If not the profoundest of Greek tragedies, "Orestes" is certainly one of the most exuberant and entertaining. Euripides stands traditional legend on its head to forge a melodrama full of varied action, emotion, and novel theatrical effects, with a succession of crises crowned by a spectacular happy ending. Produced in 400 B.C., the play marks the culmination of Euripides' development, and in antiquity it surpassed all other tragedies in popular. No...

Medea is the archetypal wronged women driven to despair. When uncontrollable anger is unleashed, the obsessed mind's capacity for revenge knows no bounds.

The play begins at the altar of Zeus at Athens (N.B. Not Marathon, as generally assumed). The herald Copreus, in the employ of King Eurystheus of Mycenae, attempts to seize the children of Heracles, together with Heracles's old friend, Iolaus. When King Demophon, son of Theseus, insists that Iolaus and Heracles's children are under his protection, Copreus threatens to return with an army. Demophon is prepared to protect the children even at the cost...

"Euripides in this interesting play of his middle period takes as his subject the figure of Heracles and uses it to explore the contrast between his glamorous heroic image, so well known in myth, and the ugly reality of domestic violence involving the less well known story of the murder of his wife and children. In treating this act the dramatist explores the boundaries of madness and Heracles' painful emergence from this state to a bitter realisation...

The play revolves around Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek coalition before and during the Trojan War, and his decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to set sail to preserve their honour in battle against Troy. The conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles over the fate of the young woman presages a similar conflict between the two at the beginning of the Iliad. In his depiction of the experiences...