Euripides: Oracle of Modernity

“Euripides’ gods are the gods of Hesiod given a new, cunning, and manipulative makeover. Furthermore, they are depicted as clear threats to the human social order.“

“Cry, cry in triumph, carry on the dancing on and on. This peace between Athena’s people and their guests must never end. All-seeing Zeus and Fate embrace, down they come to urge our union on—Cry, cry in triumph, carry on the dancing on and on!” That is how Aeschylus ended his Oresteia trilogy. The furies, which had so hounded and haunted Orestes, had transformed into co-laborers with Athena singing and dancing for the joy of reason and civilization. Euripides, the great cynic and blasphemer, took a darker and starker approach to the gods and Greek civilization—perhaps one of the reasons why he was less successful than his predecessors in being awarded at festivals and competitions for his writing.

The Bacchae is a classic cornerstone of Western literature. It is the one play of Euripides’ that is part of the undisputed classical canon, though Medea, Iphigenia in Aulis, and the Trojan Women are also masterpieces and should be read to get a fuller portrait of Euripides.

The Failure of Reason and the Fall of Athena

Euripides wrote in an anxious and transformative age. The Persians had just been defeated and Athens, Athena, had ascended as the premier power among the Greeks. Euripides was but a young man when Athens ascended to her infamous glory that still mesmerizes—and haunts—our civilization. The Athenian empire, as recounted by Thucydides in his History of the Peloponnesian War, was exceptional because it was not the product of conquest but of mutual defense. No other empire, the Athenian delegates argue, had ever been formed in such a manner.