Euripides

Euripides was an Athenian playwright of the fifth century BCE, traditionally said to have been born around 480 BCE on the island of Salamis. He died around 406 BCE. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, and the one whose work survives in the greatest number, with about eighteen or nineteen plays preserved.

His plays brought myth down to human scale. Gods and heroes appear, but the drama often rests on the passions, doubts and suffering of ordinary people, especially women, exiles and the defeated. He questioned war, revenge and the justice of the gods, and his sharp, sometimes uncomfortable psychology made him controversial in his own day. He won fewer prizes than his rivals, yet he became hugely popular after his death, and his work has shaped European theatre ever since.