The third of the Three Great Playwrights of Ancient Greek Drama, Euripides who lived from 485 -406 B.C., is generally considered the most tragic and least polite of the major dramatists. Like other Greek dramatists of the era, he was a man of his times, participating enthusiastically in the social and political life of his community. Euripides wrote for Athens and the surrounding Attica, and these geographical and historical limits gave his plays an intense and narrow focus. The Bacchae, considered the most successful of his plays through its characters, themes and historical context provides an insight into Ancient Greek Society.
Euripides was more than seventy years old and living in self-imposed exile in King Archelaus's court in Macedonia when he created The Bacchae, just before his death in 406 B.C. The play was produced the following year at the City Dionysia in Athens, where it was awarded the prize for best tragedy.
Cadmus Sowing the Dragon's teeth, by Maxfield Parr...
As Greek as it gets
Greek Easter Dinner PlateThe simple plot of The Bacchae mixes history with myth to recount the story of the god Dionysus's tumultuous arrival in Greece. As a relatively new god to the pantheon of Olympian deities, Dionysus, who represented the liberating spirit of wine and revelry and became the patron god of the theatre, was not immediately welcomed into the cities, homes, and temples of the Greeks. His early rites, originating in Thrace or Asia, included wild music and dancing, drunken orgies, and bloody sacrifice. Many sober, conservative Greeks, particularly the rulers of the many Greek city-states, feared and opposed the new religion.
The Ancient Greek Society's preoccupation with Religion is a major focusing point within this play. Although the earlier Ancient Greek Society had been incredibly religious and the role of gods in human intervention was always acknowledged and revered, by Euripides' time it had become...