Our sense of how Euripides was viewed in his own time was long conditioned by the ancient biographical accounts, which portray a man disappointed in his public and humiliated in his private life, the last heir of an exhausted genre. Lefkowitz (1979) has demonstrated, however, the unreliability of the biographical information, much of which falls into three categories. First, there are details originating in the comedies of Aristophanes. The story retailed in the ancient Life (1) that his mother was an herb seller - implausible in view of his level of education and contradicted by the fourth-century historian Philochorus (Kovacs 1994,11) - is based on a joke, impenetrable to modern readers, that Aristophanes liked well enough to repeat five times ( Acharnians 478, Knights 19, Women at the Thesmophoria 387 and 456, Frogs 840). Second, there are details transferred from Euripides’ own tragedies. For example, the statement in the ancient Life (24) that Euripides’ wives were both unfaithful is in all likelihood inspired by mythical Euripidean heroines such as Phaedra and Sthenoboea, again as filtered through Aristophanes (cf. Frogs 1043-44). Finally, there are anecdotes reflecting traditional lore about poets and their destiny. The statement that Euripides was born on the day of the victory of Salamis (8) tallies with the reports that Aeschylus fought in the battle (Life ofAeschylus 10) and that Sophocles danced in a boys’ chorus to celebrate the victory (Life of Sophocles 3). When taken together, as they often are, these stories imply that the torch of tragedy passed from Aeschylus to Sophocles and finally to Euripides, but in reality the tragedians’ chronological and professional relationships were intertwined. Euripides, who is variously reported to have been born in 484 or 480, first competed in 455, only three years after Aeschylus produced his Oresteia; Sophocles’ career overlapped with both Aeschylus’ and Euripides’; Aeschylus’ plays continued to be produced after his death, at the same time that Sophocles and Euripides were producing their mature work; and Sophocles outlived Euripides. Nor did the genre die with Euripides, since new tragedies were still being produced in the fourth century.
Although a residue of credible biographical information remains after such dubious anecdotes have been discounted, there is no consensus on its interpretation. It is known from the production records that of Euripides’ surviving plays only Hippolytus belonged to a tetralogy that won first prize at the City Dionysia. Indeed, his entries garnered first prize only four times in his lifetime, although he competed twenty-two or twenty-three times. When compared to Sophocles’ eighteen (or more) victories in about thirty attempts, this record might seem to support the implication of the ancient Life (34) that Euripides was fundamentally at odds with his public.
It is not obvious, however, that first prize in the tragic competition should be considered the principal criterion of success. Sophocles’ record was clearly exceptional; not even Aeschylus fared as well. Moreover, the system for selecting judges did nothing to ensure either an informed or a representative verdict (see Pickard-Cambridge 1988, 96-97). Finally, plays that did not receive first prize seem nonetheless to have registered strongly on the popular consciousness. Aristophanes could parody Euripides’ Telephus thirteen years after the play’s production, in his Acharnians of425, and again fourteen years later in his Women at the Thesmophoria of 411, and both times count on the audience to recognize his source.1 Produced in the same tetralogy as Telephus was Alcestis, which so impressed Plato that he alludes to it twice in the Symposium (179b, 208d) - yet this tetralogy was awarded only second place in 438.
Half a century ago P. T. Stevens made the case that the true measure of success was not winning first prize in the competition, but being chosen to compete at the Dionysia by the eponymous archon; this honor, after all, committed the city to providing a public venue for a playwright’s productions and arranging financial backing. Stevens concludes with the rhetorical question (1956, 92), ‘‘If we think of [Euripides’] career as one in which he could practically count upon production, in which on three occasions at least and probably many more he won the second prize, and on four occasions won the first prize, should we regard this as a failure?’’
Euripides’ removal to Macedon in old age is given a psychological spin by the ancient Life (35), which implies that he left Athens a disappointed and rejected playwright. Yet there is a more straightforward explanation for his departure. The last decade of the fifth century saw an intellectual exodus from Athens, as King Archelaus of Macedon, in a bid to enhance the prestige of his own court with celebrities drawn from the Athenian cultural establishment, persuaded not only Euripides but also the younger tragedian Agathon, the composer Timotheus, Choer-ilus the epic poet, and Zeuxis the sculptor to take up residence in Macedon (Aelian, Varia Historia 14.13). Moreover, Euripides’ removal to Macedon is indicative of tragedy’s undiminished popularity and increasing geographical diffusion - a trend that would accelerate in the fourth century (Easterling 1994).
Although Euripides did not enjoy Aeschylus’ iconic status or Sophocles’ universal esteem, he clearly commanded both official and popular recognition in his own lifetime. The fourth century saw a shift: Aeschylus moved out of fashion, Sophocles maintained his reputation, and Euripides became the most admired of the three. The plays of all three dramatists were copied for preservation in the Athenian state archives (see Kovacs, chapter 24 in this volume), but when orators like Aeschines, Demosthenes, and Lycurgus wanted dramatic excerpts read into the legal record in support of some political or moral point, it was Sophoclean and Euripidean tragedy to which they turned (Wilson 1996, 312-15). New Comedy drew heavily on Euripides both for its plot elements and its rhetorical flavor - an additional testimony to his influence. As Porter remarks: ‘‘Menander’s comedies attest the ultimate triumph of Euripides’ art: one can argue that they reflect a period when ‘tragedy,’ for the popular audiences that attended Menander’s plays in Athens and elsewhere, was in many ways fundamentally Euripidean tragedy’’ (1999-2000, 172).
Aristotle’s treatment of Euripides rounds out the picture of his fourth-century status. Everybody knows that Sophocles’ Oedipus the King was Aristotle’s favorite tragedy, but it is also worth remembering that in the same chapter of the Poetics where
Aristotle celebrates plays with unhappy endings and singles out Oedipus for praise, he calls Euripides ‘‘the most tragic of the poets’’ (1453a29-30). In the next chapter, moreover, Aristotle proceeds to extol plays with happy endings and singles out Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians for praise. As White explains, Aristotle’s criteria for excellence turn on the protagonist’s response to misfortune, regardless of the ultimate issue of events (1992, 236-37). Aristotle recognized what the surviving work of all three playwrights makes plain: a happy ending is not incompatible with tragedy (see Roberts, chapter 9 in this volume).
World History
