Euripides' Medea Int. and Trans. by Marianne McDonald Copyright ...

Introduction
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of ancient Athens. The other two
were Aeschylus and Sophocles. Euripides was born ca. 480 BC and died in ca. 406 BC
Although in his own lifetime he did not win as many prizes as Aeschylus and Sophocles,
he became the most popular in later times.
Euripides has been called the first psychological playwright. His work explores
the pathology of human beings. According to Aristotle, Sophocles claimed he showed
men as they ought to be, but Euripides showed them as they were (Poetics 1460 b 33-4).
In the Euripidean universe, chaos and malevolent gods rule. The only help that a
man or woman can get comes from a fellow human being. This alliance goes by the name
of philia, or love, and duty.
Euripides made women and children and slaves into heroes, and tended to present
the traditional male heroes in a very bad light. He showed us instead the heroism of the
victims. He is also the greatest anti-war playwright of ancient Greece, and perhaps of all
time.
He wrote about ninety plays, from which nineteen survive, as compared with the
seven from Aeschylus and Sophocles. The dates of performance for eight of his
surviving plays are known, and others are tentatively proposed, on the basis of evidence
provided by ancient writers, or of his own developing metrical practice:
Alcestis 438 BC
Medea 431 BC
Children of Heracles ca. 430 BC
Hippolytus 428 BC
Andromache ca. 425 BC
Hecuba ca. 424 BC
Suppliant Women ?424-20 BC
2