aeschylus - Conscious Evolution TV

EURIPIDES, "the philosopher of the stage," as he
was already called by the ancients, was born of
Athenian parents on the island of Salamis. The year
of his birth seems to have been a matter of conjecture.
One tradition groups the three tragedians
round the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.: Aeschylus
fought in the ranks, Sophocles danced in the Boys'
Chorus, Euripides was born. Another source associates
his birth with Aeschylus' first victory in
484.
Euripides' father, Mnesarchus, was a merchant;
his mother, Cleito, is known to have been "of very
high family." Yet for some reason it was a recognized
joke to say she was a greengrocer and sold inferior
greens. Despite the gibes of the comedians,
he was probably neither poor nor of humble origin.
As a boy he poured wine for the dancers and carried
a torch in religious festivals, which he could not
have done had he not enjoyed a certain social position.
Since he was called upon for costly public
duties, such as equipping, in whole or in part, a
warship and acting as consul for Magnesia, he must
have had independent means. He also possessed a
large library, which was a rare thing in Greece for a
private citizen.
In accordance with a prophecy that the boy would
win victories, the poet's father is said to have had
him trained as a professional athlete. He may have
thought at one time of turning from boxing to
painting as a career, for paintings attributed to him
were shown at Megara in later times. He is also
known to have been friendly with the philosophers.
He is said to have been a pupil of Anaxagoras and a
close friend of Protagoras, and we are told that Socrates
never went to the theater unless there was a
play by Euripides, when he would walk as far as the
Peiraeus to see it.
Euripides early discovered his dramatic gift. He
began to write at the age of eighteen, and in 455
B.C. he was "granted a chorus," that is, he was permitted
to compete for the tragic prize. In the fifty
years of his dramatic career he wrote between eighty
and ninety plays, but he did not win a victory until
442, thirteen years after his first appearance before
the public. His fifth and last victory was for plays
exhibited after his death, in 405, by his son, the
younger Euripides. He was incessantly assailed by
the comedians, especially by Aristophanes, and was
frequently defeated by lesser poets, but long before
his death he had acquired a great reputation through-
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
EURIPIDES, c. 480-406 B.C.
199
out the Greek world. Plutarch, in his Life ofNicias,
says that Athenian prisoners in Syracuse escaped
death and even received their freedom if they could
recite passages from the works of Euripides, and
that some of them, upon returning home, expressed
their gratitude directly to the poet. Aristotle, in
spite of specific strictures, calls Euripides "the most
tragic" of the poets, and Euripides is more often
quoted by him and by Plato than are Aeschylus and
Sophocles.
Of the nineteen plays that survive under the name
of Euripides, one, the Cyclops, is a satyr play, and
the Rhesus is frequently, though not always, considered
spurious. The oldest of the extant plays is
the Alcestis, which appeared in 438. The Bacchantes
and the lphigenia at Au/is were posthumously presented.
The other plays that can be approximately
dated are the Medea, 431, the Hippolytus, 428, the
Trojan Women, 415, the Helen, 412, the Orestes,
408.
Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides seems
to have taken little part in politics and war, although
there is an allusion to him in Aristotle which seems
to imply that he had on one occasion a diplomatic
post. The ancients thought of Euripides as a gloomy
recluse who never laughed. According to these stories,
he wore a long beard, lived much alone and
hated society; he had crowds of books and did not
like women; he lived in Salamis, in a cave with two
openings and a beautiful sea view, and there he
could be seen "all day long, thinking to himself and
writing, for he despised anything that was not great
and high."
Towards the end of his life Euripides received
honors and distinctions in Macedonia, where, like
other men of letters, he went at the invitation of
King Archelaus. He spent his last years at the Macedonian
court, high in the favor and confidence of
the king, and when he died, the king cut off his hair
as an expression of his grief.
Euripides died in 406 B.C., a few months before
Sophocles, who wore mourning for him in the tragic
competition of that year. The Athenians sent an
embassy to Macedonia to bring back his body, but
King Archelaus refused to give it up. A cenotaph
to the memory of Euripides was then erected on the
road between Athens and the Peiraeus. The poet's
lyre, stylus, and tablets were bought for a talent of
gold by Dionysius of Syracuse, who enshrined them
in the temple of the Muses.