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Written in the period from 426 to 415 BC, during the fierce struggle for supremacy between Athens and Sparta, these five plays are haunted by the horrors of war - and in particular its impact on women. Only Supplian Women, with its extended debate on democracy and monarchy, can be seen as a patriotic piece. Trojan Women is perhaps the greatest of all anti-war dramas; Andromache shows the ferocious clash between the wife and the concubine of Achilles' son Neoptolemus; while Hecache reveals how hatred can drive a victim to an appalling act of cruelty. Electra develops Aeschylus' treatment of the same story, in which the heroine and her brother Orestes commit matricide to avenge their father Agamemnon. As always, Euripides presents the heroic figures of mythology as recognizable, often very falliable, human beings. Some of his greatest achievments appear in this volume.
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