Bacchae. Iphigenia at Aulis. Rhesus: 495

Euripides (ca. 485–406 BC) 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. Three plays by ancient Greece’s third great tragedian.One of antiquity’s greatest poets, Euripides has been prized in every age for the pathos, terror, and intellectual probing of his dramatic creations. The new Loeb Classical Library edition of his plays is in six volumes.In Bacchae, one of the great masterpieces of the tragic genre, Euripides tells the story of king Pentheus’ resistance to the worship of Dionysus and his horrific punishment by the god: dismemberment at the hands of Theban women. Iphigenia at Aulis, also in Volume VI, recounts the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter to Artemis, the price exacted by the goddess for favorable sailing winds. Rhesus dramatizes a pivotal incident in the Trojan War. This play is probably not by Euripides; but it does give a sample of what tragedy was like after the great fifth-century playwrights.