Playwrights / Dramatists - 03 - Euripides (480-406 B. C.)

The Athenian dramatic poet; with Aeschylus and Sophocles, one of the great triad of Greek tragic writers. He was born on the Greek island of Salamis, on the very day of the great battle and victory there, in 480 B. C. His father was Mnesarchus a middle class land-holder.

He was given a gymnastic training as a youth and did indeed win athletic victories at Athens and Eleusis. As a young man he served in the Greek army. He also held a position in the ceremonies of worship at a Delphian temple.

Euripides was a student of Anaxagoras, the philosopher, Prodictus and Protagoras, the two Sophists successively. He enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Socrates, and Socrates himself had declared that he never went to the theatre except to see a play of Euripides.

The influence of his sophistic training (sophia, wisdom) and a rationalistic approach to religion, politics and society, accounts to some extent for the highly intellectual quality characteristic of his works.

He led a very harmonious life with his wife and had three sons by her. In his working adult life he avoided society and political life. He often went to his estate on Salamis and there in a cave looking out over the sea, produced dramas.

About 408 B. C. he was harried at home by religious, political and professional enemies and opponents and he decided to go into voluntary exile. We went to Ephesus in Asia Minor and then to Macedonia. During the period he had the opportunity to associate with Agathon the tragedian, Timotheus the musician, Zeuxis the painter and Thucydides the historian.

The number of works produced by Euripides is variously given as 75, 78 and 92. Of these 18 are existing in complete form. Fragments of about 60 plays are surviving. In his lifetime Euripides won the first prize in dramatic contests four times. After his death his son produced ‘Iphigenia in Aulis’ and it was awarded the first prize.

‘Peliades’, ‘Cyclops’, ‘Alcestes’, ‘ Media’, ‘Hippolytus’, ‘Andromache’, ‘Hecuba’, ‘The Suppliant Woman’, ‘The Children of Heracles’, ‘The Madness of Heracles’, ‘Ion’, ‘The Trojan Women’, ‘Electra’, ‘Iphigenia in Tauris’, ‘Helan’, ‘The Phoenician Maidens’, ‘Orestes’, Iphigenia in Aulis’ and ‘The Bacchae’ are among Euripides’ major plays.

All these works are based on myths or the heroes of legend, as was required of the dramas presented at the religious festivals at the time.

In his subject matter Euripides was limited, but in his treatment of it he struck out in all directions. He departed from tradition by applying a realistic attitude to material hitherto sanctified by tradition. He adhered to the form but did violence to the content, in a manner that jolted his audience.

Euripides speaks in his plays to each age according to its condition. The manner of his speech and his poetry, is eternal. In his own time he was the most celebrated of the Greek poets. Yet he was not loved as Sophocles had been. The Athenians admired his poetry but rebelled when he goaded them with his new concepts.

Two technical devices were much employed by Euripides. One was the Prologue, which served the double purpose of explaining the events that led up to the moment when the drama opened, and provided a base from which the intensity of the drama arose.

The second device was to have a god or godess appear at the end of the play to explain, reconcile, command, or prophesy.

Euripides was the product and mirror of his age. He served as a model for dramatists for the next six centuries. Aristotle called him ‘The most tragic of poets’, but complained that his plays were not well made.

Euripides died in Macedonia in 406 B. C.

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