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

Euripides The Phoenician Women

Euripides, The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι). 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.tlg015:

Table of Contents

Passages 1–279
Passages 280–445
Passages 446–617
Passages 618–832
Passages 834–1018
Passages 1019–1308
Passages 1310–1538
Passages 1539–1709
Passages 1710–1766

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.

The Phoenician Women

The Phoenician Women (Φοίνισσαι). First performed between 410 and 409 BCE, this play dramatizes the final stages of the conflict between Eteocles and Polyneices, the sons of Oedipus, over control of Thebes, incorporating elements of the myth of the Seven Against Thebes while centering on the perspectives of a chorus of Phoenician women detained at the city as pilgrims en route to Delphi. Euripides structures the narrative around key familial confrontations, including Jocasta's mediation attempt between her warring sons, the self-sacrifice of Creon's son Menoeceus to save Thebes, and the ensuing mutual fratricide, culminating in Oedipus's curse on his surviving kin and Antigone's resolve to accompany her blinded father into exile.