Furman Classics. Dramaturg Editions. C. Blackwell, 2026. CC-BY-NC. Code and instructions on Github.

Euripides Orestes

Euripides, Orestes (Ὀρέστης). Digital edition based on: Euripidis Fabulae. Gilbert Murray, ed. Oxford. Clarendon Press (1902). Original SGML digital edition by The Perseus Project, G. Crane, ed. This derived edition, C. Blackwell, Furman University. 2026. Source texts and code for this page (and others) on GitHub. Licensed CC-BY-NC. urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0006.tlg001:

Table of Contents

Passages 1–218
Passages 219–399
Passages 400–604
Passages 605–756
Passages 757–1012
Passages 1013–1152
Passages 1153–1335
Passages 1336–1521
Passages 1522–1665
Passages 1666–1693

Euripides

Euripides (c. 480–406 BC) was an Athenian playwright and one of the three principal tragedians of classical Greece, alongside Aeschylus and Sophocles. Born in the deme of Phlya near Athens, he produced approximately 92 plays over a career spanning from his debut in 455 BC until his death, with 18 or 19 surviving intact today.

Euripides competed 22 times at the City Dionysia festival, securing only four first-place victories—three posthumously in 405 BC with productions including Bacchae and Iphigenia at Aulis—reflecting mixed contemporary reception despite his enduring influence.

In his final years, Euripides accepted patronage from King Archelaus of Macedon, composing works like Archelaus there before dying in 406 BC, after which his reputation surged, with Aristophanes and later audiences praising his rhetorical skill and emotional depth.

Orestes

Orestes (Ὀρέστης) (408 BCE) was Eripides' final Athenian production. The plot picks up immediately Orestes killed Clytemnestra, his mother. It depicts Orestes as a tormented, madness-stricken figure haunted by the Erinyes and facing execution by the Argive assembly; in a desperate plot with his sister Electra and friend Pylades, he slays Helen and seizes Menelaus's daughter Hermione as a hostage, threatening her life, before Apollo intervenes to order his marriage to Hermione, Electra's to Pylades, and his purification from the Erinyes in Athens, underscoring themes of political intrigue, remorse, and fragile human agency.