The Greek Tragedies: Seventeen Plays by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides

How the Plays Were Originally Staged
I. Aeschylus
Introduction to Aeschylus
The Persians, Translated by Seth Benardete
Prometheus Bound, Translated by David Grene
The Oresteia
Agamemnon, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
The Libation Bearers, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
The Eumenides, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
II. Sophocles
Introduction to Sophocles
The Theban Plays
Antigone, Translated by Elizabeth Wyckoff
Oedipus the King, Translated by David Grene
Oedipus at Colonus, Translated by Robert Fitzgerald
Electra, Translated by David Grene
III. Euripides
Introduction to Euripides
Alcestis, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
Medea, Translated by Oliver Taplin
Hippolytus, Translated by David Grene
Hecuba, Translated by William Arrowsmith
Electra, Translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule
The Trojan Women, Translated by Richmond Lattimore
Iphigenia among the Taurians, Translated by Anne Carson
The Bacchae, Translated by William Arrowsmith

Textual Notes

Sophocles (497/6 – winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those of Aeschylus; and earlier than, or contemporary with, those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays, but only seven have survived in a complete form: Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost fifty years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens which took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in thirty competitions, won twenty-four, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won thirteen competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles; Euripides won four.

Aeschylus ( c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.

Euripides ( c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a Greek tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three authors of Greek tragedy for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him, but the Suda says it was ninety-two at most. Nineteen plays attributed to Euripides have survived more or less complete, although one of these (Rhesus) is often considered not to be genuinely his work. Many fragments (some of them substantial) survive from most of his other plays. More of his plays have survived intact than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because his popularity grew as theirs declined: he became, in the Hellenistic Age, a cornerstone of ancient literary education, along with Homer, Demosthenes, and Menander.