Book dossier

Supplices

by Euripides

Centering on the right of proper burial for those fallen in battle, Suppliant Women reflects on war and on the rule of law. In Electra Euripides gives us his version of the famous legend of the murder of Clytaemestra by her children in revenge for her killing their father, a portrayal interestingly different from that in Sophocles' Electra. Narrating sudden reversals in the hero's fortunes, Heracles testifies to the fragility of human happiness.