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List Of Ancient Greek Playwrights
*Aeschylus (c. 525–456 BC): **''The Persians'' (472 BC) **''Seven Against Thebes'' (467 BC) **'' The Suppliants'' (463 BC) **''The Oresteia'' (458 BC, a trilogy comprising ''Agamemnon'', ''The Libation Bearers'' and ''The Eumenides''.) **''Prometheus Bound'' (authorship and date of performance is still in dispute) * Phrynichus (~511 BC): **''The Fall of Miletus'' (c. 511 BC) **''Phoenissae'' (c. 476 BC) **''Danaides'' **''Actaeon'' **''Alcestis'' **''Tantalus'' *Achaeus of Eretria (484-c. 405 BC) **''Adrastus'' **''Linus'' **''Cycnus'' **''Eumenides'' **''Philoctetes'' **''Pirithous'' **''Theseus'' **''Œdipus'' * Achaeus of Syracuse (c. 356 BC) *Agathon (c. 448–400 BC) *Aphareus (4th century BC) **''Asklepios**'' **''Akhilleus**'' **''Tantalos**'' *Sophocles (c. 495-406 BC): **'' Theban plays'', or ''Oedipus cycle'': ***''Antigone'' (c. 442 BC) ***''Oedipus Rex'' (c. 429 BC) ***''Oedipus at Colonus'' (401 BC, posthumous) **''Ajax'' (unknown, presumed earlier in career) **''The T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aeschylus
Aeschylus (, ; grc-gre, Αἰσχύλος ; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian, and is often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.The remnant of a commemorative inscription, dated to the 3rd century BC, lists four, possibly eight, dramatic poets (probably including Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas) who had won tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus had. Thespis was traditionally regarded the inventor of tragedy. According to another tradition, tragedy was established in Athens in the late 530s BC, but that may simply reflect an absence of records. Major innovations in dramatic form, credited to Aeschylus by Aristotle ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oedipus At Colonus
''Oedipus at Colonus'' (also ''Oedipus Coloneus''; grc, Οἰδίπους ἐπὶ Κολωνῷ, ''Oidipous epi Kolōnōi'') is the last of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC. In the timeline of the plays, the events of ''Oedipus at Colonus'' occur after ''Oedipus Rex'' and before ''Antigone''; however, it was the last of Sophocles's three Theban plays to be written. The play describes the end of Oedipus's tragic life. Legends differ as to the site of Oedipus's death; Sophocles set the place at Colonus, a village near Athens and also Sophocles's own birthplace, where the blinded Oedipus has come with his daughters Antigone and Ismene as suppliants of the Erinyes and of Theseus, the king of Athens. Plot Led by Antigone, Oedipus enters the village of Colonus and sits down on a stone. They are approached b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Suppliants (play)
''The Suppliants'' ( grc, Ἱκέτιδες, ''Hiketides''; Latin ''Supplices''), also called ''The Suppliant Women'', first performed in 423 BC, is an ancient Greek play by Euripides. Background After Oedipus leaves Thebes, his sons fight for control of it. Polynices lays siege to Thebes against his brother Eteocles. Polynices has married the daughter of Adrastus, King of Argos. And so Polynices has on his side the Argive army, leaders of which are the Seven against Thebes. The invaders lose the battle, and Polynices and Eteocles both die. Creon takes power in Thebes and decrees the invaders are not to be buried. The mothers of the dead seek someone to help reverse this, so their sons can be buried. Story Aethra, the mother of the Athenian king Theseus, prays before the altar of Demeter and Persephone in Eleusis. She is surrounded by women from Argos whose sons died in battle outside the gates of Thebes. Because of Creon’s decree, their corpses remain unburied. Adras ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andromache (play)
''Andromache'' ( grc, Ἀνδρομάχη) is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides. It dramatises Andromache's life as a slave, years after the events of the Trojan War, and her conflict with her master's new wife, Hermione. The date of its first performance is unknown. Some scholars place the date sometime between 428 and 425 BC. Müller places it between 420 and 417 BC. A Byzantine scholion to the play suggests that its first production was staged outside Athens, though modern scholarship regards this claim as dubious. Background During the Trojan War, Achilles killed Andromache's husband Hector. Homer describes Andromache's lament, after Hector's death, that their young son Astyanax will suffer poverty growing up without a father. Instead, the conquering Greeks threw Astyanax to his death from the Trojan walls, for fear that he would grow up to avenge his father and city. Andromache was made a slave of Achilles' son Neoptolemus. Years pass and Andromache has a child with Neoptolem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sisyphus Fragment
The Sisyphus fragment is a fragment from Classical Attic drama which is thought to contain an early argument for atheism, claiming that a clever man invented "the fear of the gods" in order to frighten people into behaving morally. The fragment was preserved in the works of the Pyrrhonist philosopher Sextus Empiricus. In antiquity, its authorship was disputed and is attributed in one tradition to Euripides, in another Critias, but the fragment indicates clear intellectual influences that are less under dispute. This includes the thought of Democritus, as Charles H. Kahn has argued. Like the Sisyphus fragment, Democritus wrote that early humans believed in the gods through fear of natural celestial phenomena: Text The Greek text is conserved in Sextus Empiricus ''Against the Physicists'' Book 1 Section 54 Several English versions exist. That by R. G. Bury runs:- :::::A time there was when anarchy did rule :::::The lives of men, which then were like the beasts, :::::Enslaved b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electra (Euripides)
Euripides' ''Electra'' ( grc, Ἠλέκτρα, ''Ēlektra'') is a play probably written in the mid 410s BC, likely before 413 BC. It is unclear whether it was first produced before or after Sophocles' version of the Electra story. Background Years before the start of the play, near the start of the Trojan War, the Greek general Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigeneia in order to appease the goddess Artemis. While his sacrifice allowed the Greek army to set sail for Troy, it led to a deep resentment in his wife, Clytemnestra. Upon Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War ten years later, Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus murdered him. Plot The play begins with the introduction of Electra, the daughter of Clytemnestra and the late Agamemnon. Several years after Agamemnon's death suitors began requesting Electra's hand in marriage. Out of fear that Electra's child might seek revenge, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus married her off to a peasant of Mycenae. The peasant is kind to h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hippolytus (play)
''Hippolytus'' ( grc, Ἱππόλυτος, ''Hippolytos'') is an Ancient Greek tragedy by Euripides, based on the myth of Hippolytus, son of Theseus. The play was first produced for the City Dionysia of Athens in 428 BC and won first prize as part of a trilogy. Euripides first treated the myth in a previous play, ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' ( – ''Hippolytus Veiled''), which is now lost; what is known of it is based on echoes found in other ancient writings. The earlier play, and the one that has survived are both titled ''Hippolytus'', but in order to distinguish the two they have traditionally been given the names, ''Hippolytus Kalyptomenos'' and ''Hippolytus Stephanophoros'' ( – "Hippolytus the wreath bearer"). It is thought that the contents to the missing ''Hippolytos Kalyptomenos'' portrayed a shamelessly lustful Phaedra, who directly propositioned Hippolytus, which apparently offended the play's audience.Euripides. ''Hippolytus''. Bagg, Robert. Introduction. Oxford Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herakles' Children (play)
''Children of Heracles'' ( grc, Ἡρακλεῖδαι, ''Hērakleidai''; also translated as ''Herakles' Children'' and ''Heracleidae'') is an Athenian tragedy by Euripides that was first performed c. 430 BC. It follows the children of Heracles (known as the Heracleidae) as they seek protection from Eurystheus. It is the first of two surviving tragedies by Euripides where the children of Heracles are suppliants (the second being ''Heracles''). Background Eurystheus was responsible for many of the troubles of Heracles. In order to prevent the children of Heracles from taking revenge on him, he sought to kill them. They flee under the protection of Iolaus, Heracles' close friend and nephew. Plot synopsis The play begins at the altar of Zeus at Marathon. The herald Copreus, in the employ of King Eurystheus of Mycenae, attempts to seize the children of Heracles, together with Heracles's old friend, Iolaus. When King Demophon, son of Theseus, insists that Iolaus and Heracles's child ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medea (play)
''Medea'' ( grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'') is an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides, based upon the myth of Jason and Medea and first produced in 431 BC. The plot centers on the actions of Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason; she finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life. Euripides' play has been explored and interpreted by playwrights across the centuries and the world in a variety of ways, offering political, psychoanalytical, feminist, among many other original readings of Medea, Jason and the core themes of the play. ''Medea'', along with three other plays, earned Euripides third prize in the City Dionysia. Some believe that this indicates a poor reception, but "the competition that year was extraordinarily keen"; Sophocles, often ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alcestis (play)
''Alcestis'' (; grc-gre, Ἄλκηστις, ''Alkēstis'') is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. It was first produced at the City Dionysia festival in 438 BC. Euripides presented it as the final part of a tetralogy of unconnected plays in the competition of tragedies, for which he won second prize; this arrangement was exceptional, as the fourth part was normally a satyr play. Its ambiguous, tragicomic tone—which may be "cheerfully romantic" or "bitterly ironic"—has earned it the label of a "problem play." ''Alcestis'' is, possibly excepting the '' Rhesus'', the oldest surviving work by Euripides, although at the time of its first performance he had been producing plays for 17 years. Events prior to the start of the play Long before the start of the play, King Admetus was granted by the Fates the privilege of living past the allotted time of his death. The Fates were persuaded to allow this by the god Apollo (who got them drunk). This unusual ba ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Euripides
Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ... of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the ''Suda'' says it was ninety-two at most. Of these, eighteen or nineteen have survived more or less complete (''Rhesus (play), Rhesus'' is suspect). There are many fragments (some substantial) of most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declinedMoses Hadas, ''Ten Plays by Euripides'', Bantam Classic (2006), Introduction, p. ixhe became, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philoctetes (Sophocles)
''Philoctetes'' ( grc, Φιλοκτήτης, ''Philoktētēs''; English pronunciation: , stressed on the third syllable, ''-tet-'') is a play by Sophocles (Aeschylus and Euripides also each wrote a ''Philoctetes'' but theirs have not survived). The play was written during the Peloponnesian War. It is one of the seven extant tragedies by Sophocles. It was first performed at the City Dionysia in 409 BC, where it won first prize. The story takes place during the Trojan War (after the majority of the events of the ''Iliad'', but before the Trojan Horse). It describes the attempt by Neoptolemus and Odysseus to bring the disabled Philoctetes, the master archer, back to Troy from the island of Lemnos. Background When Heracles was near his death, he wished to be burned on a funeral pyre while still alive. In the play ''Philoctetes'', Sophocles references the myth in which no one but Philoctetes would light Heracles' funeral pyre, and in return for this favor Heracles gave Philoctetes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
