I. The Extant Work

Abstract

Euripides’ dramatic career lasted from 455 B.C. to his death, aged 70 or so, in 406. Early on, he gained official performances at the Great Dionysiac Festival about every five years, it seems; in mid-career, every two or three; at the end, almost every year–but he won first prize on only 4 out of 22 occasions, the first in 441, the last, posthumously, in 406 (for the known details, see the ‘Table’ below). Twenty-two performances give a total of 66 tragedies, and that many were indeed known in text or at least title (together with some spurious works) to the Alexandrian scholars who edited Euripides in the third century B.C. Antiquity itself, however, lacked sure information about the corresponding 22 satyric or pro-satyric dramas, let alone their texts; and we know only 8 or 9 titles.From this oeuvre some 16 tragedies survive complete, but all from the second part of the career, the earliest Medea of 431; and we have Alcestis, substituted for the satyr-play in the production of 438 but largely tragic in manner; and the late, purely satyric Cyclops. In our dependence on later plays for assessing Euripides in the round, we seem to be as disadvantaged as for Aeschylus (7 tragedies out of some 70, and from the last third of his career) and for Sophocles (7 out of some 90, and from the latter two-thirds).