Euripides
1) The Bacchae
Author
Summary
Euripides turned to playwriting at a young age, achieving his first victory in the Athens' City Dionysia dramatic competitions in 441 BC. He would be awarded this honor three more times in his life, and once more posthumously. His plays are often ironic, pessimistic, and display radical rejection of classical decorum and rules. In 408 BC, Euripides left war-torn Athens for Macedonia, upon the invitation of King Archelaus, and there he spent his last...
Summary
After the Greek victory in the Trojan War, all the Trojan warriors and princes are slain and the women and children are left to be divided among the conquerors. Beautiful Cassandra is betrothed against her will and despite her vanishing sanity. Andromache discovers that her son is to be executed to end her royal bloodline. Helen desperately wields the arrogant beauty that leveled a city as she pleads for her life. In the end, it is the enduring dignity...