Euripides* And The Crumbling State

When Euripides* makes his debut in 455 BCE Aeschylus* dies in Sicily*. In 442 BCE when

he is winning his first victory Sophocles* is getting Antigone* ready for the next festival. The Peloponnesian War* is going on in fits and starts and the silver mine at Laurium* is petering out. The Athenian democracy is tottering and it is no wonder that Euripides* is gloomy.

We have more of Euripides*' plays than we have of Aeschylus* and Sophocles* combined. Why? He is said to have written the same number as Aeschylus* and only two thirds as many as Sophocles*, so it can't be the quantity. Is he that much better as a playwright? Certainly his contemporaries didn't think so. Somehow he touched the core of the malaise, uneasiness and fear that his contemporary audiences felt in a world where all their values and beliefs are slipping away. That can be a powerful emotional chord. And certainly powerful emotions is what Euripides is best at.

His characters are fascinating psychological studies. Today we regard him as the "realist" among the Greeks. He gets down to the nitty gritty in people's souls. His plays have survived because they will be copied and transported to every corner of the world touched by Greek culture. They are performed and read and saved when other manuscripts vanish in turbulent times. His own society may not have wanted to give him prizes but later times and people did.

Euripides* -born 480 (or 485-4) dies 406 BCE - Euripides* is the last of the three great tragic writers. PERSONAL LIFE: He is born at

Salamis about the time of the Battle of Salamis* to respectable parents who own property on the island of Salamis. He is twice married and the father of three sons. He is at least an acquaintance, perhaps a disciple of the philosophers Anaxagoras*, Prodicus*, Protagoras* and

Socrates* . The Sophist* movement (in philosophy) influences him deeply. There is a good deal of criticism concerning his views on women. Apparently he wants to remove restrictions on women, but, he shows women out of control in many of his plays. He spends his last year and a half in Macedonia* (at the court of the king) where he dies. His work reveals a preoccupation with internal corruption and destruction of his characters' souls rather than in outward action. He writes approximately 90 plays. Modern critics have found him the most psychological of the Greeks in his treatment of his characters. He is the most controversial of the ancient playwrights. During Greek times, his work is not as popular as the two giants who preceded him. In later periods his work is much more popular that theirs. His plays are regarded as the most modern of the Greeks. He made his debut in 455 BCE His first victory is 442 BCE.

455 BCE Euripides* first festival and the year Aeschylus* dies 449 BCE- contest for tragic actors instituted 422 BCE Euripides* first victory, Peloponnesian* war begins

EURIPIDES* EXTANT PLAYS - [dates approximate] Hippolytus* . . . . 428 BCE Alcestis* . . . . . 438 BCE Ion* . . . . . . . .421 BCE Andromache* . . . . 424 BCE Iphigenia In Taurica* 414 BCE Bacchae* . . . . . .405 BCE Iphigenia at Aulis* 406 BCE Cyclops* (a satyr play)c.415 BCE Medea* . . . . . . 431 BCE Electra* . . . . . .413 BCE Orestes* . . . . . 408 BCE Hecuba*. . . . . .c.425 BCE Phoenician Women* . 411 BCE Helen* . . . . . . 412 BCE Suppliants* . . . . 421 BCE Mad Hercules*. . . .422 BCE Trojan Women* . . . 415 BCE Children of Hercules* 427 BCE Rhesus* (doubtful). 455 BCE

Euripides* And The Crumbling State