuscript L.
What was the gap between the production dates of Telephus and Thesmophoriazusae?
The gap between Telephus produced in 438 BC and its parody in Thesmophoriazusae in 411 BC spanned twenty-seven years. Greek tragedy comprised lyric and dialogue mostly in iambic trimeter with Euripides sometimes resolving two syllables into three over time.