Wronged and discarded by her husband, Medea gradually reveals her revenge in its increasing horror, while the audience is led to understand the incomprehensible. This Student Edition contains a full introduction, commentary and questions for study and includes J. Michael Walton's classic transla[...]

Classic Greek tragedy concerns the catastrophe that ensues when the King of Thebes, Pentheus, imprisons Dionysus and attempts to suppress his cult. Striking scenes, frenzied emotion, choral songs of power and beauty.
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Detailed commentary, suitable for students, on one of the most skilful and original Greek tragedies.

Treating ancient plays as living drama. Classical Greek drama is brought vividly to life in this series of new translations. Students are encouraged to engage with the text through detailed commentaries, including suggestions for discussion and analysis. In addition, numerous practical questions st[...]

One of Athens' greatest poets, Euripides has been prized in every age for the pathos, terror, surprising plot twists, and intellectual probing of his dramatic creations. Here are four of his plays in a new Loeb Classical Library edition. "Hippolytus" triumphed in the Athenian dramatic competition of[...]

Euripides (c. 485 406 BCE) has been prized in every age for his emotional and intellectual drama. Eighteen of his ninety or so plays survive complete, including Medea, Hippolytus, and Bacchae, one of the great masterpieces of the tragic genre. Fragments of his lost plays also survive.[...]

Eighteen of the ninety or so plays composed by Euripides between 455 and 406 BCE survive in a complete form and are included in the preceding six volumes of the "Loeb Euripides". A further fifty-two tragedies and eleven satyr plays, including a few of disputed authorship, are known from ancient quot[...]

In his play Bacchae, Euripides chooses as his central figure the god who crosses the boundaries among god, man, and beast, between reality and imagination, and between art and madness. In so doing, he explores what in tragedy is able to reach beyond the social, ritual, and historical context from wh[...]

"Hippolytus" is generally acknowledged to be one of Euripides' finest tragedies, for the construction of its plot, its use of language and its memorable characterisations of Phaedra and Hippolytus. Furthermore, it asks serious and disturbing questions about the influence of divinity on human lives. [...]

In Euripides' play we see a very different figure from the Herakles of popular imagination. In his account of Herakles' maddened killing of his children, Euripides emphasises the human to the hero's character, presenting him as a loving father. Herakles is an ideal text for those new to ancient dram[...]

"Phoenician Women", one of Euripides' later tragedies, is an intriguing play that arguably displays some of his finest dramatic technique. Rich in cast and varied in incident, it is an example of Euripides' experimentation with structure. It dramatises the most fertile mythical tradition of the city[...]