Author: EURIPIDES
Biography:
EURIPIDES (c. 485-406 BCE: Grafton)
Euripides was the youngest and, in his lifetime, the least successful of the great tragedians of fifth-century (BCE) Athens. Very little is known about his life. He may have been born in Salamis; he died in Macedon while on a visit to the king with the intent of writing a play about one of his ancestors. His first participation in the dramatic competitions of the Dionysian festival occurred in 455, the last in 408, and he won the competition only four times as opposed to the thirteen victories of Aeschylus and the eighteen of Sophocles. However, many more of his plays survived: out of about ninety, full texts exist of nineteen and substantial fragments of nine others. He came to be admired for literary innovation, for his “realistic” (harsh) view of human nature, and for his strong female characters—whether victims or avengers—in such plays as The Trojan Women, Hecuba, Electra, and Medea. Two of his translators, Robert Potter and Michael Wodhull, have separate headnotes. The third, James Banister (1750-1822), is identified in the headnote for Pindar. (OCD 5 May 2025; A. Grafton et al., The Classical Tradition [2010]) HJ
Other Names:
- Euripedes