Euripides in the Theatre

Scholars writing about Euripides in the theatre 1 have been particularly interested in his innovations, made notorious by texts like Aristophanes’ Frogs: ‘modern’ music with lyric solos in operatic style, homely images of the heroes, gods ‘from the machine’, a new ironic, highly sophisticated, sometimes irreverent, tone. All these features are worth studying closely, but we should remember, too, that from the fourth century b.c . onwards, as Euripides became the acknowledged theatrical master and the model for other dramatists to follow, what had been specifically new about his drama became classic in its turn. From our point of view it is just as important to ask what gives his plays lasting significance in the theatre as to study what was innovative about them in their own time.